Well, here was my reasoning.

I had my first taste of alcohol somewhere around 8 years old. I was feeling a little sick to my stomach, and my step-father (an alcoholic himself, and the first of a string of several alcoholic/addict step-fathers) told me a can of beer would help. Gave me one, and said I should drink all of it. I hated it. And it didn't especially settle my stomach, either.

But I felt *so* grown up, sitting there drinking a beer with my step-father.

In our family, children had basically no value. Adults were the only ones who mattered. Life centered around what pleased them, while kids existed to basically sit there and shut up, do as they were told, and speak only when they were spoken to.

I didn't like being a non-person. I wanted to be an adult. And as far as I could tell, drinking, smoking, and cussing were what adults did. If you didn't do those things, then you were still a little kid. And who wanted to be one of those, if it meant you didn't matter?