Mr Peters,
Take a deep breath and sign up to a distance learning course. It'll cost a few quid but only really a drop in the ocean compared to the overall cost.
Have the patience to sit down and learn all of this theory and pass the 14 exams and you will be in a very good position with this under your belt. It's not an exciting prospect but why not get the boring bit out of the way first.
Either that or take out a huge loan do loads of flying then run out of money half way through then bitch and moan on the pprune how difficult it all is.
Mr P