Tough love from some. Heartfelt advice from all. Thank you. I will just keep plugging along and doing the best I can.

I tried to do this, I think there are some thing you miss from meetings however and there are some parts of the program that are very difficult to do on your own. I tried to solo some of the steps, not something I would necessarily recommend and I think it left me quite mixed up about the program.

There are however online meetings, some of them with voice chat (if you don't have a mike it's okay). Maybe start with that. It's okay too to be a silent listener in meetings, if you don't want to speak it's perfectly fine to say 'no thank you I'd rather listen'. You can get around to speaking when you are ready to.

Keep in mind that just about everyone is nervous at their first meeting, but there is very little judgment in a good AA meeting and I soon began to feel more comfortable as I heard stories and feelings exposed and expressed that were similar to mine, things that I had hidden for a very long time and felt isolated with.