I did not have problems with drinking until ~32 and quit a month before I turned 40. My alcoholism had a rapid progression in the first 3-4 years and then I was kinda trying to hold it together with alternating cycles of better and worse. In retrospect, trying to hold it together like that on the surface was more difficult and painful than any part of getting sober, including the monster cravings I experienced in the first few months of sobriety.