My hair was between neck and shoulder when I decided to transition. This pic was taken when my hair was OK.
I say it was OK because I'd just found a good stylist who touched it up for me and at this stage she didn't do that "let me hold your hand and break some bad news to you about your hair" move. This time she was somewhat pleased with it.
On my return for a second touch up, my hair ends were in such a bad state (sorry no pic) that I would have been embarrassed if the salon hadn't been a bit empty when after brushing my hair flat into a "looks bald do" she pulled a chair in front of me and held my hand the way you would when you're about to tell someone some really bad news they may not be able to handle, and said something like "There are people for whom perms are a no-no. I think you're one of those, and you probably will have to just accept that you aren't made for perms."
If I wasn't shy, I'd have stood up and done the Z-formation and put the lady in her place coz she obviously had not seen how good my virgin hair looks when relaxed. It was actually to prove her wrong that I decided to transition so I'd go back to her with virgin hair and see if she'd still sing the same tune and note she just did--which I had taken as such an insult, BTW.
So I braided my hair with extension--I do this myself and since I was already following a regimen of trimming 1/4 inch every 6-8 weeks, I decided I'd undo a braid at a time and trim then rebraid...so that I'd slowly get rid of my relaxed hair. Now I had an inch of growth when I decided to transition in braids in August 2001. I simply washed and conditioned my hair in braids any time it felt dry; redid my braids esp along the hairline whenever they got loose; and trimmed the ends estimating what __ ie 1/4 inch felt like per braid before rebraiding till all had been trimmed. Since I did my own braids, I was careful to use less hair per braid section so I didn't have a lot of weight pulling on my scalp from too much additional hair.
By August 2002, I was here:
(which was kinda the longest my hair had ever been even when relaxed and probably when I should have gone for the relaxer to prove my stylist wrong; but I didn't. Maybe funds were in short supply?... I don't really remember why it is I rebraided my hair again for another year instead of going down to set my stylist straight.)
I found and joined LHCF in July 2003, and in August 2003, took another pic of my hair and was floored.
NEVER in my wildest dreams did I imagine Nonie could have hair this long:
Let's just say that, having achieved this much, I've somewhat become complacent and just can't tell you if my hair can grow any longer than this coz I get excited and slack in my hair care when I get to this milestone so that retention just becomes a joke and set myself back. But I can tell you that when I was a teen going go boarding school where you were not allowed to braid your hair unless it could be put into less than 3 plaits, I fantasized about being able to divide my hair into 3 equal sections that could be forced to form even a pony half an inch in diameter. I just wanted to be able to plait it into three and tuck them under. I remember wishing so hard for that, even getting a jheri curl just to get there. I never imagined I'd not only be able to plait my hair in 3, but that I'd ever see my hair form a tail this long:
Granted, it's not waist or BSL or even APL. But it's LONG in my opinion from where I once stood. And it's all mine.
So yes, you CAN get your hair to at least APL or close if you learn all you can and use common sense not to get sucked into "magic potion" fantasies. Just good, sensible hair care and diet and exercise.
Unfortunately, in 2005, it broke off, back to neck/shoulder length, 
due to abuse of heat and relaxers. Six months later, I found LHCF. 
