Need encouragement

Hello all, I'm Jessica 39F alcoholic. And it happened quickly. I start off drinking a couple shooters a day and that got up to 20+ in three months. Yesterday I went to the ER and my liver enzymes were five times the normal. My potassium crashed and I was severely dehydrated. Bilirubin is high and my bile duct is dilated which is making it hard to digest food which in turn makes me throw up if I am eating spicy things or greasy things or drinking fireball. Which is my drink of choice.

I've been drinking every day since March 18th. I know it's not a long time but it's long enough for me to find out how much I do not want to fall back into this cycle. I was a iv heroin user for 15 years and have been clean from it for 10 years. I recently had my right ovary and fallopian tube removed because I had a pretty large tumor on it. Ever since that surgery my hormones and my emotions and my health went whacky.

Drinking was the thing I got to numb it, nothing else would. But I just had to endure the medical problems, not find a crutch that is already starting to hurt me after 3 months of drinking.

I have been drinking daily for 3 months. I'd say recently it's been about a fifth a day. Yesterday I was shaking in the hospital and sweaty and my muscles were spasming and I thought to myself there is no way I'm going through withdrawals after not drinking for only 8 hours or so, but I was.

Are withdrawals pretty standard? I've only been drinking for three months but I have an addict brain. Will I experience DTs? I think I'm going to start tapering. I went from 15 shooters on Thursday to only 9 yesterday and I felt pretty shitty but I made it through. I've only had 6 today so far but it's only pushing 1 o'clock. I'm going to try my hardest to stay at 9 but if I don't, I'll start again fresh tomorrow because I just discovered the sip and suffer plan and through that plan I found this group. And I am so grateful.

I know if I can kick heroin, I can kick this, I just want to be careful. I am a full time single mom of three and I can't afford to go to rehab and not be working. I have a pretty laid back easy job and it's going to be really easy the next few weeks.

If any of you tapered, was it easier than going cold turkey? I'm just nervous about what is going to happen and I'm just looking for some advice and encouragement.

Thanks everyone.