My career in alcohol PART 1

I was a late developer with respect to rebellious behaviour and mind-altering chemicals. I didn't do very much binge drinking in my youth because 1) I looked 12 until I was 18 and getting served in pubs meant risking the kind of embarrassment only a young person can feel so painfully, 2) I lived in a dead-end village miles from any decent venues and full of retired people up until the age of 18 and 3) Alcohol didn't play a big part in my parents' lives. But then I went to university and I not only discovered alcohol, I revelled in it.

In my first year, I lived in a halls of residence about five miles from the university campus. It was an ex-RAF barracks with 'blocks' and a tiny residual NAAFI shop. (The fact the NAAFI had four shopping trolleys was not well considered because if all were in action at the same time, nobody could actually move. Needless to say - that little game became a popular student pastime.) There were two 'sweeteners' to not making it into one of the campus halls. One was the breakfast. It was in 'B' block and you could stuff yourself with a fry-up, toast, cereal, juice, muffins and such from 7.30-9.30 weekdays and 8.00-10.00 at weekends! It really was a sweetener. But the other one for me was better still: a bar. A student-prices, on-my-doorstop, filled-every-night-with-irresponsible-and-up-for-it-first-years, bar. No wonder I got rounder.

And so my serious career in alcohol began. It was mostly pints of lager - the studenty drink with the still surprisingly shock factor of a girl drinking pints. My young liver could process the impact of many visits a week to the bar and I never missed breakfast. There were other venues too. Monday nights in a nightclub in the city enticing students with the bribe of their first pint costing just a penny. A local pub on the bus route with a singer called Freddie who was so awful that we all thought he was great - you know in that student 'aren't we just so whacky' way. And there was the campus of course. It was a just a late night bus ride away and it treated us to some great gigs too.

In my first student summer holiday, I got a job in a pub. The oldest pub in the city. Ironically, I never drank while I worked and as I worked most days that summer, my alcohol consumption was reduced. My career in alcohol was still yet to peak.