Hey Boonie. Welcome to SR. Sorry to hear of your loss of home and marriage. That's a toughie. Been through that. Drank over that.
Now that you've posted over here in the step 1 subforum, I'll comment.
Whether you're an alcoholic or not is totally up to you to find out. Admitting you're an alcoholic two years ago was a good start... two years ago. You may have missed something. You may not have. In any case, this is what I do; I do steps yearly. That includes going head to head with the 1st Step. Am I an alcoholic? Am I not? The path of consideration here is a huge deal for us.
What if I am NOT an alcoholic? Maybe I can just decide to stay away from the 1st drink and stay that way. Maybe I can control my drinking, drink 2 and stop. I go into my experience with this; have I tried to control my drinking once I started? How did that go? Am I a situational drinker? Once all of my troubles are behind me, I can drink normally again. Once I grow up... ah, too late for that.
Maybe I AM an alcoholic. What does that mean? It means a lot more than just abstaining from alcohol. Ask yourself this; how far can you go in this world on your power? How are you with making a living, personal relationships... including yourself, how are you with being of usefulness to others, are you prey to misery and depression? Could you use some Power here? Maybe you don't need A.A. to get this. Maybe a church, or a psychiatrist, a counselor, the gym, education... Maybe there's some ritual you can do... like just go to meetings and don't do any steps. Let the group be your higher power.
But if you find that you ARE an alcoholic and you want to quit for good and all and are willing to do a few things to achieve a useful happy sober life, you may want to try the steps. If this is the case, get that book out and read all of those words, not just words like powerless and surrender.
When I read the proposals of the 1st Step, I don't see them as questions begging answers... but just sit with the words for a bit and experience that. I experience hopelessness or powerlessness. I realize that my life on my own power will not work. The book talks about this in the 3rd Step I believe; I don't have a book handy, but "Any life run on self will is bound to fail." And if I'm not mistaken, that realization is the "first requirement."
So are you going to do these steps or not? Are you going to give A.A. a shot or not? Are you going to write that inventory, 5th Step it, ask God to remove all of your defects of character... the bad stuff, and the good stuff? Are you going to make a list, make all of your amends, pray and meditate, pitch a new drunk?
It's up to you, Bud. Either you're going to do this stuff or you're not. In that sense, you are not powerless... hopeless.
But relapsing is NOT ok. Either get in or get out. If you're gonna do A.A., do it all the way. Or as the book says, "If you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps." But if you're not going to do A.A. and do something else, you're gonna have to go all the way with it.
But as you know, we're not here to persuade you one way or the other. As you know, booze does that.
I'm here to tell you that A.A. really works, but so few get in and do it. Go to any convention anywhere in the world and compare the number of young sobriety to old sobriety. Why is that? Do the oldtimers go to some other convention? Go to that convention again a year later; same number of people, but different people. We don't all make it. Be one of the ones that do. I am... no matter what. And I'm doing it in A.A.