12Bars, can you get a prescription to help you temporarily with the anxiety?

I have dealt with the kind of crushing loneliness of which you speak for most of my adult life. In my teens and 20s my shyness compounded the problem. Even now that I have at least gained a bit of confidence in myself it is the loneliness that drives my cravings, when they come. At the end of my addiction, I was doing blow along with booze-evidence that my addiction-and loneliness-was intensifying.

Based on the info you gave us, I would advocate an outpatient program. The fact that you got yourself sober is very encouraging. In all likelihood you will relapse (God forbid) but that's quite common even among those who have gone through some sort of intensive inpatient treatment. At the very least, you will have other addicts to talk to about your common struggles...I found the group therapy at times quite helpful and at the very least, it got me into the AA halls. I concur with the others, AA/NA is a very good idea; it may help with that loneliness, which I believe to be at the heart of most addictions. And not to sound like a broken record, but you might Google baclofen, which has been used successfully in recent years to treat coke addictions and more recently, alcohol cravings.