Your best bet for the first couple of batches would be to brew a kit, that way you can work on your brewing process with a recipe and ingredients that are proven to work and taste good....Since you like stouts there are plenty of great kits at your LHBS or Online...The Brewer's Best kits are really good, and a lot of people swear by Austin Homebrew Supply online.
Not all stout styles are high ABV, the average stout most of us drink runs between 4 and 6% according to bjcp style guide, although the range of all stouts go from 4 to 12 percent....
But a good quaffable commercial stoutslike Guinness, Murphy's Stout, Beamish Stout, O’Hara’s Celtic Stout, Russian River O.V.L. Stout, Three Floyd’s Black Sun Stout, Dorothy Goodbody’s Wholesome Stout, Orkney Dragonhead Stout, Old Dominion Stout, Goose Island Dublin Stout, Brooklyn Dry Stout, Mackeson's XXX Stout, Watney's Cream Stout, Farson’s Lacto Stout, St. Peter’s Cream Stout, Marston’s Oyster Stout, Sheaf Stout, Hitachino Nest Sweet Stout (Lacto), Samuel Adams Cream Stout, Left Hand Milk Stout, Widmer Snowplow Milk Stout, Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout, Young's Oatmeal Stout, McAuslan Oatmeal Stout, Maclay’s Oat Malt Stout, Broughton Kinmount Willie Oatmeal Stout, Anderson Valley Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout, Tröegs Oatmeal Stout, New Holland The Poet, Goose Island Oatmeal Stout, and Wolaver’s Oatmeal Stout are all in the 4-6% ABV range.
If you've tried and like any of these brands, then that's what you'll want to brew. Brewing's about taste for most of us, not about getting hammered, if we wanted to just get hammered, a quart of COlt Malt Liquor would be a lot cheaper and less time consuming then the time and patience involved in breweing a great beer...
Since you're just starting out I highly recommend reading this thread
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=54362 and if you haven't already I also recommend
http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html one of the best books on homebrewing, and it happens to be free online.
Welcome to the obsession!