I abhor drunks and do not allow any alcohol in my house.

OMG, Heather's home life must have been a wreck. That poor kid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don't have alcohol in the house because we aren't Stepford Families from the 1950s

Well, we have alcohol in the house because we can drink responsibly.

no such thing. just because its legal doesn't mean its safe.

Jesus H. the judgement on this board.

FWIW, I have MANY open bottles of scotch and bourbon on our bar cart. They are a delicacy, and one of the finer things in life.

Having a drink on Friday and appreciating the nuance of the whiskey is one of the greatest things in life.

That doesn't make us a 'stepford family' nor am I jeopardizing my health.

Hell, I'd put my health, strength, and over-all well being against just about anyone in my age group. It's just a glass of whiskey, for god's sake

Whatever you say Grandpa.

Lol....call me old fashioned, but I take my whiskey neat.

See what I did there? "old fashioned"

#DadJokes

Nope, just OLD.

There's a bar in the family room. My boyfriend owns two bars - there's alcohol in our house.

We have had a lot of talks about alcohol abuse and alcohol poisoning and how to say no to kids asking to have some, and when to get us involved, etc. We had a code sentence the kids could say to us which meant things were getting out of control and they needed our help.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don't have alcohol in the house because we aren't Stepford Families from the 1950s

Well, we have alcohol in the house because we can drink responsibly.

no such thing. just because its legal doesn't mean its safe.

Jesus H. the judgement on this board.

FWIW, I have MANY open bottles of scotch and bourbon on our bar cart. They are a delicacy, and one of the finer things in life.

Having a drink on Friday and appreciating the nuance of the whiskey is one of the greatest things in life.

That doesn't make us a 'stepford family' nor am I jeopardizing my health.

Hell, I'd put my health, strength, and over-all well being against just about anyone in my age group. It's just a glass of whiskey, for god's sake

Whatever you say Grandpa.

Lol....call me old fashioned, but I take my whiskey neat.

See what I did there? "old fashioned"

#DadJokes

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don't have alcohol in the house because we aren't Stepford Families from the 1950s

Well, we have alcohol in the house because we can drink responsibly.

no such thing. just because its legal doesn't mean its safe.

Jesus H. the judgement on this board.

FWIW, I have MANY open bottles of scotch and bourbon on our bar cart. They are a delicacy, and one of the finer things in life.

Having a drink on Friday and appreciating the nuance of the whiskey is one of the greatest things in life.

That doesn't make us a 'stepford family' nor am I jeopardizing my health.

Hell, I'd put my health, strength, and over-all well being against just about anyone in my age group. It's just a glass of whiskey, for god's sake

Whatever you say Grandpa.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don't have alcohol in the house because we aren't Stepford Families from the 1950s

Well, we have alcohol in the house because we can drink responsibly.

no such thing. just because its legal doesn't mean its safe.

Jesus H. the judgement on this board.

FWIW, I have MANY open bottles of scotch and bourbon on our bar cart. They are a delicacy, and one of the finer things in life.

Having a drink on Friday and appreciating the nuance of the whiskey is one of the greatest things in life.

That doesn't make us a 'stepford family' nor am I jeopardizing my health.

Hell, I'd put my health, strength, and over-all well being against just about anyone in my age group. It's just a glass of whiskey, for god's sake

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don't have alcohol in the house because we aren't Stepford Families from the 1950s

That's such an odd answer to me.

I don't even know what it means.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is going to be very much dependent on whether there is a history of alcoholism and alcohol abuse in your family. I know in my family liquor was kept unlocked and free and I had no temptation to use it privately or abuse it. My husband was a teenage alcoholic who drank a fifth of vodka a day by the time he was 19, from his parents and cousin's houses. It's not possible to predict or have one rule about this. Know your family history and know your child.

So, will you have alcohol in your home?

No. None.

No. I am from another country. I consider beer, wine etc. to be part of normal life. I would never lock it up. My children will learn to drink responsibly when they are old enough.

Anonymous wrote:From the OP’s original story, my take on it is this...

Jen’s story is flawed. I think Jen offered Heather the drink (s). Jen’s tolerance was better, her house probably nicer, and she had a parent who was better at advocating for no suspension.

Heather was trying to impress Jen. Because Heather has zero self esteem, she went along with it and drank.

Wondering where they both are today.

PSA:
- Lock your liquor up, if you have teens. It’s only four years.

OP here
No, I really think Jen's story is accurate. I didn't really know Jen, but I have no reason to doubt her. Heather ended up having more "drama" in high school.

We have alcohol of all sorts and have 2 kids - ages 15 and 18 (18 year old is now away at college). We lock up our hard alcohol, because there is a lot of it, it's easier to swap out water for vodka and it's also more dangerous if you drink a lot of it.

We also have a decent amount of wine and some beer. We don't lock any of that up - if a bottle of wine or a bottle of beer goes missing, we probably wouldn't notice, but if a few were missing, we would. We trust our kids but would also get rid of that if we thought it was a problem and we are open with our kids about drinking and about our rules.

My 18 year has definitely had alcohol before - he is pretty honest with us.

If we caught our younger one, we'd be more strict and also get rid of the unlocked stuff.

I only have little littles right now, but I will absolutely be locking up our alcohol once our oldest is 11/12.

And all you folks saying that you have kids who wouldn't do this, it's only an issue with certain kids, let me tell you my story:

My parents are not heavy drinkers. They had a (not very well stocked) liquor cabinet for parties (maybe 1x per year). I was a fantastic kid. Straight As. Lots of extracurriculars. Teachers loved me. Obedient. Helpful. Never a single discipline issue through all of high school. Literally never missed curfew once. Super nerd, never went to parties or anything. Had a couple small groups of close friends who were all similarly great kids.

Well, I had started sneaking liquor out of that cabinet in 10th grade to drink before sweet 16 parties (learned really early that a drink or two makes you a much better dancer, lol). No drinking issue, only got drunk in "safe" situations (ie. in someone's basement) with my small groups of close friends (maybe three kids at a time). Never had so much as a sip and drove. But I was drinking regularly throughout high school, and was definitely sharing this booze with my friends, too. No one ever got caught. I refilled bottles with water as I finished them. By the time I graduated college, the whole cabinet was water.

Years later, I came clean to my parents - basically when I was 25 and they offered to make me a cocktail "because we've got some vodka and rum around here somewhere" and I had to tell them, umm. No. You have a cabinet filled with fancy bottles of water.

It worked out fine for me - I was very responsible about the booze, and I have a very healthy relationship with alcohol as an adult. And if I knew my kids would behave EXACTLY as I did, I wouldn't worry. But it would have been so, so easy for one of my friends to have had two or three shots and then gotten behind the wheel, and you certainly can't guarantee that your booze-sneaking high schooler is taking their friends keys away before they'll pour them a drink, like I did.

Lock your liquor cabinets, folks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I think this is drawing a severely disproportionate amount of teetotalers to this question. FWIW we have a ton of booze in the house for 2 adults and we aren't even huge drinkers but we both like trying specialty cocktails so we seem to have a lot of random bottles where you need 1/2 ounce of like 3 kinds of rum or liqueurs or whatever mixed in so it will literally take forever to go through those. We both enjoy wine so we have a rack of wines semi-stocked at most times and a fridge with some seasonal beers in it most of the time. We only drink a couple of drinks each 1 or day days a week at most (we have friends who drink WAY more and I still consider all of them social drinkers, none of them have issues, etc.). My own whole family has wine with dinner, its just what they grew up with in Italy and Spain. It never occurred to me that daily drink was some sort of moral issue?

OP, same. We have alcohol in the house because we drink beer/wine on occasion. We don't normally make mixed drinks but we have a bunch of liquor that someone gave us or we used for something and still have it. That stuff doesn't go bad so we keep it and it accumulates. It has never occurred to me until reading this thread that I would need to store it specially.

My parents were the same way, there was no more attention paid to storing alcohol than for other food/drink in the house. As a teen, it never occurred to me to touch it.

PP you are quoting and same situation. I agree with PPs saying if there is a strong addiction thread in a family that it is a different story. That said I know people who haven't had alcohol in decades who live with people who drink occasional wine, and it is in their house without issue- so even that is dependent on the person.