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Antes bebía mucho y tenía malos vicios, pero ahora tengo buenos hábitos.

Antes bebía mucho y tenía malos vicios, pero ahora tengo buenos hábitos.
Before I used to drink a lot and had bad vices, but now I have good habits.
From Lesson 210:Duration of absence (llevar sin)·Spanish (Spain)

Questions & Answers about Antes bebía mucho y tenía malos vicios, pero ahora tengo buenos hábitos.

Why are bebía and tenía in the imperfect tense here instead of the preterite?
In this sentence, you are describing ongoing habits in the past, meaning things you 'used to' do. The imperfect tense is used for repeated actions or continuous states in the past where the exact start and end dates aren't the focus. The word antes (before) is a classic trigger for the imperfect.
Why do the adjectives come before the nouns in malos vicios and buenos hábitos? I thought Spanish adjectives usually go after.
You are right that most adjectives go after the noun to describe a distinguishing feature. However, common adjectives like bueno (good) and malo (bad) often go before the noun when they express an inherent, expected quality or a subjective evaluation. Putting them before the noun makes the statement feel a bit more natural and expressive here.
How could I express the idea of giving up these bad habits using this lesson's llevar + sin + infinitive structure?
To emphasize how long you have been free of those habits, you could say something like Llevo mucho tiempo sin beber (I haven't drunk in a long time) or Llevo años sin tener malos vicios (I have gone years without having bad vices). That structure highlights the duration of your new lifestyle, whereas our current sentence simply contrasts the past with the present.
Does the word vicios just mean 'vices' like in English, or is it used differently in Spain?
It is very similar to the English 'vices' (unhealthy habits like smoking or drinking). However, in Spain, you will also hear people use vicio playfully to mean they are completely hooked on something harmless, like a video game or a tasty snack, by saying ¡Qué vicio! (I'm so hooked!). In this sentence, malos vicios refers to genuinely unhealthy habits.

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