Hi MF....Interesting point- I do think that terminal uniqueness is something we all need to consider in our recovery process.
I am 39 - 40 this summer- and have some of the same regrets others mention (I just tallied up, yesterday, an estimate of what I would have made in the 8 yrs since my jumping off a cliff into the descent of alcoholism and it got worse and worse and...ouch, big time) but I cannot focus on that. Or that I don't have kids or my own family, like most of my friends. Or...but these are my issues and I definitely like to see young people getting things in hand early.
Also - percentage wise of, say, a 19 yr old's life - if he's been drinking since, say, 13...well...maybe not all that different than any of us who started our problem drinking later and got into recovery later.
I find that I relate to many ages. My sponsor is 54, almost 3 yrs sober, and an African American woman who votes Democratic, has a 10yr old daughter, is from upstate NY and prefers intellectual Jewish men (though she's rethinking that strategy in sobriety) and....this ain't much like me at all. One of my closest program friends is a former weed dealer who had a rockin' business, then got into pills and drinking, and is 10 yrs sober at 59. Another is a matriarch of an extremely wealthy (like, names on building weathy) Atlanta family. Another good friend is 27 with a dad who long supported her pill habit and...see my point?
I like a broad audience and look for commonalities, but not commiseration, and diversity but not divisiveness.