soopy99

Did you find it difficult to come to the realization that you couldn't drink moderately given that most of your life you weren't a heavy drinker? I struggled to convince myself I had a problem because I was a pretty normal drinker up until a few years ago. In my early twenties, I would throw away opened bottles of wine because they had been in my fridge too long and had gone bad. Somehow, by my early thirties, a bottle of wine would be gone within a few hours. It was a very gradual progression, and i don't know how/when I started having a problem. Up until recently, I was just trying to go back to my old drinking habits. It wasn't working.

Huglets

Initial attempt at age 43. Stayed sober for a year before I started again, convinced I could moderate my drinking. Result? Absolute failure.

Now 45 yo and almost 4 months sober. Unfortunately I needed a very low bottom to finally realize that alcohol is not the answer for me. Totally loving the sober lifestyle!

Drinking brought with it the vicious cycle of pain, shame, paranoia, depression, etc. The fact is that drinking stopped being fun 20 years ago.

EternalQ

Soopy, I drank in college then hardly drank a drop until my divorce at the very end of my thirties.

But by fortiy it was bad.

By the time I quit at 49 it was secretly ruining my life as I drank in secret at home. Only other drinkers knew I drank and they didnt stop when I did. Only creditors and neighbors and the clerks at all my liquor store knew what I had become. The rest of my loved ones I think still don't get how badly I was dependent on alcohol. That's how good a secret keeper I was.

I think the age and progression is irrelevant when compared to how enslaved, scared and ashamed you feel when you realize you can't moderate. Getting free of that enslavement is reason enough to quit.

The last year of not keeping secrets and not spending energy keeping my worlds apart has been the freest year of my life.

ClearLight

Ten years ago @ age 49 after a couple of decades of drinking.
That's when I decided to quit. I didn't actually quit until a week ago.

quitforme79

I am 33 too Planning to be quit til I die, one day at a time...

IWillWin

Great thread...

I got sober for real on my 40th birthday after a few attempts in the year or so prior.
I crammed a lifetime of alcoholic drinking between 35-40. I knew if I continued I'd wind up dead. I don't know why, exactly, but I just knew. So I put the plug in the jug and rebooted my life where I left off at 35...

Funny how all along, even during my "good" drunks and fabulous experiences, I innately knew the party wouldn't last forever and that I was an alcoholic. It did get bad, and fast. No legal issues or horrible episodes but hangovers became ungodly, I was unhappy and drinking did not enhance my life, it became my life.

I had to surrender and accept the fact that I cannot drink normally.

Coming up on 7 months. It has not, and probably will never be easy, but I don't regret my choice and I'm about 1000lbs lighter with that monkey off my back

debsam

I quit a week before my 42 birthday.

It will be 2 years on March 28th - calmest, clearest adult years of my life

Stash

28. My drinking buddy died bc she was drunk. She fell and broke her spinal cord. I despise alcohol now. Can't imagine myself drinking ever again.