[greedoshotlast]

First of all, being less depressed will help you with women. IMHO you need to fix your own depression before you can proceed. It's also good to learn how to interact with women while not drinking (cue Raj from The Big Bang Theory). Women pick up on a man that is confident in his own skin.

I can't speak for LA, but when I was living in SF I would usually get on OkCupid or Tinder and arrange meetup dates at local coffeeshops. It was an easy first date. If there were no red flags at the coffeeshop, I would ask the woman to a second activity date doing something we both enjoyed.

Hope this helps, Good Luck!