comparing your insides to peoples outsides and feeling as if everyone else has the instruction manual for life and I don't.

Why do most alcoholics feel different? I always felt like everyone else has received the instruction manual of life and I never did. Now I know that's not true but I always felt as if I was better than most people or inferior to most people, never equal. And when I drank I felt normal and a part of everyone. Did anyone else feel this way?

After being in AA the feeling of apartness and difference melted away. Meeting different people in AA and hearing their stories I realized everyone has had those same insecure feelings I had and that we are not that different.