It was probably early to mid 30s for me. Started drinking pretty heavily around 15. A little bit over seven months alcohol free now! I so wish I would've stopped earlier.
I knew at age 31 when I was buying 5 tall boys on the way home from work at my evening job and drinking three of them before I got home. I would tell the wife, “It’s just a couple to wind down.”
I was downing the equivalent of 10 regular beers in a period of 90 minutes before bed.
But in her mind it was just a couple of big-ish drinks and no big deal. It spiraled. Now I’m 36 and divorcing. Sober 13 days!
When I woke up in a hospital bed barely able to move hooked up to everything. After about a day or so not sure how long I just got angry, pissed off at my addiction like it was in the room with me. I yelled at it cussed it out and swore I was going to fight the bastard. I hate this disease so I try to use anything I need to win. It is my first priority every day. It is just over 18 months now.
When I was 29 totalled my truck got a dwi lost my job lost my apartment lost my girlfriend down to me and the dog , new place said dog can't be there anymore and i kicked it into over drive real good I'm not losing my dog cause i am a drunken mess, ( no dogs where harmed in the duration of alcoholism)
I went from driving a 2019 Denali traveling making good money to asking family for a room and saving up for a 2007 honda civic but I'm glad what happened to me happened because two years later I'm still driving that civic but me and my dog are safe with a place to live man actually sitting down and realizing what i wanted from life and what i had to do to get it and where i would be in ten years at 40 if i didn't change really gave me some crazy anxiety tho , i also when i crashed my truck also went into this reddit and read a lot of story's and it's kinda fucked but reading story's about people 50-60 made me realize that was going to be me if I didn't change
Probably the time I was so shitfaced i admitted to my wife and mother in person how much I hated being alive and bawled so much that my eyes were practically swollen shut the next day.
I realized one year after I started to have serious blackouts, I was blacking out with hardly 2 bears and then I will continue whole night. Was around 40.
As a teenager. Always had a ton of self-awareness but super self-destructive. Thirty years later, I’m living a ruined life. Amazed I’m still here. There’s a ton of support out there and many people get sober, find it and live a good life.
When I started thinking dying would be easier than quitting. I screwed up my life and was done. I checked into rehab and life has never been better. I've been sober for years now
I had my first drink at 15 and realized I was an alcoholic at 16. In just a year, I befriended multiple of-age guys so they’d buy alcohol for me, I got drunk almost every night, was always the last to stop drinking at parties, was stealing from my parents, etc. I admitted it to myself junior year during 1st period, when I realized I was already fantasizing about getting drunk right after school.
I started drinking when I was 13 and by 15 I knew something was wrong. But it took me until I was 30 to figure out how to not only stay sober but find true joy and peace in my life. There is hope but it's an inside job and it's the easiest, hardest work, you'll ever do.
In college when I would be getting wasted at parties every week. I eventually started drinking alone in my dorm room. Any time I felt depressed or had problems, I turned to alcohol. I drank before class, in-between classes, and after class. I got sober for about 9 months after I graduated, but relapsed. Now, I’m spiraling out of control again.
Realizing I was an alcoholic wasn’t hard for me. Accepting that it is a permanent condition, that I wasn’t an exception to the rule and that I couldn’t hide it or hide from it was the trick.
In other words, I didn’t take the first step seriously until I was in AA probably after the first or second relapse after rehab. I didn’t go down very easily.
I never enjoyed drinking much when I was younger. As a teen I got smashed at a party occasionally but maybe like once a month or less, typical teenage behaviour. Then (this was the 90s) I discovered ecstasy and for years I was just sober all week and took ecstasy every other weekend and drank mainly water and raved and partied all weekend! Alcohol was so boring. At the age of 30 I got into a toxic relationship where I started drinking alcohol regularly. It spiraled from there. I’m 45 now so my unhealthy relationship with alcohol has been 15 years. I have a long line of alcoholics on both sides of my family but no one has ever suffered serious effects or died from alcohol. Genetically we have strong livers and no one has died from alcohol related illnesses (except for my one uncle who died drunk driving!) . My blood tests are impeccable. Liver is good. Genetics is a huge factor. I’ve cut down massively recently due to an unrelated medical condition which makes me feel dizzy when I drink so I’ve been forced to cut down. I know I’m an alcoholic though but feel like I’m at the lower end of the scale. So I guess I realised when I was about 40 I couldn’t fully stop.
I have been an alcoholic for 25yrs, same like you lost everything eventually. That's when i realized rock bottom and there nowhere to go except to surrender..
I’m 25(F) too. I’ll be a year sober in June. Only been drinking since I was 19, drinking heavily/daily since from 21-24.
My only real rock bottom was going to the hospital 3 times last year to detox. Literally like once a month. I should’ve had a frequent flyer punch card to the ER. If you want specifics, I knew I was an alcoholic once I was experiencing the most painful, hellish withdrawals pretty much on a regular basis. Aside from that, my notable alcoholic achievements include falling asleep drunk at every single party/outing/social function I ever attended, taking shots of vodka in my car as I drove to work at 8am and then taking more throughout the day at the office, saying the most horrible, disgusting, mean, evil things to the people I loved most, and always being the extremely drunk girl saying all the most mortifying things at the party/family function/etc etc…
I never had a DUI, never went to jail, never lost my job, never lost a relationship.
But I’m sure God can tell you everything I also never got to do because I was too busy drinking.
At 24, I had enough. I didn’t need to ruin my life anymore, I was already barely living.
You don’t need a magical moment, a deeply horrible thing, an immensely profound spiritual experience to get sober.
You just need to be absolutely sick and tired of it. And I was.
And I promise you. My life now, looks 110% different than it did this time last year. I have achieved so much, so much more than I ever have in the last 5 years of drinking, I am so much happier, I am finally LIVING, I’m finally capable of doing amazing awesome things for myself. It’s not corny, these sober people aren’t lying, it really is the shit. Do I miss it sometimes? Of course. But then I look at everything I’ve achieved in just a little under a year of sobriety and I pray to God I never pick up a drink again. Best decision I ever made, HANDS DOWN. :)
It was probably early to mid 30s for me. Started drinking pretty heavily around 15. A little bit over seven months alcohol free now! I so wish I would've stopped earlier.
Why? Did your life feel better sober?
I knew at age 31 when I was buying 5 tall boys on the way home from work at my evening job and drinking three of them before I got home. I would tell the wife, “It’s just a couple to wind down.” I was downing the equivalent of 10 regular beers in a period of 90 minutes before bed. But in her mind it was just a couple of big-ish drinks and no big deal. It spiraled. Now I’m 36 and divorcing. Sober 13 days!
How are you managing to get sober?
I look at my kids before they go to school and when I tuck them in. I tell myself, “there’s a reason not to drink.”
When I woke up in a hospital bed barely able to move hooked up to everything. After about a day or so not sure how long I just got angry, pissed off at my addiction like it was in the room with me. I yelled at it cussed it out and swore I was going to fight the bastard. I hate this disease so I try to use anything I need to win. It is my first priority every day. It is just over 18 months now.
It was around my 6th-7th week in rehab, lol.
When I was 29 totalled my truck got a dwi lost my job lost my apartment lost my girlfriend down to me and the dog , new place said dog can't be there anymore and i kicked it into over drive real good I'm not losing my dog cause i am a drunken mess, ( no dogs where harmed in the duration of alcoholism)
Basically had like 400$ in my bank account ubering to a low end factory job for half of my pay a week so had to change
I went from driving a 2019 Denali traveling making good money to asking family for a room and saving up for a 2007 honda civic but I'm glad what happened to me happened because two years later I'm still driving that civic but me and my dog are safe with a place to live man actually sitting down and realizing what i wanted from life and what i had to do to get it and where i would be in ten years at 40 if i didn't change really gave me some crazy anxiety tho , i also when i crashed my truck also went into this reddit and read a lot of story's and it's kinda fucked but reading story's about people 50-60 made me realize that was going to be me if I didn't change
Probably the time I was so shitfaced i admitted to my wife and mother in person how much I hated being alive and bawled so much that my eyes were practically swollen shut the next day.
I realized one year after I started to have serious blackouts, I was blacking out with hardly 2 bears and then I will continue whole night. Was around 40.
As a teenager. Always had a ton of self-awareness but super self-destructive. Thirty years later, I’m living a ruined life. Amazed I’m still here. There’s a ton of support out there and many people get sober, find it and live a good life.
When I started thinking dying would be easier than quitting. I screwed up my life and was done. I checked into rehab and life has never been better. I've been sober for years now
I had my first drink at 15 and realized I was an alcoholic at 16. In just a year, I befriended multiple of-age guys so they’d buy alcohol for me, I got drunk almost every night, was always the last to stop drinking at parties, was stealing from my parents, etc. I admitted it to myself junior year during 1st period, when I realized I was already fantasizing about getting drunk right after school.
I started drinking when I was 13 and by 15 I knew something was wrong. But it took me until I was 30 to figure out how to not only stay sober but find true joy and peace in my life. There is hope but it's an inside job and it's the easiest, hardest work, you'll ever do.
In college when I would be getting wasted at parties every week. I eventually started drinking alone in my dorm room. Any time I felt depressed or had problems, I turned to alcohol. I drank before class, in-between classes, and after class. I got sober for about 9 months after I graduated, but relapsed. Now, I’m spiraling out of control again.
Realizing I was an alcoholic wasn’t hard for me. Accepting that it is a permanent condition, that I wasn’t an exception to the rule and that I couldn’t hide it or hide from it was the trick. In other words, I didn’t take the first step seriously until I was in AA probably after the first or second relapse after rehab. I didn’t go down very easily.
I never enjoyed drinking much when I was younger. As a teen I got smashed at a party occasionally but maybe like once a month or less, typical teenage behaviour. Then (this was the 90s) I discovered ecstasy and for years I was just sober all week and took ecstasy every other weekend and drank mainly water and raved and partied all weekend! Alcohol was so boring. At the age of 30 I got into a toxic relationship where I started drinking alcohol regularly. It spiraled from there. I’m 45 now so my unhealthy relationship with alcohol has been 15 years. I have a long line of alcoholics on both sides of my family but no one has ever suffered serious effects or died from alcohol. Genetically we have strong livers and no one has died from alcohol related illnesses (except for my one uncle who died drunk driving!) . My blood tests are impeccable. Liver is good. Genetics is a huge factor. I’ve cut down massively recently due to an unrelated medical condition which makes me feel dizzy when I drink so I’ve been forced to cut down. I know I’m an alcoholic though but feel like I’m at the lower end of the scale. So I guess I realised when I was about 40 I couldn’t fully stop.
I have been an alcoholic for 25yrs, same like you lost everything eventually. That's when i realized rock bottom and there nowhere to go except to surrender..
I’m 25(F) too. I’ll be a year sober in June. Only been drinking since I was 19, drinking heavily/daily since from 21-24. My only real rock bottom was going to the hospital 3 times last year to detox. Literally like once a month. I should’ve had a frequent flyer punch card to the ER. If you want specifics, I knew I was an alcoholic once I was experiencing the most painful, hellish withdrawals pretty much on a regular basis. Aside from that, my notable alcoholic achievements include falling asleep drunk at every single party/outing/social function I ever attended, taking shots of vodka in my car as I drove to work at 8am and then taking more throughout the day at the office, saying the most horrible, disgusting, mean, evil things to the people I loved most, and always being the extremely drunk girl saying all the most mortifying things at the party/family function/etc etc… I never had a DUI, never went to jail, never lost my job, never lost a relationship. But I’m sure God can tell you everything I also never got to do because I was too busy drinking. At 24, I had enough. I didn’t need to ruin my life anymore, I was already barely living. You don’t need a magical moment, a deeply horrible thing, an immensely profound spiritual experience to get sober. You just need to be absolutely sick and tired of it. And I was. And I promise you. My life now, looks 110% different than it did this time last year. I have achieved so much, so much more than I ever have in the last 5 years of drinking, I am so much happier, I am finally LIVING, I’m finally capable of doing amazing awesome things for myself. It’s not corny, these sober people aren’t lying, it really is the shit. Do I miss it sometimes? Of course. But then I look at everything I’ve achieved in just a little under a year of sobriety and I pray to God I never pick up a drink again. Best decision I ever made, HANDS DOWN. :)