What Is Bad

I am pondering my ability to focus on the negative and short-sheet the positive.  I know a lot of drunks who do this so I don't feel too weird, but it's still a powerful and perplexing impulse.  I see Earth People do this, too, so I know that it's not only drunks who see What Is Bad.  I understand that being optimistic or being pessimistic is mostly a state of mind, a kind of attitude, but I bet a lot of the counselors and shrinks and PhDs that I have talked to over the years about my hundreds of psychoses, quirks, and aberrations would confirm that nature plays a part.  I have worked hard as hell to develop a positive attitude over the years but still have a tendency to focus on What Is Bad.  Some of us appear to be more negative than others.

I'm good at negative.  It comes naturally to me.

I have lived in 4 different cities during the course of my sobriety and the meetings have all had a different flavor.  In City 1 the group stayed together in one room, and we went around the table so that everyone got to share, but not for long.  City 2 had a mini lead on a Step, then broke up into small groups.  Everybody got to share there, too, and for a lot longer time, which I liked because it gave me the opportunity to prattle on about myself for as long as I wanted, but the meetings took up a lot more time, which I didn't like because once I got done talking about myself I was ready to go home.  City 3 had the larger group format but you had to raise your hand if you wanted to talk.  It was kind of intimidating when I first moved there because nobody knew what a God of Sobriety I was, and I was a lot more timid than I am, which is not timid at all.  Now I'm in City 4 where the meetings are large and the chair calls on people.  It's harder for people to get to know you if you don't get a chance to talk, and they miss out on the whole God of Sobriety thing.

I'm sure I'll be able to get everyone to do it my way.