One of my friends was on crack for 12 years. The way he sees it, he lost more than just those 12 years—before he started, he was earning over $75K a year, 25 years ago. That was gone quickly when he lost his job. He felt that moving to a different state to try to start over would work, but couldn’t catch his footing and started using again. After 4 states, he finally moved back to his home state.
He loved being high, only while high—he said it was the best he ever felt and it made everything else fall away emotionally. BUT. Everything else of value also did fall away, literally. For a while it was okay because the crack made him feel better. Then one day he just felt the deepest and most solid disgust he had ever felt in his life and quit cold turkey. He hasn’t touched crack in 13 years.
He regained his stability, has a great job/house/family, is quite rigid now about following a structure, eats very healthy and exercises for at least 2 hours every single day. He also depends on his faith in God to get him through. He struggles a bit with old issues that led him to become addicted in the first place, but works on them.
So, it can be done.
I do know another person, though, who is 54 and still has relapses every few months to years.