Christmas As I Dreamed It Should Be

When I tell my story at meetings, I often begin my drunkalog on Christmas Eve, the year I was fourteen. I'd been sharing holiday wine and an occasional cocktail with the family for a few years by then, and stealing nips off the old man's rotating stock of gin, bourbon, and whiskey. My parents emphasized the importance of education in a competitive world. They reasoned that experimenting with booze at home would spare me the embarrassment and risks of making my mistakes with it at the teenage drinking parties which everyone knew went on around town.