I think I was born an alcoholic. But I did a lot things to try and stop the inevitable: working nights for years so I couldn't go to bars, for example. Lots of other things, but the disease is progressive. I gradually drank more and more, despite my efforts to put obstacles between myself and alcohol. I finally went chronic at middle age, just before, in my forties.
Despite not drinking excessively for the first 10 years of my marriage, I was a weekend warrior and a drinking party girl, and I think my husband liked that. Maybe neither one of us suspected it, he did marry the alcoholic. I didn't know it, he didn't know it. But, many of the things he liked about me were the things I did while under the influence: I was impulsive, funny, chatty, positive and friendly.
The way I see it, I have always been an alcoholic. I just didn't go chronic until my 40's.