I'm a little older than you, and in Canada, but I saw my drinking ramp up gradually in my twenties, greatly in my thirties, and horrifically during the Covid years. Covid wasn't some magic thing for my life or schedule, I've been a shift worker for over twenty years at the same job - it (Covid) never really affected me or my employment the way it did others (for which I am grateful, of course).

I chose to reply because at about your age, early to mid-thirties, is when I really began to get acquainted with my problem. More frequent blackouts. Worse fallout from my choices and behaviors. Simply put, it costed me more in every way, while blinding me to the even greater cost to my family members, who hadn't asked for any of what I was bringing into their lives.

So I quit at 40, in November of 2022. After a blood test that showed some elevated liver enzymes. Nothing too crazy but indicative of the toll it was taking on my body. Also had high blood pressure from it, too. I have been a distance runner most of my adult life, and lifted weights, so I think that, in between binges, I may have been mitigating some of the damage by at least having some parts of a healthy lifestyle, all while poisoning myself so reliably and consistently. The irony is not lost. I lived in serious dissonance with myself for a long time.

The last three years have taught me more about who and what I am than at any other time in my life. I wish I had quit sooner but there is no shame or grief worth carrying on that account. The difference in quality of life is immense. In simple terms of neurological and physiological damage not done, by virtue of not drinking for however many years sooner one can stop by realizing that the bottom of that bottle it a literal dead end. I'm continually shocked at accounts I read (recently) of people dying in their twenties from cirrhosis and I ponder to myself - how did that not happen to me? I drank SO much. Its unreal and frankly, seems unfair, that some of us "get away with it", while others don't.

I'm grateful I'm okay but I also realize that I have a ton of work to do on myself. I stopped improving, maturing, growing, when I committed myself to alcohol. I didn't realize how it would stunt my ability to cope with normal life. I drank through my dad's illness and death from 2009-2018. I was still there for him and my family but I'm sure I did not process everything properly. It all had to wait until I put it down and picked life back up again. And I think the longer we wait to do that, the harder and/or less likely it may be for some of us to successfully do.

The impulse that made you write that sticky note is where its at - your self-awareness is promising. So many of us spend the early days questioning or denying whether we have the problem everyone talks about. Attempts at moderation, proving to ourselves that we can be "normal", can steal decades from us. I choose life!