A survey of those who are securely sober
 

Excuse the phrasing - I'd just like to start up a free-response sort of survey of the members on here who have stopped drinking for long enough that they are comfortable in their sobriety, and confident they can live the rest of their life without a drink.

Here are the questions I'm interested in:
1. How old were you when drinking became a problem for you?
2. How old were you when you quit drinking for good?
3. What, if anything, did you do or experience that motivated you to quit for good?

(Personally, I can only honestly answer #1 myself right now)

I began drinking in earnest 1969 age 12.
I finally quit for the last time in 1981 age 24.
I would have died as a drunk drunk if I hadn't successfully quit. I didn't care about sobriety when I quit. I eventually learned to care by fellowshipping with other alcoholics and addicts in rehab. I take what I need and leave what I don't need in my recovered lifestyle as much as I'm able. Its the journey and not the destination that ensures I'll never ever again return to alcohol. I've not relapsed since I last quit 33 years ago.I'm done, lol.

Here are the questions I'm interested in:
1. How old were you when drinking became a problem for you?
always problematic but it became obvious to everyone about 30

2. How old were you when you quit drinking for good?
40

3. What, if anything, did you do or experience that motivated you to quit for good?
I nearly died, stumbled into SR :)

Those are the facts - do they help? :)

D

Here are the questions I'm interested in:

1. How old were you when drinking became a problem for you? At about age 28 or 29. And that was my worst drinking... Like out of control, crazy not caring drinking.

2. How old were you when you quit drinking for good? 36

3. What, if anything, did you do or experience that motivated you to quit for good? I was a weekend drinker for the most part but I would really tie it on to make up for the weekdays. Generally, nothing happened. I would stay home because of my previous crazy days making an ass out of myself, so my world got smaller and smaller. Went to a party, phone dropped and broke and I lost it. Yelling, crying, cursing, combative. Everything I couldn't stand in people I considered unable to hold their liquor. It was time for me to quit. So delighted I did!

Here are the questions I'm interested in:

1. How old were you when drinking became a problem for you?

Started drinking at age 19 and by 22-23 there had been a number of blackouts. Was arrested for public drunkenness and sideswiped a parked car driving home in another instance. Looking back all the signs were there by the age of 23.


2. How old were you when you quit drinking for good?

35


3. What, if anything, did you do or experience that motivated you to quit for good?

Drinking no longer "worked" and I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. AA cliché to be sure but that about sums it up for me.

1. I never drank in a healthy way. I always was trying to put something out.
2. 48 years old
3. I was blacking out. I said, That's it.

Nancy

I don't have a lot of time but I feel secure in the knowledge that I will do whatever it takes. I want nothing more to do with it but I know it will probably come at me again.

1. I was 32 when I started abusing alcohol. By abuse I mean I started drinking 3 drinks at one sitting and I did that regularly. It started out with 3 but I developed tolerance and within months I could get down 5 or 6 in one night. July 3 2003 at age 35 I woke up from my first blackout. I knew I something had changed but I never though "alcoholic". People don't become alcoholics at age 35 do they?
2. Feb 10 2013 weeks shy of 45.
3. I finally realized that this was really happening. My hands were shaking and all I could think about was drinking again. My life was getting in the way of my drinking. It was time to ante up and push everything to the side if I was to keep going. There wasn't enough whiskey in the world to satisfy my desire. I was really about to surrender to the addiction. I just couldn't do that.

1. I started to drink in my teen years but did not begin to abuse until I was over 21. I was an alcohol dependent drinker before I turned 30. I was a blackout drinker and consumed a minimum of a 5th of alcohol a day for the last almost 4 years of my drinking during which time I became homeless, divorced and unemployable. I cannot relate much of my life from the years 2007 to 2011 with the exception of some time spent in hospitals and institutions when I could not drink. I once came to in St. Louis...I live in Ohio.

2. I got sober at the age of 33, I will be 37 in October.

3. My drinking career was eventful to be sure. Car crashes and bar fights and waking up in St. Louis. I was always a consequences, shmonsequences kind of girl and nothing tangible like a relationship, a career, or legal troubles was gonna stop me. The end of my drinking was quiet in comparison to all the days before it. I was void, empty...miserable. I came to angry that I had come to. I was scared to live and scared to die at the same time and drinking no longer shielded me from that. I picked up the phone and called a friend to ask for help. I have not picked up a drink since.

Early 30's ...
 

1. In the late 70's, when I was in my early 30's.

2. My sobriety dates from the 15th Feb., 2008. I was then 61.

3. By having a 'psychic or spiritual experience'- 'The Doctor's Opinion' - 'Alcoholics Anonymous' 4th Ed.

Hey you

My answers if they help so much the better:

1) Drank from 14, problems started about 18.....

2) Started stopping at 36. Finished stopping at 52

3) Deaths door. Crawling and wanting to die. Just quit the battle and accepted that if i lived through a non medicated 'home' detox (don't go there) that i need never drink again. No matter what.

G:)

Here are the questions I'm interested in:

1. How old were you when drinking became a problem for you?

Age 13. It was the first time I drank. I got drunk, blacked out and then passed out. I never drank socially, I just drank in social situations and it took me a long time to understand they were not the same thing.

I did not become an alcoholic, I was born one.

2. How old were you when you quit drinking for good?

44

3. What, if anything, did you do or experience that motivated you to quit for good?

I had lowered the bar so many times and it could go no lower. I was heading for complete isolation. I simply was done.

I was born one...
 

Liked your post, if for no more than like you, I was born one, which perhaps relates to the description of a 'real alcoholic' in the opening lines of Chapter 3 ,'More About Alcoholism' in he book, 'Alcoholics Anonymous' 4th Ed.

be well

1. How old were you when drinking became a problem for you?

I never drank *normally*. It really was always a problem, as I drank to get drunk from the get go.

2. How old were you when you quit drinking for good?
42

3. What, if anything, did you do or experience that motivated you to quit for good?

hellish hangovers with intolerable levels of anxiety; deleterious effects on my health and appearance; blackouts; mental obsession; the realization that I couldn't keep going on like this; the desire to try to find a new way to cope and live

First time I drank as a young teen, i drank so much I blacked out , had to be dragged home and didnt remember what had happened.

I continued drinking for the next thirty or so , at various levels of abuse. Last year at 47 I decided to quit for good, although there were times in the past when I wanted to quit and would stop for different periods, but then resumed drinking.

Last year the progressiveness of alcohol abuse was ramping up, started experiencing frequent and strong bouts of anxiety that was different then the past. To quell the anxiety I started drinking in the mornings , that was different too , and frightening. swore I would never do that.

Stumbled on SR and saw references to RR and AVRT, read the material and it really resonated with me. Fully acknowledged to myself that alcohol was a huge problem for me and resolved to never drink again.

1. I've always had a problem. Got drunk the first time I drank, at 15. I would then get drunk almost every time I drank after that. After age 35 or so I noticed that I was drinking more often. By my mid-40s, this was pretty much every day.

2. I gave up at 52.

3, Coming round on the bathroom floor covered in blood with no idea at all how I got there - then registering the pain and concern on my partner's face, that's what stopped me. The way I feel physically and, more importantly, psychologically, is what motivates me to stay stopped.

1. How old were you when drinking became a problem for you? 2. How old were you when you quit drinking for good? 3. What, if anything, did you do or experience that motivated you to quit for good?

1. I told my mom I was an alcoholic when I was 18.

2. I quit when I was 46.

3. I was a father, self employed, and unhappy in my marriage. I felt that alcohol wasn't helping with any of these things. I was at the age where it was really starting to get in the way and I was noticing the effects of it on all my drinking friends. When my best friend and drinking buddy quit it was the final catalyst.

I'll be 49 in two weeks and I have to say, quitting drinking and now pot is the best decision that I ever made in my life. It has allowed me to channel my inner bad ass and be the best, most potent person that I can be. Alcohol was a barrier to success. I just can't believe I did that to myself for all those years. Ugh.

1. How old were you when drinking became a problem for you?

11 years of age was my first drink and i got drunk as well but it was 16 years old i got my first drunken conviction so for me thats when it started to get to be a problem

2. How old were you when you quit drinking for good?

i was 23 when i first gave up drinking in 1984 i left aa after 3 years and went my own way and started drinking again 15 years later
jan 2004 i came back to aa and have been sober ever since

3. What, if anything, did you do or experience that motivated you to quit for good?

i lost everything this time, no job, no family, been to prison, and of course my drinking had moved up to daily drinking i was throwing up in buckets to get another drink down shakes all the normal things that happens to a drunk who doesnt stop

1. How old were you when drinking became a problem for you?

Well, just to show that not everyone fits the typical pattern, I was a normal social drinker until my late 30s or so. It’s hard to identify exactly the point at which my drinking became alcoholic — it was a gradual, insidious slide over a period of years — but by the end, I certainly had all the symptoms of the "malady." In hindsight, many of the psychological issues that contributed to my being susceptible existed well before I developed the condition.

2. How old were you when you quit drinking for good?

I was 45 when I first realized I really had to quit drinking. I was 52 when I finally was able to kick it for good. That was 17 months ago.

3. What, if anything, did you do or experience that motivated you to quit for good?

When I reached the point that I really wanted to stay sober more than I wanted to be drunk. When it became clear even to my alcohol-besotted brain that it wasn’t working anymore. When I totally accepted that I could never again recapture the effect alcohol had in the early days. I’m not in AA, but the term "surrender" aptly describes the fundamental shift in my thinking that made quitting for good the only option.