When I was a young teenager (13-15), I just kind of assumed (and hoped, I guess) that eventually I would grow out of it and it would just go away. I hit my early 20s and that hadn't happened, so I just kept waiting. Mid 20s and eventually late 20s came, but nothing had changed. That's when I finally accepted that if anything was going to change, it would only happen through me taking initiative and doing something for myself. I was reluctant to start official speech therapy again, I tried it a 2nd time for ~6 months when I was 18-19 but it didn't magically fix anything, like I was naively hoping it would. So I did some reading online and eventually stumbled across a book called [Self-Therapy for the Stutter](https://www.amazon.com/Self-Therapy-Stutterer-Malcolm-Fraser/dp/0933388454). It basically re-enforced the same ideas and principles my past therapists did: slow down, make sure you breathe, focus on what you're saying. I read the book and did (almost) everything it suggested. I noticed a definite improvement in my fluency, and with that comes confidence, which brings more fluency. It's a positive snowball effect. But then I got "lazy" and stopped practicing and doing my exercises and I noticed my fluency began to deteriorate. I forced myself to "get back on the train" and do the exercises and read the book on a regular basis, and things did get better. From my experience, if you still have fluency problems after your early 20s, they won't go away unless you actively work on it. You basically need to re-train your brain how to talk. At first it takes good amount of conscious effort, you need to actively work on the techniques and it's hard to go over the "how do I get past this block checklist" when you're in the middle of one -- because it's stressful and you start to panic, which only makes the block worse. tl;dr: you need to practice and work at it continuously if you want hope for improvement. eventually it will become more natural and less of an effort, but it takes time and practice.