@Makemineasoda, and all newbies, if I can add my advice to @WendyWagon's, please get some Vitamin B1 and take high doses for 6 weeks or so. Anyone detoxing from a high intake of alcohol should do this. Also known as Thiamine, it will help to prevent brain damage caused by withdrawal. I am not medically qualified , but I understand that brain damage is rare but devastating, so it is worth taking them as a precaution. You could also take a B Complex tab, or a Multi-Vit, as the odds are that your stores will b depleted, but the important one is B1. Multi-vitamins and B Complex won't have enough of a dosage to be effective against brain damage. You can't overdose on it, as you excrete it (in luminous urine - so be prepared for that!).
Also, learn what drives your desire to drink and be kind to it. Is is a habit/routine? Is it to give you confidence socially? There are many possibilities, but knowing which triggers apply to you can stop you pulling them.
I found the habit of dividing the working day from the 'social' evening with a drink hard to break. I had a stressful job, and would go out afterwards, then go home and carry on drinking until I fell into bed, slept it off and started again the next day. To deal with this, when I stopped drinking I switched to AF wine, and the ritual of opening it, pouring it into a wine glass and sitting with it in the evening was a real help. I also gave up working, which is not an option open to all, I realise.
I found hypnosis helpful, and got some sleep headphones to play the tracks in bed. I'd have a scented bath and used the same smell in a warmer in the bedroom (waterless diffusers have come on stream since then, but I used a hot stone one) so that over time I learnt to associate the smell with relaxation and sleep. I found insomnia difficult, but got round that by making being in bed as pleasant as possible. As well as the smell of the bath and the oil (the money saved on wine lets you splash out on really nice ones without feeling guilty) and the hypnosis, I put a TV in the bedroom and watched 'easy watching' series if I couldn't sleep. Nothing too taxing (for me it was Downton Abbey and Stella) but enough to take away the fear of lying there sleepless. That was a real fear for me, which makes less sense now, but once I recognised it, it was easier to deal with it.
Your triggers may be very different, and I don't think there is a foolproof way of stopping drinking. I didn't like 'quit lit', for instance, as it just reminded me of drinking (and I saw/see it as capitalising on the misery of addiction) but many people find it very helpful. I did post online on a site that no longer exists, and found that very helpful, but even that was (for me) sometimes too accepting of regular (often weekly) 'lapses'. Others interpreted that tolerance as being supportive, and neither view is right or wrong, but it's important to find the right approach for you.
Good luck, everyone, and welcome. There will be a mutual toast to and from us all on Christmas Day, so feel free to raise a glass of something AF with your sober sisters and the lovely Sid, who cheers us all on from his cabin.