Hi Pigtails: I so relate to what you are saying. I am on day eight today, and at day five, I went into a meeting that was a round robin (with about 80 people there who all sounded great to me
and when it got to me, I started crying and said sorry, it's really hard for me to express these feelings, and everyone said, you're fine, don't worry about it.
I got sober for nine years and then relapsed, and I was in an outpatient program back then, and every single day of that program, I would start crying. Everyone else was talking about how great they felt, ooh, I am a week sober and I feel fabulous! Never felt better! Haven't had a drink, how wonderful! And as they were all saying this stuff, I was bawling and saying I have never felt worse in my lifel
And I asked my then sponsor about it, and said, why I am the only one in the entire group who is crying so much, who is so emotionally up and down all the time.
And you know what she said? She said it is because you are really doing this, and they are not. And you know what? Not one single person in the entire group made it through the program sober besides me. I am not congratulating myself (because look at me now--I relapsed and am still a crying mess
But she was right--I was starting to feel things for the first time in a long time, and there is no way if you're dong that to put on the happy face and say, I feel great!! Yes, you can see, for the first time in a long time, the beauty in things. You can appreciate that you are alive. You can have huge amounts of gratitude. But you still are feeling things that you have tamped down for the longest time, and those feelings can't help but come out, even in the strangest of times, and that in itself is a great thing.
So I say feel free to cry or do whatever you have to do at any meeting you go to. There is nothing that you can do that is not OK. It's all good, except for drinking.
So it sounds to me like you are doing absolutely great, and I am so glad you wrote about it so that I don't sound or feel like a freak either