Aellyce

When I started experiencing intense cravings for alcohol, a mental obsession about when and how I can get to the liquor store and then home asap, and would pour myself a drink first thing upon arriving home (early 30's). In retrospect, it's clear that I was already drinking alcoholically even before I became very aware of the cravings and obsession (and I suspected it as a problem), but it took a while for a realization to fully hit my consciousness. From that point on, I never questioned my addiction anymore or went back to denial and living that way (fully aware of what I was doing but unable to stop) was definitely the most painful phase of it. Several years of that. I got sober a month before my 40th birthday.

Mikie9

I finally believed that inner voice I had been ignoring for years when one morning feeling like total death, I realized I was no longer eating an evening meal, barely eating any sort of breakfast, and choking down a lunch.

I was starving one day on the way home from work, had a fleeting thought of going to a restaurant... and promptly bought my beer and drank through the hunger. It still took a few years to stop going to that same place over and over. I could fix the issue rather quickly, but only temporarily.

Waterfalls2014

When I started lushing down 3 beers in 15 mins and worrying that there was only 9 left. Jeez that looks bad written down.

ArtFriend

I think I suspected an affinity for alcohol when I was in college. I liked the feeling booze provided a little too much. I didn't drink at all after college until I got into my mid-30s and then it was socially. I really picked up after some major events happened in my life and it spun out of control.

Soberwolf

I knew i was Alcoholic at 31 i got sober at 31

i really didnt know/think i was Alcoholic looking back it was obvious

MelindaFlowers

This!!!! I was always always worried about having enough or running out. I would worry, like you, even when there were nine left!

seaside

I think I knew in high school that normal people didn't drink to passing out every time. At 25 I was in rehab and divorced....

sickofthiscrap

used to get spirits from my parent's drinks cabinet and mix them together then top the bottles up with water.

Hah, I used to do this at the house of the family I babysat for! How bad is that. I was only about 18 at the time. Seems I was an alcoholic from the start...

MelindaFlowers

I knew I was an alcoholic when I tried to stop drinking but couldn't. It was in 2010. I was 28. I stopped in 2014 at 32.

ReadyAndAble

I suppose the question had knocked around in the shadows of my mind for many years, but I didn't consciously begin to ponder it until I was about 40. Over the next year or two, after making several failed attempts to quit, a deeper, darker fear set in. I could no longer "enjoy" a drink; I knew exactly what it was, why I was drinking it. I began to doubt I could ever stop, began to envision a really grim end for myself. But I still felt somehow unique, special, and very much alone. Not at all like the alcoholics of my imagination. It wasn't until I stumbled upon SR, and started reading people's stories here, that I realized I wasn't special at all. And I definitely wasn't alone. And that gave me a lot of hope, because I realized if all these other people had been through the same dark passage, and made it out the other side, then I could, too. That's when the label went from being an epitaph to being a source of compassion and hope.

Wastinglife

I was 29 when I was hit with the self-awareness that I was an alcoholic and not just someone who likes to drink a lot. I had graduated to drinking vodka at this point. Minimum a fifth every night after work, more on weekends. It was at this point where I was experiencing withdrawal symptoms each morning. I would have to sneak off to the pub at lunch for a couple pints by myself just to stop the shakes.

I knew I was alcoholic, but I continued drinking for another 5 years. Madness....

MythOfSisyphus

I knew on some level by my mid-20's that I had a problem. It took me almost 20 years to fully admit it and do something about it.

MaisieDay

I pretty much knew that I was drinking a bit differently than my friends right from the start, in my early teens. The first time I got drunk was like ambrosia. I clearly remember coming home from a high school dance and sitting in my room thinking "Woah, what the hell is THIS feeling!??" It felt like coming home. I have diary entries from my early 20s wondering if I was an "alcoholic", and I pretty much self-labeled as such by my late 20s, but .... I didn't really care. And by that point, I wasn't drinking so differently than my friends, because I had found a bunch of fellow drunks to hang out with, so it didn't feel so..wrong, and it was fun. And I managed to get through uni and I liked my job, and all of that, so I couldn't really see the harm. By my early 30s, it wasn't so much fun, and it definitely had stopped being social. By my mid-30s I was actively trying and failing to stop, especially as I was starting to think about the whole kids and "settling down thing" (yeah, rather late, I know!). I kind of "gave up" in my early 40s, just sort of resigned myself to it. I'm in my mid-40s now, and damned if I am going to let this stupid drug steal any more of my time!

afloatsober

I knew in my 20's. used to look at the 'park bench drunks' and kinda knew that someday i could end up there. Why would i think that when i was on the 'up', dressed in my finery with briefcase swinging.....
At 36, an ultimatum forced me to face the fact and then started 17 years of trying to quit.
The fact that i couldn't stop was my final convincer.
But I never stopped trying.
G

Stayingsober72

I'm just about the same as haennie, except just got sober right after my 42nd birthday.

UnixBer

It started to become obvious when I tried to stop drinking, but could only for a short time. Even then I was denying it. It took a longer cycle of stopping and starting until I fully accepted that this was the case.

Dee74

Despite drinking all day every day for several years, I'd convinced myself this was the only way I could deal with my own particular issues and problems.

I was actually pretty deep in denial until I came to SR.

D

360shoes

Pretty much the first time I drank myself stupid and said I wasn't doing that again.
And then I did.

Call it what you want, I knew that wasn't normal.

Nowsthetime

Early 20s. Took me 10 yrs and countless "episodes" to finally quit. Realized I had to face my problems and things that had happened to me and that I had to move forward and make my life what I wanted it to be. I didn't want to be that kind of mother anymore and I never wanted to blackout again and put myself in dangerous situations. Eventhough right now I don't consider myself one any more (since I'm a non-drinker ) I was one for a long time.

Newpathway

I drank a lot from 19 to 22 and suddenly stopped because I just wanted to feel better. I remember having 2 part time jobs and finished at one around 9 p.m. One night, partied until around 430 a.m. then napped for a bit before going for my other job for 8:30 a.m. I woke up and decided I didn't want to feel this wrecked anymore.

Didn't drink much at all for years after that. Especially while raising my children. I was hungover once when looking after them and it was H - E double L!

Fast forward and I'm 40. My children are teenagers and I take up drinking. I'm loving it too! It's relieving a lifetime of anxiety and stress and I remember telling friends that I wished wine was included in the healthy eating pyramid. I wished I could just drink all the time. It seemed harmless to me for 5 or so years. I stayed trim and looked fit and attractive and was functioning so well I hoped I was probably in denial. But I could drink and go to bed and get up and work and believed for a long time that wine just simply didn't give me hangovers. I thought there was something a bit 'special' about it. I also believed I may have a unique ability to handle drinking as a lifestyle since so many relatives (aunts & uncles) were highly functioning alcoholics with money and careers and busy lives. Funny I thought if it was easy for them and there could be a party and fun around them all the time then maybe so could I. It didn't occur to me that they might have been suffering somehow.

5 years ago I started gaining weight and having estrogen dominance and losing my hair and even with exercise was unable to lose weight. I had though the underlying problem could be the wine but I quickly dismissed it's effects on my body systems and instead increased my exercise, took vitamins and reduced my eating even more to offest the wine. I really believed that was a solution. I was deeply unwilling to consider the wine as the root of all my growing physical issues.

2 years ago I started getting terrible hangovers and panic attacks. I really had to work hard to put one foot in front of the other to keep working and functioning. Stress that I used to feel relieved from was actually growing and I was entering probably the progressive part of the disease that brings you closer to death's door. I was feeling sick and worn down most of the time. I had lost a glow of the living and was now dead looking and even my facial expressions were flat and my voice inflection because I was all over worn out. My inner spirit was quelled. This is when I realized that I had a problem with alcohol. It's when I realized that all my 'functioning' alcoholic family members had been a lie. I landed in emerge a couple of times but declined detox and felt confident I had been scared into quitting. Not so. Once I felt better I a few days I decided I would drink moderately so I could keep some sort of relationship with the wine. That didn't work either. Basically drinking began making me feel sick. Instead of the warm and satisfying feeling of those first sips after work when making dinner I felt ill and my taste buds rejected it. I was forcing myself to keep drinking because it will 'feel better'. In the end I just stopped. I just couldn't enjoy it. In fact I got severely negative reactions to it so it eventually extinguished my desire to drink...There was no more reward of any kind in it. Unfortunately I now had to admit to myself that my drinking hobby had come to a close.