There is something oddly memorable about a first drink. It is rarely about the taste. Sometimes it is cheap vodka in a water bottle, or wine at a family celebration, or whatever could be raided from a parent’s cabinet.
For one person, it becomes confidence. For another, rebellion. For another, an escape. We looked at twelve public figures, across acting, music, and broadcasting, and what each has said about the first time a drink did something to them, along with the science behind why it landed the way it did.
1. Edie Falco found a different version of herself
Known for: Her Emmy-winning role as Carmela Soprano on The Sopranos, and later Nurse Jackie.
Edie Falco was a shy acting student who stayed quiet while classmates spoke confidently about their work. Then came her first drink, in college. She has said it felt like “nirvana,” solving her shyness in an instant, though it went on to create new problems of its own. She stopped drinking at 29.
The science: Alcohol boosts the brain’s main calming chemical, GABA, which quiets the amygdala and loosens the self-monitoring that drives social anxiety. For someone already anxious in groups, that dip in threat-detection can feel like relief rather than intoxication.
2. Tinashe learned that vodka disagrees with confidence
Known for: R&B singer behind “2 On” and the album Aquarius.
At 15, on the Fourth of July, Tinashe and her friends paid a stranger to buy vodka, which they poured into a water bottle. She assumed the ease of the first few swallows meant the rest would go the same way. It did not. Soon she could not walk, and the next morning brought what she called an unbelievable hangover.
The science: Blood alcohol keeps rising for up to an hour after the last sip, and teenagers are less sensitive than adults to alcohol’s early warning signs, which is part of why young drinkers so often misjudge how drunk they are about to become.
3. David Yelland thought he had found freedom
Known for: Journalist and former editor of Britain’s The Sun.
David Yelland was 16, dealing with bullying and alopecia, when he had his first drink. He has written that being drunk felt like being finally at ease, a feeling he chased for years. He later described being drunk nearly every night for 24 years, before getting sober.
The science: The same GABA effect that eases anxiety fades with repeated use, so the brain needs more alcohol over time to reach the same calm. That tolerance curve is one reason a coping habit formed at 16 can quietly stretch into decades.
4. Kojo Funds became everyone’s confidant
Known for: British-Ghanaian rapper and singer, part of the afroswing scene.
On his 18th birthday, Kojo Funds reportedly got drunk enough to tell friends and family everything on his mind, including confessing his feelings to a neighbour. The next morning, by his own account, was considerably less fun than the night before.
The science: Alcohol dampens activity in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that normally filters what we say before we say it. Oversharing while drunk is not a personality change; it is that filter running at reduced strength.
5. Hailey Bieber discovered the basement was not a bar
Known for: Model and founder of the skincare brand Rhode.
Hailey Bieber was around 16, a competitive dancer, when a friend’s unsupervised basement became the setting for her first serious night of drinking. She has recalled mixing drinks with no plan and eventually crawling on the floor, and has said the smell of birthday cake-flavoured vodka can still bring the whole memory back.
The science: Smell connects almost directly to the brain’s memory centres, which is why an odour tied to an emotionally intense night can trigger a vivid flashback years later, long after the visual details have faded.
6. Tove Lo got drunk and got affectionate
Known for: Swedish pop singer-songwriter known for “Habits (Stay High).”
Tove Lo was 13, spending a Swedish summer with older friends, when she first got drunk on their beer. There was no dramatic fallout. She simply became affectionate, telling everyone around her that she loved them.
The science: At lower doses, alcohol’s disinhibiting effect tends to show up as warmth and sociability rather than aggression; it is only at higher doses, and in some individuals, that the same disinhibition tips toward conflict instead.
7. Laura Whitmore learned to eat first
Known for: Irish television presenter, formerly host of Love Island.
At university, Laura Whitmore drank a bottle of rosé on the bus to her graduation ball, having barely eaten all day. By evening she had to be taken home and put to bed. She has said she still cannot drink rosé.
The science: This is a textbook case of conditioned taste aversion: when a specific drink is followed by illness, the brain links the two, and can keep flagging that drink as a threat for years, regardless of how the illness actually happened.
8. Alex Van Halen inherited a family habit
Known for: Drummer and co-founder of the rock band Van Halen.
Alex Van Halen had his first drink at six, given to him by his father. He has written that alcohol lifted his spirits unlike anything else, and that he and his brother Eddie were seasoned drinkers by the time they were teenagers.
The science: Research on age of first use consistently finds that starting to drink in childhood carries a far higher long-term risk of alcohol dependence than starting as an adult, particularly when the introduction happens inside the family rather than being resisted by it.
9. Selma Blair mistook fermentation for faith
Known for: Actress known for Cruel Intentions and Hellboy.
Selma Blair was seven, sipping Manischewitz wine at a family Passover seder, when the warmth she felt convinced her something divine was happening. She later wrote in her memoir that she realised the feeling was fermentation, not God. She has been sober since 2016.
The science: That warm, expansive feeling is the same GABA-driven relaxation response described above; a young child without a name for it can easily read it as something spiritual rather than chemical.
10. Stella Monye found the wrong kind of high
Known for: Nigerian highlife and Afrobeat singer, best known for “Oko Mi Ye.”
Stella Monye got drunk for the first time in a recording studio while working on her debut album. She hoped the wine would lift her mood before a vocal take; instead, she became too weak to sing at all.
The science: Alcohol is a diuretic that dries out and dehydrates the vocal cords, making them vibrate less efficiently and stripping away exactly the breath control a vocal take depends on.
11. Courtney Pine found alcohol built into the job
Known for: British jazz saxophonist, a leading figure in UK jazz since the 1980s.
Courtney Pine was around 15 when he began performing with reggae bands. Drinking, in his telling, was never really the point. It came bundled into gig life alongside the venues and the bar tabs.
The science: This is ordinary associative learning: when a substance is repeatedly paired with a specific setting, such as a stage or a green room, the brain starts to link the two, so the environment itself becomes a cue to drink.
12. David Gray invented a cocktail that should not have existed
Known for: Singer-songwriter behind “Babylon” and the album White Ladder.
Before a school disco, David Gray raided his parents’ drinks cabinet. He and his friends mixed cider, gin and crème de menthe into what he later called a “noxious cocktail.”
The science: Mixing drink types does not itself increase drunkenness beyond the total alcohol consumed, but cheaper spirits and sweet liqueurs carry more congeners, the byproducts of fermentation linked to worse hangovers the next day.
The pattern underneath all twelve stories
Line these accounts up and something becomes clear. Falco found confidence. Yelland found a freedom that later cost him. Tinashe found consequences. Blair found what she mistook for the divine. Van Halen inherited a habit before he was old enough to choose one.
None of them were really describing a drink. They were describing what it did to them afterward, and the biology behind that reaction, more than the drink itself, is usually what people remember decades later.
