Originally Posted by
jimmyJlover 
I am nervous about setting foot in an AA meeting. First, because I'm afraid of seeing someone I know and being outed the first week. I really don't want that. Second, I just don't want to feel ashamed everyday going to a "meeting". I don't know if that is even true, probably just my inner self talking negative. Perhaps I am afraid to go because suddenly sh&t gets real...
I appreciate every single one of you who read this and/or have commented. It helps.
You've said a lot throughout your posts that resonate with me. Whether or not you go to AA is up to you. It's not my ideal program, but it was all I had available when I quit, and there were some good things that came of it. Being outed is a concern, and it will happen, not that the whole town will suddenly know about it, but you will eventually out yourself when you are sober and no longer feel the guilt and shame, and you can just tell people why you don't drink. In sobriety you will have a new life, and talking about your past won't be quite so "here and now."
I understand the outward appearance of acting normal while being torn up inside. I did much the same. People knew I drank a lot, but few understood the inner struggle, and only a small few were surprised when I told them. Most people that I told after I stopped drinking didn't make a big deal out of it. Their response was more like "Good for you," and that was about all they seemed to think or have to say about it. It will never be as big a deal for others as it is for yourself.
Like you I guess, I thought for years that I was in control, until I tried to actually control it, which was when I realized I was beyond the point of just being a guy that liked to drink. Just knowing that I was being controlled by alcohol other than by my own choice scared me. I resented being controlled by a substance. I could handle making an ass out of myself from time to time, but knowing that I was being controlled by an unthinking chemical substance pissed me off, and that was one of the factors that gave me the determination to quit for good.
That sounds like what you have been going through, and if you are like me, you might draw on that realization of your lack of control that you can only regain through abstinence. Be a bull about it and proceed with that determination, until you'll end up wondering who that guy was all those years letting you get to the state you were in. I actually look back and can't recognize myself anymore. It's kind of weird. I know it was me, but it's like it was someone else.