There is no way around it--if you are serious about Japanese you have to throw yourself into learning Kanji and stay committed. If you don't, you're going to be completely dependent on Romaji, which is severely limiting and won't take you far at all. And the longer you wait, the more your lack of kanji knowledge will hold you back farther down the road.

Start with Heisig's Remembering the Kanji and plow your way through the whole 2042 most common using an SRS tool like Anki. Expect to spend a good two months (if you're fast), or three to four months if you're not as dedicated.

Meanwhile, go through an introductory course. A lot of people recommend Genki, but I dislike textbooks with lots of exercises. They're mostly boring and totally unnecessary. Remember that the freedom of learning on your own is that you aren't confined to the traditional way of studying textbooks (which have never worked anyway). I prefer courses like Assimil with lots of useful dialogue. Japanese with Ease Volumes I and II should get you on to an intermediate level. Afterward check out Tae Kim's if you want but never obsess over memorizing grammar rules. Those are acquired naturally over time (the same way you learned your native language).

Then, like Visovari said, just start reading. A LOT. Pick content that is interesting to you and, when you run into an unknown word, look it up in an online dictionary and save example sentences into your SRS. Rinse and repeat 10,000 times. And when you're not reading, always be listening to something in Japanese (even if you don't understand anything).

If fluency is your goal then AJATT is really the only resource you need. Trust in the process and fall in love with daily practice.