I have the desire to stop drinking. I plan to go to AA. What do I not understand? I choose to detox as the first step.
That is great news! Welcome to AA. I hope you find that the experience is a positive one. I didn't understand alcoholism, I thought I knew, but I knew very little about the disease before I came to AA.
Many people are disappointed or baffled with their first AA meeting. I hope that if you are not comfortable with the first group you try, that you will give another one a try.
Every group is somewhat different and that is because each group is autonomous and can run the meeting as they wish, as long as it follows the traditions.
Some meetings can also not be all that inspiring. Sometimes people aren't really in the mood to share, sometimes the reading is not all that relevent to how you might be feeling that day. Maybe you will end up with a preachy person in the group, it happens. At AA meetings you will have a fair representation of the general population: so, yes, you will meet all kinds of folks at an AA meeting and some will annoy you.
But others will make you laugh, cry, and you will almost always have something to think about after leaving a meeting.