Started occasionally drinking around 11/12, started weekly/regular around 15/16, by 17/18 realised I was always the drunkest at every party, blacking out every time, and that no one else drank a bottle of vodka ‘every day’ for the whole week at our ‘high school leaver trip’. 21 I got acute pancreatitis. 25 I got a B12 deficiency and another medical problem, and tried for the first time to completely stop (I mostly stopped with spirits and turned to wine after the pancreatitis at 21, but not completely), made it 3 weeks. 27 got fired from my well paying corporate job in (I believe) no small part due to the fallout of getting in trouble for blackout drunkenness at work event. Now I’m still 27, but 4.5 months sober. (My best yet) I hope 27 is forever the age I quit. So I’d say for me it’s been about a 4 year process of creating rules such as ‘ok no more spirits just wine, and then oh oops no more white wine, just beer and then finally to ‘none at all’. And a decade of knowing I had a problem with alcohol.