What Walkertall said is correct.
Quitting drinking is the easy part, it's the living a life without alcohol that's the difficult bit. You've said you've been drinking since you were 15, sounds as if you know no other way of living.
AA has taught me how to live a life without alcohol and be the person that I know that I am, not the drunken one that others see. Why rule out trying an AA meeting? It sounds as if you're on the verge of losing something that you hold dear, it also sounds as if you're unsure how to live without it.
In my time in AA i've met hundreds of people that were in a similar position to yourself, i'm one of them too. Why not just approach with an open mind and see how these people have done it?
I had reservations about AA, but someone said to me, 'why not try it for 3 months? After those 3 months the pubs, off licences will still be there waiting for you...the places you buy alcohol from are never going to go away and what's 3 months out of the number of years you've been drinking. ' I heard that at my first meeting and thought what the hell, he's got a point.
Unfortunately the guy who gave me that advice is no longer with us, he went back to those alcohol stores and this year I attended his funeral, he was 38.
This disease is a killer, but not just a killer of the body...it strips everything you hold dear away...it destroys dreams, destroys the person you want to be and kills the soul of the living.
If you are an alcoholic, and nobody is going to call you one, then have an open mind with regards to AA as you've got nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Paul