Sara9009

How old were you when you first started drinking?

How long did you drink responsibly?

How long did you drink as an alcoholic before you stopped?

CarolD

Well...
I had my first drink at 14 but my drinking did not become
alcoholic until I was perhaps 43.
I started recovery at 48...quit at 53.

You will see that everyone has a different time line.

Why not share yours?

Pinkcuda

I was probably 13. By 18 I was getting drunk every day. I continued to drink every day until I was 41.

NOMOMERLOTMAMMA

I was 12/13. I binged drank till I was 29 then it got to be every day. No major problems until I was 38 or so. Quit when I was 42. After: almost losing my home, second marriage breaking up, laid the groundwork to getting fired from my job, lost the love of my life, and a whole bunch of friends.

Now sober?: Saved my home. Good relationship with my exH. Kids kicking butt in school and much happier. Found a new, interesting job. Got my girl back. Old friends back in my life, along with new sober friends.

kelsh

I had my first drink when 18 but had my first drunk when 20. Soooo sick..that should have been a clue. I drank with my husband usually on Friday night at home....did not know why I looked forward to Fridays. Then as years went by we drank two or three times a week until we divorced because I couldn't deal with family and my depression. I married a man that drank so the pattern kept on only we never drank at home...just out once or twice a week but drunk each of those nights.

When my second husband was arrested and gone from our home I drank every night at home for four years. By then I was 48...I got help and haven't drank since.

kelsh

Sugah

I was six the first time I partially remember getting drunk (I blacked out). By nine, I was able to drink most every weekend. By the time I was twelve, I drank as often as I could, usually 3-4 times a week.

I never drank responsibly. I couldn't. Once I started, I couldn't stop.

I drank/drugged/drank some more until I was thirty-four. I have been sober four years, eleven months and twelve days -- by the grace of my higher power, the program, and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

Sara9009

Sorry I run a forum and got used to allowing other people to answer and then answer later so as to not sway the conversation.

I am 29 and never drank until about a year ago. I drank for the last year pretty heavily and stopped a little over a week ago.

citychick

This is something I've only just remembered....my dad used to by me 'shandies' (half beer & half lemonade) when I was about four or five. I didn't drink again till I was fourteen...but I drank till I was drunk and vomiting. I was an alcoholic waiting to happen. And I didn't stop till I was forty six, and found AA.

nandm

I was about 14 or 15.

I don't think I ever drank responsibly or normally. Even at a young age I was always concerned about making sure I got my fair share of the alcohol. If there was a case and four of us I made sure I got my 6 pack and then hoped someone would not drink all of theirs so I could have it. At the end of my drinking I was purchasing two 30 packs of beer along with a couple of 6 packs to make sure I did not run out during the evening/night/next day/or whenever I passed out.

About 20 years. I was 35 when I found A.A. and was able to obtain some sober time.

Pilgrim

I was 14 when I first drank enough to throw up.

I drank irresponsibly at first but then I was a fairly responsible drinker when my children were very little. I had others to think about and not much time to indulge.

I drank heavily for the past 8 years and the last 3 of those years were very problematic. Out of that, I became a daily heavy drinker (or too sick to function properly) about 18 months ago. Then the last 3 weeks of my drinking were sheer hell. The completely out of control part happened almost overnight. If anyone had been there, I would have been put in an institution. I am 43.

Now I look back and I can see the stages of the progression of the illness in me.

findingout

I was 14 the first time I had a chance to drink under my own supervision. I drank so much that I threw up, blacked out, passed out, and when I came to... I lied about it. By age 16, I was drinking and drugging on a regular basis and still lying about it.

I don't believe I ever drank responsibly by choice, although there were many times when I didn't drink as much as I could have because I still cared what other people thought about my drinking.

Somewhere around age 35, I stopped caring what other people thought and when my 40th birthday rolled around, it didn't matter what people thought, I had to drink. Seven months later I stopped drinking and entered treatment. Definitely the best decision I ever made and it would have been the best decision I ever made if I had made it five years earlier, ten years earlier, or twenty five years earlier.

Tazman53

I think I was 12 when I had my first beer.

I started right off drinking irresponsibly, I drank until it was all gone, I passed out/went to bed, or I had to leave.

Up until sometime in my early 40's even though I drank almost every day, I still had not crossed that line of having to drink every day. In my early 40's was when I would try and stop drinking/moderate, this was a total joke looking back on it, now I know I could not have stopped by myself, then I just kept letting my disease fool me into thinking I had my drinking under control.

Some where about 45 I reached the point of having to drink every day in order to feel normal.

At about 50 is when my tolerance went haywire, one day I could drink one beer right after another from the time I got up until I went to bed and not even get a buzz, the very next day I would only drink 6-8 (Just priming the pump) and be stumbling and slurring my speech, kept on drinking even then until I passed out.

At 52 I had that moment of clarity that allowed me to see death if I kept on drinking, detox & AA, AA saved my life because I had to fight my disease the whole way to AA the day I got out of detox to not stop and get a 12 pack.

I never drank normally.

Alyce14

Interesting thread

I had my first drink at 21, spent the rest of my college years badly that way, went to Paris, discovered Cognac, drank there for two years, came back to the states, drank increasingly with "normal" people (I now see I was hanging with the alcoholics).

Found AA after my 30th birthday in NYC (and a hellish hangover). Was in and out of there (mostly in) till 39, quit with AA for 13 years-attended 1000s? of meetings, started meetings, went every day, sponsored and was sponsored, did the steps. Got back to NYC-stayed sober another 4 years, (AA meetings had all changed-everyone was younger for one thing, so I never reconnected).

Rest of story: mostly sober till now...

Alyce (I am too vain to explain "now")

JaySee

At 13 - the 'reaction' was immediate - i.e craving another drink after the first, the physical reaction to alcohol which defines me as an alcoholic.
Nearly every time I drank I got drunk (because of the above) so I can't really say I've ever drank responsibly, but it took a few years before the binging became daily binging and my mind, spirit and body became very ill.
If I'm honest, I've always drank as an alcoholic and always will - I stopped being a drinking alcoholic just over three years ago - and I'm working on staying sober another day today.

JC

odaat

I started drinking at 12. There was never a time I drank responsibly - I got incredibly drunk the first time I drank, and carried on from there, drinking as much as I could drink, as often as I could. I never had one drink, and I only drank for one reason - for oblivion.

I drank like this until I was 19, so 7 years of drinking alcoholicly. I'm 20, and I've been sober for 10 months now.

Slowbriety

First drink at 10
First time to get drunk 13
crossed the line at 19
entered AA at 22

snowgoose

My drinking began at 26 when I married an alcoholic who harrassed me if I wouldn't drink with him. It didn't take long before I realized that alcohol was an anesthetic that temporarily relieved the pain of the bad, abusive marriage... and then the pain of "failure" when I finally faced the need to divorce. I didn't drink heavily but became a daily closet drinker over the next 22+ years, until I finally became scared enough to come to AA to stop. I had learned the beauty of AA when a recovering friend insisted I attend Alanon.

Carol87

hmmm ... I think I was about 13 ... I never drank responsibly ... I was in my 40's when I found recovery ...

scorpy

16.

16-28. Off and on weekend binges, and drinking on weekdays occasionally.

28-32. Almost everyday. Have to try hard to not to drink.

Jfanagle

I started drinking at about 16 years old, in high school. In very short order I began perfecting my technique in College and emerged in 1975 a graduate of both the University and the school of alcohol appreciation. A full blown “good” Whiskey and Martini drinker. Hard liquor was my choice combined with a snobby attitude and love for expensive wines.

I drank socially for approximately the next 28 years. I drank heavily, but it was always in the context of either upscale bars or clubs, or in a social setting for either business or with friends at all the right parties. I won't say that there weren't some "notorious" drinking stories, but always excused by the "boys will be boys" or sometimes "boys will be boys with girls" that weren't necessarily my then, “current” wife. But all in all it was still above ground drinking.

The last phase was when I began to have major business problems, (imagine that) an alcoholic with business problems, and so I started solitarily and constantly drinking until I quit about 2 1/2 years later.

All in all it was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride on steroids.

Jon