Honestly? I was around 26. I “discovered” alcohol alone, not in a social environment. I’ve always been a loner so social drinking wasn’t a thing for me because I was never social.

Anyway, I was in grad school and had some temporary housing where there was a lot of food and crap people left over in the fridge and pantry. There were two things left over in the fridge that were opened that sparked my curiosity. No idea how old they were. But one was amaretto and I think the other was some wine. Got curious and tried a bit and enjoyed the effects. I had technically had alcohol many occasions prior, but not enough to get remotely near drunk or anything.

Spend the remainder of grad school occasionally binge drinking alone on the weekends to the point of vomiting. Carried on that habit for a little bit after but I hardly ever do that now.

I had actually never really drank socially until very recently. As someone with severe social anxiety, I was surprised at how helpful I found it in social situations. I only had a couple of drinks in these particular scenarios instead of getting piss drunk tho. And again, I am not social anyway so this doesn’t happen on the regular. But goddamn. I didn’t understand self medicating for anxiety until that.