Originally Posted by
mle-sober 
Herennow,
My biggest thought when I read your post is that you seem to be making the choice not to attend a meeting out of fear that you might be recognized as an alcoholic. Anything, in my experience, done out of fear is suspicious. If you are not sharing your experience and not meeting others like yourself because you are afraid you will be recongized.... I don't know.... that seems strange to me. Maybe I don't know what it's like to live in a small town. I'm not ashamed of being an alcoholic. Nor am I ashamed to be seen attending AA meetings.
I know others might have different, more sympathetic experiences to me. I can imagine it might be uncomfortable at first. But I guess I would work to push past that.
I do go to meetings and I do find an enormous amount of good in them. But I know, at the same time, that there are people who stay sober without them, obviously. I'm not trying to say that we NEED to attend meetings. Just saying that if the reason you're not (and you are curious and kind of want to see what it's like) is because you're afraid of being recognized, then I would examine that because it seems like fear or shame. And when I'm coming from a place of fear or shame, I am tending toward trouble one way or another.
Congratulations on your sober time.
Alright I am going to chime in now because I thought very similarly along the lines of Mle when I read your original post. To each their own, but being limited by fear to the extent that you have never ever set foot in an AA meeting must be difficult. It also means that a part of you is probably ashamed of being an alcoholic. The fear and the shame are two things that I would think examining would make for a happier and more whole life if nothing else.