it only takes me a couple of years. like hair anywhere, every individual's hair is genetically programmed to grow to a certain length before starting to fall out, and that's my limit for beard length.

funny/relevant story: i was out drinking with friends late one night and ended up at one of their homes for the night. at some point during the night his drunk girlfriend decided that my beard was too long and applied a fairly radical fix with some scissors which i was too drunk to object to.

it was a work day the next day so after i woke up on the living room floor i headed straight into work. at that point i didn't remember the details of the night before until people at work started commenting on it. dude, where's my beard???

all good, though, it does grow back.