JR...don't forget the parts in that book (I'm thinking it's the Lawrence Peltz one published by Shambhala) about loving kindness and compassion toward self. It's a lot easier to tear ourselves down than it is to build ourselves back up again.
I just got back from the Shambhala center after a weekend of warrior training. We probably meditated for ten hours this weekend. A much needed break from my routine, for sure. All I can really say is meditation is working for me, but I had to be sober for quite awhile before I could make it work. Such a strange thing to sit and do nothing but breathe and observe the mind for hours on end. When I tried a solo retreat in Spring 2014 I almost went mad. I didn't like what I saw in there - in my head and my heart. This weekend was a Level I training - basic introduction to meditation with a focus on the Shambhala concept of Basic Goodness. Some folks really struggled, but I'm happy to say that it was quite pleasant from my perspective. I've come to accept myself and my fate (if one could call it that) if not entirely at least a lot more than in the past.
I think I'm the same kind of alcoholic as you, JR, in that I rarely got ridiculously hammered, but I drank almost daily, and on weekends more than enough. It took some time without booze to realize that I was trying to suppress my disappointment - in myself, my career, my life - and the shame and guilt that grew out of everything from the abuse I endured as a child to the neglect I inflicted upon my dying mother, and the fact that I had become too much like my narcissistic father... and all the stupid **** I've done... Alcohol was an avoidance behavior - avoidance of reality - avoidance of the true nature of things - avoidance of the emotions that dogged me until I came to terms with them by sitting with them, feeling them, acknowledging them, and breathing them out - many many many many many many times...
The path of the Shambhala warrior is a path of bravery - of courage - the kind of courage that allows us to feel - allows us to see and to be awake regardless of our past and our current circumstance. Trungpa's crazy wisdom is that things are hopeless, but we have nothing to fear. Unfortunately, he drank himself to death.
It is a great irony that I met Trungpa in the 80's and I was turned off by the fact that I had read his books and so admired him, but he showed up to a meditation class late and hammered. Now, 30 years later and long after his untimely death, I've returned to the philosophy and the practice precisely because of my own addictions. The Shambhala center now has Buddhist 12-Step meetings twice a week (too far for me to attend for an evening), and though people don't like bringing up how he died, there seems a sense that his wisdom is what it is regardless of how he lived and died in the end. What better place to be accepted for who and what I am (an addict) than a Shambhala center?
So, JR, my suggestion would be keep with Peltz's book. Maybe read some Trungpa with fresh perspective. Nobody ever said it would be pretty, but if you look deeply enough you will see that Basic Goodness, not only in the world, but most importantly, in yourself.