I started learning at 28 and at 31 now I'm earning okay money. Be aware it may take longer for you than success stories the internet may lead you to believe. You can totally learn by yourself given some determination and time. The hard part is getting the interviews for that first job.

My advice to you if you are looking to enter the industry as soon as possible is to not go too deep into modern Javascript frameworks just yet (despite them being awesome and fun) and instead focus on html, CSS, jquery and WordPress backend development in php. Those things aren't sexy and will feel obsolete and I personally dislike them very much, but these skills are highly in demand in agencies and will imo give you the best possible chance of netting you a junior position pretty quickly. And once you have your foot in the door, you can learn on the side and move on to more interesting things later. I also recommend learning some node and using it to build some personal projects on github and contribute to open source as soon as you feel able. An active github will demonstrate commitment, passion and knowledge of collaborative workflows and git and will to an extent make up for your lack of a degree.

The learning part will be relatively straightforward as long as you can put the time in, but the job hunt will be frustrating and sometimes very discouraging. But keep going and you will eventually find a company ready to take a chance on you. Once you find that first job and stay in it for a while, not having a degree won't matter anymore and you'll be set to work on moving up in your new career. Best of luck!