If I had kept going the way I had been and didn't quit, I'd be dead by now.
If I had kept going the way I had been for a few years longer and then quit, I'd be dead by now.
The time lost while being a practicing alcoholic is time you can never get back. So, the only thing one can do is add to what we have left by quitting. Obviously, the sooner, the better. The problem with what I just said is that when I was a practicing alcoholic, there was a time when I couldn't quit no matter how hard I tried and no matter how much I wanted to. Even the fear of dying wasn't enough to help me quit. Drinking cured all the horrible fear it caused me to have about drinking and dying because I was drinking. A paradox.
Oh! Such an insidious and under-handed monster alcohol is! But we all know that.