bayliss

I'm not sure if there is a thread on something like this elsewhere but I was wondering if people could share how long they drank for/how much and how long they have tried quitting and their longest period of sobriety.
Would be interesting to see it all...sorta condensed-like...

For me...
3 years drinking - litre of wine a night.
Tried quitting about 4-5 times.
Longest sober period - 2.5 weeks...but am going to change that starting today.

-Bayliss+

Spawn

My drinking started when I was a teen, it continued until I was 33.
I drank enough for 5 life times!
I quit when I lost everything.....including " hope "
The withdrawals were evil....but I toughed it out...why would I want to medicate the side affects of self medicating? This sound insane to me!
I have been sober now for a little over 13 years now....one day at a time.
I got help!
Counseling and AA saved me from a life of pain and sorrow.
I do this online thing to encourage people to get outside help.
If a guy like me can get straight so can you.

bayliss

Congratulations on 13 years of sobriety Spawn!

I think I will look into counselling as well again & AVRT. Thanks for the encouraging words.

zxcirce

drank from 13 til 21, sober for 4 years

reeellllapsseee

drank til 28, sober for 2 months

flutter

Drank since I was a teen.. looking back I was definitely an alcoholic way back then. Progressed to drinking Vodka about 24/7.
Landed in the hospital at noon on a Sunday in 9/08 with a .568 (that is not a typo), thought it was my rock bottom, drank again in full force 6 weeks later.
Stopped drinking in 12/08 after a horrible work/marriage ending threat, got an addiction psychologist that I saw 2x a week for over 6 months. I was/am fully committed to a lifetime without another drop of alcohol.
Been sober/recovered ever since (3ish years)

SOBERINNEPA

I drank alcoholically/compulsively/insanely for three years. From age 48 to 51.
One fifth of vodka nightly with 2-3 beers as a chaser.
Started at about 4:30 PM. Festivities concluded about 8:30.
Solitary drinker. No DUIs. No loss of job. Still married.
Did some minor damage to my health and my soul. I hope I overcome both.

This is my first attempt to stay sober, currently 7 months and counting. I don't have really big cravings but I have to avoid loneliness and boredom.

AlwaysGrowing

Drinking from age 17 to 22. Hard came pretty quick especially in the Marine Corps.
Knew I had a problem and stopped the 1st time after making the true decision.
Sober now 20 1/2 years.

jimmydean

Great thread, I have been at it for just over 10 years, stopped for 60 days early last year before giving in and hitting it even harder. No rock bottom, just tired of killing myself slowly. Have support of friend who is long time sober. SR daily to keep things in check. Feeling good, strong and committed. Big thanks to all of you who share your story every day.

Anna

I started drinking in my mid-forties to self-medicate depression/anxiety/insomnia.

I drank for 3 horrible years.

I have been sober for 11 1/2 years.

BelizeDiver

It is something I am not very proud of but facing the truth is what it's all about.

Started slowly at 21 and at 26 I would loose track of how much after the 6th triple shot glass of Rum with a splash of coke for color. Many nights early in my drinking the Bartender would tell me "sorry but you drank all the Bacardi Rum"....cant believe It. At 30 it got worse, started to stalk up the house with the largest jugs of Bacardi Rum I could buy. When I finished at the Bar no problem there is more at home... At the end of the week on trash day I remember the large trash can on the street would be half full of empty bottles of Bacardi. I used to cringe every time I heard the loud crashing sound of glass when they dumped it in to the trash truck.

At 40 I switched to beer "stout" convinced it was so much less alcohol I cold handle this. Again, after many nights at the local Bar the bartender would tell me "sorry you drank all of our stout beer." Again I could not believe it. But this Bartender was smart, every bottle top for me went in a pile at the end of the bar next to me. I looked over and pile was so big they were falling off the side....sad truth. 6 years of that and at 46 I am done. 11 days sober...

InsertNameHere

I hear that we deffinetly have that drinking culture.

16 I started drinking non alcoholicly maybe once a month

20 started binge drinking on the weekends but not every weekend

22 Got in the fleet (regular operating force) Marine Corps started binge drinking every weekend and occaisionaly during the week.

24 drinking daily 15 beers a night give or take, give on the weekends.

25-28 had a couple of breaks in there for deployments but that is different from quiting, first day back I was trashed every time and went right back to daily drinking.

29 where I am now, I started to think it was a problem in November that markes the first time I tried to quit. It took me till now to get three weeks sober, using S&R and AVRT, I got a lot of advice asked some questions and made my big plan been sober since, and plan to keep it that way.

Well thats my drinking history

Fandy

this is me pretty much but i have to change some parts of it.

started drinking in my mid 20's for the same reason

I drank for about 20+ horrible years, with a few days of sobriety sprinkled in.
in 2009 i was sober for 9 days in a row due to being hospitalized for neuro problem, they found an anuerysm in my little pointy head...i continued to drink.

currently, i'm moving up on almost a year, but don't know the exact day, i gave up counting....I feel 10X better and younger and definitely less anxiety and depression. my circumstances are not perfect, but how i deal with them is the key. and I sleep at night. (who KNEW)????

bryangt

Drank for 40 years--heavy in college and then again in my 40's when I managed a bar (go figure)...but drank all of those 40 years. Tried to quit a few times...but did NOT surrender so back out I went. Lost my family....then towards the end got my 3rd DUI...lost license, good job and my freedom (did jail time). Sober for over a year now. Go to 3 or 4 AA meetings a week. Clawing my way back into life one day at a time.

chiyo

Drank from the ages of 15 to 32. Did try quitting a few times in those years but couldn't do it for more than a few days at a time. Almost 2 months sober now.

Forgot to add that I did not drink every time I was pregnant but went right back to right after each one of my children was born.

lillyknitting

Started drinking when I was 16, mainly because that was the thing to do. I met my husband when I was 17 he was 19, we drank together, like young people do, mainly pubs, some clubs etc., they were halcyon days where he took me to all the lovely places. I think I drank alcoholically from the start, by 25 I went to AA where I stopped for 5 years. I restarted drinking again, I was then in my thirties, in a new house, married, working lots and mixing with City crowd which I found exciting, intoxicating and the never ending parties. Waking with hangovers were normal and they were all part and parcel of the party/drinking scene, but I was young so could do my work as well. This lifestyle more or less continued right up until I had my daughter who was born 1991. I stayed at home to look after her with I loved but the drinking really took off when she was about 4. I found a friend who lived round the corner who loved Vodka as much as me. Took up drinking/driving. Husband worked nights so was lonely at night but drank at friend's houses and spent my Friday/Saturday nights drinking as much Vodka as I could with sad 50 year old men. What a waste of life. When daughter started school my drinking really took off because I met mutual mums who also loved a drink. This was a merry-go-round of waking up wishing the day would end so I could go back to bed. Looking after my daughter as much as I could and running the home, to looking forward to the next drinking session at whoever's house it was at the time. Went back to work in 2002, drinking was much much worse as had to get up in the morning for work feeling utterly dreadful and wanting to die. Getting myself ready for work as best I could, then looking forward to the next drinking session, mostly at home drinking on the phone until late into the night. Finally started to realise I could not carry on with this life, went back to AA (been on and off AA for 35 years). Been a lot better over the past 5 years. Dont really use AA, found Allan Carr's book really amazing, also looked into AVRT and lots of sober recovery books. Think I have finally found peace in the years 2011 and 2012. How many years is that? Ive surely lost count, lol.

Lost3000

Great thread!

I started at 15 with beer at my first kegger party. Looking back I think I was drinking alcoholically then. I managed to finish high school but just barely. In my 20s I really geared up in the club scene and had a brief affair with cocaine. I walked away from that quite easily but ramped up the drinking in my 30s. I quit 3 years ago and stayed sober for nearly 4 mos.

Now I'm 39 and am a little over 3 mos. sober and am not looking back.

hypochondriac

I started at 12, drinking whenever it was available which wasn't very often, basically the odd can of cider.

Aged 14 I drank once a week when out, Guinness and Jack Daniels, enough but not excessive.

Aged 16/17 I'd often be drinking half a bottle of vodka when out on top of everything else. This caused me to act like a bit of a dick and a friend made me quit for a few weeks.

From then on I stuck to beer mainly but drank everyday from 18 until one month ago. I'm now 30. So other than the odd day when I was too sick to drink I've pretty much drank every day apart from the last month and the few weeks when I was 17.

It seems like a lot but I figure if I live til I'm 60 I will have spent half of my life sober, rather than all of it drunk which is where I am right now.

Hevyn

Proud of all of you who saw the light at a much younger age than I did! I started in my 20's, loved it right away, & kept going for over 30 yrs. Quit for 3 yrs. once, but picked up again & it was much worse after being sober. 3 dui's, one with a .32 (Flutter, thank God you're still alive.) Drank all day & night in the end. Finally, 4+ yrs. sober.

eJoshua

I abused alcohol beginning when I was 15 or 16 until I got sober at 25. I will have 1 year on 4/12/12.

keepfinding2

It's hard to say how long I drank for. I wasn't an alcoholic when I started drinking. Maybe just one or two drinks per week max. Just goes to show you anyone can reach alcoholic status if they drink enough.