2020 is my year so 25 years old of actually almost a year sober from a 10+ years of on/off booze. Marijuana , tobacco , first cigarette at age 9 cause i saw my dad smoking i thought well let me try it … alcohol around 12 years old and marijuana once i got to high school went downhill from there but now im almost 365 !!! Woop woop 
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Really thank you guys for sharing and responding so positively, I appreciate your stories. It’s wonderful to know we have such a diverse group of people on this journey. 
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I knew I needed too quit for a couple decade’s, got around too it at 53, I’m 55 now
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I was 26 the first time I quit. I almost drowned when a rogue wave took us out while salmon fishing. It made me realize how much of my life I had spent intoxicated. I didn’t want to live like that anymore.
Alcohol wasnt the cause of the accident. Just the Pacific doing what she does.
I didnt drink for around six months. I didnt work a program. I didnt think I was alcoholic. I just chalked it up to thats what most people do when they are young. And quitting was easy it made me convinced I wasnt alcoholic.
I quit again when I was 34. I was a blackout drunk that didnt pass out because I was high on meth.
I worked a solid program which resulted in 9 years, 10 months sobriety
When I was 44 I felt like I was missing something, and chose trying to drink like a gentleman. I knew drugs were a problem, but had reservations about alcohol.
Now at 52, fully convinced that Im alcoholic I havent drank since Nov 5th. It was a two day drunk, no drugs and I lost control immediately.
This forum helped me stop. It was the support I got here that gave me the strength to put the bottle down.
I also participate in alcoholics anonymous.
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35 and was near a year sober when I thought I cou do it on my own…eh nope 
Been drinking on and off… mostly on since then until about a month ago, 40 now!
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I see a lot of your memes on the memes thread and I’ve always wondered about you when I like a few.
Thank you sharing. I’m glad you are in a good space.
I also started reading the Big Book, very eye opening…
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Good age, just when life begins as they say 
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i always wonder how they knew so much about me when they wrote it way before I was born.
I didnt feel I had anything worth sharing for a while. But I could throw down some memes.
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And keep throwing them Sir… Your sense of humor is 
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I never did actually answer, I was late 30s when I decided to quit and 40 when I mustered up the courage to actually quit.
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Yay! Wonderful 
I didnt realize I had problems with alcohol for years. I knew I drank a lot, a lot more than everyone else around me. Visits to various psychologist etc were for me, just to calm down my partner, boss, parents. Once I got an AA meeting in may 2016 something started to change. Very slowly though. I managed to loose my home, partner, child, car, job, everything actually even after coming to an AA. And then only then found a bit mercy. My sobriety date is 25.07.2019 its exactly 37years and six months Since my birth. Today I have no desire to Pick-up a drink. Im grateful for that to AA and something bigger than I.
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i was in my early 30’s when i started my sobriety journey. it wasn’t a full stop then, but it was time and i’m so fkn grateful i didn’t blow through my 30’s like i did my 20’s. 
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Comeback of the year, I love this reply. Looks like a young pup can reach an old dog new tricks 
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I was in my mid 20’s when I knew I had addiction issues, at that time my sex addiction was as its worst, I don’t say this often but I was putting myself in riskier situations and the number of people I was getting in the sheets with is a number that goes in the 4 digits brackets.
When I decided enough was enough all my addict brain did was find another way to get the dopamine I needed, drugs and booze were my next addiction what were only once a month became every other hour I had to use.
32 is the age I’ve decided I want to be clean of everything hard, challenging but so dam worth it!
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It’s hard to pin down an exact number - but here’s a few:
- 28: realized, consciously, that I didn’t have any friendships (in the sense of substantial, mutually engaged, co-creating connections) (I later realized this was because my addiction had stunted my social intimacy skills)
- 31: sought out therapy (this was the early stages, it was sporadic, and money was tight; I didn’t go regularly; however, I did start making friendships more consciously)
- 36: sought out treatment at a sex addiction recovery clinic (this was a significant moment, and I count this as the age I really started working my recovery)
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15 but unfortunately I couldn’t get the help I needed.
Then in my late twenties and mid thirties I tried again. Now I’m sober at 41.
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The idea was in my head for some time, but since i never feel compeled to do it i just keep going until starting to have health issues, so…39 to me
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I was 16 when I knew I had a problem. I went to a youth treatment centre at that time but continued on a path of destruction. I tried cleaning up off of meth at 21. Got 3 years clean. Then relapsed. At 27 I started using needles. Tried quitting at 28 from injecting hydromorphs. Im 36 now and trying to get off of crack cocaine.
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Better late than never, eh?
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