Submitted by Greg Alderete.
One of the unspoken truths about growing up in the early 1970s—especially as a teenager overseas—was how easily alcohol found its way into our lives. It was everywhere. At every base function, every social gathering, every weekend hangout. No one asked our age. No one really watched. It wasn’t just accessible—it was accepted.
My Belgian friends drank, too, but it was different. They had wine at meals, maybe a beer or a sip of something stronger, but it wasn’t about getting drunk. It wasn’t about disappearing. There was a cultural rhythm to it. A kind of respect. We, on the other hand, drank like we were trying to forget something we didn’t know how to name.
I can’t tell you how many times I blacked out in high school—15, maybe 16 years old—after two bottles of Cold Duck. That cheap, sparkling stuff that burned going down and made everything go black just a little too easily. But I wasn’t alone. That wasn’t some cautionary tale—it was common. Everyone I knew had a story like that. Some were funny. Some weren’t.
A lot of us smoked. Some used drugs. But that came with a heavier risk. One slip, and your father’s military career could be over. So we drank instead. If you got drunk and threw up in the chain club, people laughed. If you got caught with weed, there were serious consequences. So we found safety in the bottle. Or at least we thought we did.
At SHAPE American High School, they actually installed a bar in the cafeteria. Friday and Saturday nights, it opened for students. The idea was to keep us on base, where it was “safe.” And in some twisted way, it made sense. Parents knew. Some even encouraged it. They were just trying to protect us the only way they knew how.
We called it the SHAPE High International Teen Club—though everyone called it the SHIT Club. It was run by students. Two of them, supposedly, figured out how to skim the profits for themselves. But that’s another story for another time.
At my senior prom party, a G.I. gave me a fifth of Wild Turkey. No one batted an eye. I didn’t care for it much, but the guy giving me a ride home? He did. He chugged it like water. Thirty years later, I saw him again. He was still doing the same thing. Still chasing numbness. Still trying to outrun something.
That night, after the party, we climbed on his motorcycle. It was raining. The cobblestone roads outside NATO headquarters were slick. We had one helmet. He wore it because he was driving. And then, somewhere around 35 miles an hour, he passed out. Just slumped forward—dead weight.
By some miracle, I reached around his body, steadied the bike, and got us to a stop. I think about that moment often. More than I’d like to admit. Because I survived. And so many others didn’t.
The thing is, you can’t just tell your kids not to drink and expect that to be enough. We didn’t drink because we were rebellious or bad. We drank because no one taught us how to handle pain, confusion, loneliness. Because it was there. Because everyone else did. Because we were just kids, trying to grow up in a world that didn’t always make sense.
If there’s anything to learn from all of it, it’s this: don’t lie to your children about the world. Teach them how to face it, even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.
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