It's okay, Aching. We all get those feelings. What helps me is to remember that I AM different! And that's fine. I'm finally okay with that. I'm different from many people in many ways. This is just one of them. It doesn't make us bad people or broken people. In fact, it means that we know that there's this one thing we just can't do and we're willing to find a way to live with it. Sobriety is a difficult decision. Alcoholism isn't a decision, despite what some may think. Sobriety though means that we acknowledge this illness we have and we have become willing to make a very difficult change. It's one of the most mature and humbling things a person can do. In many ways, it would be easy to just stick with drinking. We could let our lives be defined by our disease and by how it causes us to be perceived by people and just accept our "fate."
Instead, we stand up and decide to change. Not just putting the plug in the jug. We make fundamental changes in the way we act, think and live. We have become willing to turn our lives upside down and inside out. "Why?" many people ask. Why not just quit drinking and leave it at that? If it was that easy, none of us would be alcoholics. Normies don't usually understand how deep our disease goes. It's in our minds, our emotions and our bodies. It's EVERYWHERE! So that means we have to change EVERYTHING! This seems drastic to many who aren't aware of how alcoholism works. But we are brave (or really, desperate) and we change. Many of our loved ones are overjoyed because they see how we have suffered. But our drinking buddies, even our casual friends, are confused. It seems that we are overreacting and perhaps being melodramatic.
One of the hardest things is to stick to your sobriety when people around you don't understand what's going on. They think it's an issue of morality or self control. We just need to have enough willpower to drink like gentlemen/ladies. I laugh. Willpower? It takes a shitton of willpower to drink the way I did! No, it's not willpower. It's acceptance and it's honesty and it's the willingness to be unashamedly different.