LaFemme

First drank at 18 to be cool. Drank like a normal stupid college kid and 20 something in the big city. Around 25 started drinking problematically. By 32 I was drinking alcoholically and by 33-34 started trying to stop. Quit at 38. By then I was up to 2 liters of wine a night on average and a pack of cigarettes. 8.5 months blessedly sober.

Dee74

I started drinking in earnest as a 25 year old, binge drinking.
Ended at 40 - for the last seven years of that I drank all day everyday.

D

SASA

I staarted young, my gandmother gasve me a beer for dinner when I was 9years old. With 13 I was going out on weekends drinking 1 day per week. I kept drinkign from about 13 till 19 1 time per week on saturdays to party. From 19 till 24 I started college and was drinking twice a week. After that I started with 750ml per night to drown my work problems. With 34 I realized I had a problem and tried to stop. In the end I was drinking 2 bottles per night.

Beardo

Had my first experience being fall down drunk at 14, binged most weekends from 16 to 18 then I got heavily into pot and didn't drink much for the next few years. Back into binging again along with daily drug use until about 3 years ago where I just went all out. Pot all day and a bottle of vodka (at least) a night plus other bits and pieces.
Sober 9 months and 1 day Life is SO much better straight!
So to answer your question...16 years on and off, more on than off.

KellyToronto

Started drinking 1 bottle a day of wine, at age 23, to cope with job stress.

"Graduated" at age 45 to 2 bottles of rye whiskey or rum on weekends, and less during the week, but almost every day.

Now I am 49, on Day 6.

Kelly

SomethingBetter

Ive drank from 17 on but also smoked pot and did other drugs, I began to really lose it mixing them, i quit the drugs including the pot but made up for the high with alcohol, from the age of 27 to present i have drank near a 12 pack of beer a night and in the last 3 or 4 years its been closer to a 18 pack nightly.

I rarley drank during the day until late in the drinking career, but again I made up for it when the time came to drink after 5 oclock.

40 days sober today!

*Edit: I am currently 42 years old

Rift

I think the first time I ever had a sip of alcohol was in 6th grade. So I was 11 I guess. Of course I did not start drinking then but that was the first taste of booze for me.

I guess once I got to high school at around 14/15 is when I started to really get into drinking. I remember my senior year of high school and drinking just about everyday after school.

I know this seems to be pretty young, but I had my ways to get booze whether it was through older people buying it for me or having a couple of stores that would sell it to me underage.

I think I noticed booze could be a problem for me around 17/18. I think those young years were when my alcohol issues began b/c the sole reason for me to drink was to get drunk/wasted. It continued all the way up to my late 20's.

ZZworldontheweb

I started drinking socially when I was 21, but didn't really start drinking alcoholically until my late 30s. Then it was five or six years before I got sober. Pretty lucky really.

Ranger

I got ripped on six Zimas (remember those!?) within a couple weeks of my 19th birthday.

I puked my guts out, felt like complete a$$ the next day...and fell in love.

My last drink was about nineteen months ago, two weeks after my 35th birthday.

Happy, joyous, and working on "free".

Sudz No More

MY MY, the long stretches so many of us went before quitting and we are all lucky to still be here.

I had first experience blackout drunk at 7, on and off drinking from there. Every weekend by 14 and every day by 19. Save for a six month period when I was 24 and trying to "clean up" I drank every day until I was 40.

aussieblue

started around 14 drank heavily since then dont know when the daily stuff started but its been years I am 50 now.