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Just lookin’

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How many times have we responded with this “just lookin'”  to a sales person while out shopping. This translates to  a fact that I probably won’t buy anything. At least that is the way that it works for me.

When I was trying to figure out why I was addicted to this or that and couldn’t get the monkey off my back I began to look for relief.  I would go here and there, read this and  that  finally realize  that my will power alone would not deliver me from  my problem. It would not deliver me from my addiction to alcohol. Finally, when my life fell totally apart, I was given a choice by my employer, go into treatment or go to the local 12 Step program of AA. I crawled into the local AA meeting. I had to go so I went with the attitude that I’m just lookin’. I have a problem, but nothing I really can’t handle. Well, I finally realized that I couldn’t handle my addiction without help. I finally admitted that I am an alcoholic. One drink was too many and a thousand wasn’t enough as the saying goes.  I learned that because of “my self-will run wild” that my life was in the shambles that it was.

Resultant of attending meetings week after week that I found my help and the solution to my alcoholism in the 12 Step program of recovery. I finally came to realize that  if I didn’t stop drinking I would either end up dead or continue a life filled with misery, lies and shame. I realized that I didn’t need to go lookin’ any further. I had found what I was looking for. I found a group of men and women who had also found what they were looking for, namely, sobriety  and serenity. We all found it  in living out the spiritual principles of recovery laid out for us in the 12 Steps of AA.

Now this brings me to Depressed Anonymous and how it can be the solution for those of us who are “lookin’ for help and deliverance from life threatening grip of depression. And it isn’t too strange to say that most persons who come to a Depressed Anonymous meeting for the first one or two times don’t come back. Why? I don’t really know. But I have a clue to the why. They are “just lookin’ and feel that they don’t need a group of other depressed persons who probably will make them more depressed. So, they don’t return.
Then there are others who come for a season and leave. They thought that they would be coming to a class and learn the ropes, and then move on and out no longer depressed. Well, in time, they learnt a different lesson. They learn that it takes time, work  and a daily program of recovery to leave their  prison of depression. It is the “miracle of the group” where they hear others tell of how attendance at meetings, plus the fellowship of persons who daily live out the spiritual power of the Steps in their own lives, who get well and begin to live with hope. These people also stay with the program and now believe they have a real solution to the pain and misery of depression. I am one of them. I have not been depressed for 30 years but I want to help anyone out there who, like me, is looking for hope and help.

And if you are a person who comes   “just lookin’ for help and hope, please read the many powerful stories who came and stayed. These wonderful stories of real people, with real problem s,  is found in our Personal Stories section of Depressed Anonymous,3rd edition.

If you go to VISIT THE STORE, here at our site,  you can order the Home Study Kit which will provide you with an in-depth Workbook plus the Depressed Anonymous Manual used at all our meetings around the world.  The Home Study Kit will help launch you into a DA group if and when you choose to start your own group, in your own community.

No more will you be “just lookin’ ” but now will have found what you’re lookin’ for. Check it out!

Hugh

SOURCES:

Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011)  Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

 The Depressed Anonymous  Workbook(2002) Depresses Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

Believing is seeing: 15 ways to leave the prison of depression. (2014)  Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

I’ll do it when I feel better. (2013) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

For more literature go to the website @ VIST THE STORE.

Belief

Six ways to build a prison of depression for yourself

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“Hold these as if they were real, absolute and immutable truths these following six options.

  1. No matter how good and nice I appear to be, I am really bad, evil, valueless, unacceptable to myself and to others.
  2. Other people are such that I must fear, hate and envy them.
  3. Life is terrible and death is worse.
  4. Only bad things  happened to me in the past and only bad things will happen to me in the future.
  5. It is wrong to get angry.
  6. I must never forgive anyone, least of all myself.”

Excerpted from the book by Dorothy Rowe: Depression. The way out of your depression. Routledge and Kegan Paul. London. 1983. Page 15.

Comment by Hugh S.

I believe that the above list of the  six immutable beliefs is an accurate summation of the major beliefs that one needs to hold if they want to truly stay walled up in their prison of depression. And as Dorothy Rowe always brings out so dramatically -if you build the prison you can likewise take the walls down.

You dismantle your depression by thoroughly examining your own beliefs and how you construct your world. It’s in the way we usually think about ourselves and the world that enables us to predict with accuracy the way things turn out. If I believe my life is hopeless and that I am an evil person, that fact that someone claims that I am not that way still won’t change the way that I believe about myself. The way I have constructed my world will invariably set my life up in a way so that I will feel hopeless and evil.  It is only when I find out that others who once had the same negative mind constructs and thoughts about themselves,  but who now are living with hope that I am beginning to listen and take note. Is there really a way out of this prison of depression?

People who know the painful and deadening experience of depression realize  that they can never just Snap out of their deadness. Just as their sadness feels like it can never come to an end, so does their ability to do anything about the hopelessness seem impossible. But once the depressed person begins to  share their story and the history of their personal experience of sadness the more that can experience hope and the possibility that maybe they too  can escape depression.

Not only do I see people who are depressed gradually start to live with hope and energy but I also see this happen more quickly while they are engaged in a group of other depressed persons. In time, with a person’s   involvement with the group they sense a feeling that they aren’t alone any more and that they can make a choice to try and feel differently. In other words, they will be meeting on a regular basis  with people who will never say SNAP OUT OF IT but instead will say  I’M WITH YOU.  They will also find a new family where they are accepted, understood and strengthened for the work they need to do on  themselves to get better. Again, I can’t emphasize it enough how Depressed  Anonymous is the program  to follow if you want to start feeling better.”

SOURCE: Copyright(c)The  Antidepressant Tablet. Volume 2:1. 1990

12 Step Meeting, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Ego Deflation, Fellowship, Isolation, Mindfulness, Mutual Aid, Purpose, Spiritual Heroes, The 12 Steps

I said to myself, “if I ignore it maybe it(depression)will go away.”

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“There was a time when we ignored trouble, hoping it would go away. Or, in fear and in depression, we ran from it, but found it was still with us. Often, full of unreason, bitterness, and blame, we fought back. These mistaken attitudes, powered by alcohol, guaranteed our destruction, unless they were altered.

Then came AA (and DA. OA, NA,  Al-Anon etc). Here we learned that trouble was really a fact of life for everybody – a fact that had to be understood and dealt with. Surprisingly, we found that our troubles could, under God’s grace, be converted into unimagined blessings.

“Indeed, that was the essence of A.A. itself: trouble accepted, trouble squarely faced with calm courage, trouble lessened and often transcended. This was the A.A. story, and we became a part of it.  Such demonstrations became our stock in trade for the next sufferer.”

COMMENT: It was with my own experience with depression that I tried to deny that it was anything that could keep me from a life lived with hope and joy. I thought that if I just ignored it, like Bill W., stated so well above, it would just evaporate like the morning midst. Of course this just didn’t happen.

As I commented on this denial factor which is a big part of all addictions, I also came to believe that,  “well, what I am going through will surely pass. It isn’t so bad, really. I can put up with a little discomfort.”  Sorry. It didn’t work that way. And as I pointed out in   I’ll Do It when I feel Better  I said  ” we also learn that our depression is a defense and predictable and for some, depression is even come to be a comfort and as has been said before, at least one knows what they have with depression. And to change and risk removing this numbness is better not to be undertaken  because it’s better to know what one has than to risk getting something worse. Much like the example cited before of the debate within ourselves to go to the dentist for the toothache or just tough  it out and hope for the best.  We call this denial.” Page 17.

To examine more literature about depression and using the Twelve Steps in your personal recovery , please taker a look  at VISIT THE STORE here at our website.

______________________________________

SOURCES:

1) As Bill sees it. Page 110.

2)  I’ll do it when I feel better. (2014)  Depressed  Anonymous Publications.                                  Louisville.

3) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

 

The Promises

…to lend a helping hand is an absolute necessity

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“…And, despite all your good intentions, you are conscious of a terrible inability to help as you would like to. Then comes the voice of the tempter: Why torture yourself? It is no good. Give up, stop caring. Be unconcerned and unfeeling like everybody else.

Still another temptation arises —compassion really involves you in suffering. Anyone who experiences the woes of this world within  his heart can never again feel the surface happiness that human nature desires. When hours of contentment and joy  come, the compassionate man cannot give himself unreservedly to them, for he can never forget the suffering he has experienced with others. What he has seen stay with him. The anguished faces of the poor return; the cries of the sick  echo in his mind, he remembers the  man whose hard lot he once read about-and darkness shuts out the light of his joy.  Darkness returns again and again. In cheerful company he suddenly becomes absentminded. And the tempter says again:  You can’t live like this. You must be able to detach yourself from what is depressing  around you. Don’t be so sensitive. Teach yourself the necessary indifference, put on an armor, be thoughtless like everybody else if you want to live a sensible life. In the end we are ashamed to know of the great  experience of empathy and compassion.  We keep  it a secret from one another and pretend it is foolish, a weakness we outgrow when we begin to be “reasonable” people.

The three great temptations unobtrusively wreck the presupposition of all goodness. Guard against them. Consider the first temptation by saying that for you to share experience and to lend a helping hand is an absolute necessity.  Your utmost attempts will be but a drop in the ocean compared with what needs to be done, but only this attitude will give meaning and value to your life. Where ever you are, as far as you can, you should bring redemption, redemption from the misery brought into the world by the self-contradictory will of life, redemption that only he who has this knowledge can bring. The small amount you are able to do is actually much if it only relieves pain, suffering, and fear from any living being, be it human or any other creature.   The preservation of life is the true joy.

As for the other temptation, the fear that compassion will involve you in suffering, counter it with the realization that the sharing of sorrow expands your capacity to share joy as well.  When you callously ignore the suffering of others, you lose the capacity to share their happiness, too.  And however little joy we may see in this world, the sharing of it, together with the good we ourselves create, produces the only  happiness which makes life tolerable….”

__________________________________

It is always a joy to connect with any person like ourselves who lives with depression everyday and give them the serenity and peace which they are looking for.

In our Twelve Step program of recovery, we know all about compassion and healing the hurts of those still suffering-especially those persons depressed.   It is when a person who has worked through all of the Twelve Steps reaches the Twelfth Step that they realize that now that they have experience the healing power of their work with the Steps – now they will want to share this “gift” of recovery with all those persons who are “still suffering.” It is in the sharing of their own experiences and suffering that will lead others to the hope that they too will have the same peace and joy as those of us who have lived out the Promises given to us by the spiritual principles of Depressed Anonymous.

The Twelfth Step tells us that “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to the depressed, and to practice these principles in all of our affairs.”

 

SOURCES: (c)Albert Schweitzer.  Essential writings. (2005) Introduction by James  Brabazon.  Orbis Books. NY. Pages 148-149.

(c)Depressed Anonymous 3rd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. (2011) Louisville.

(c)   I’ll do it when I feel better.  (2014) Depressed Anonymous   Publications.Louisville.

Spiritual Heroes

Reverence for life and spiritual freedom

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“Here, then, is the first spiritual act in someone’s experience: reverence for life. The consequence of it is that one comes to realize his dependence upon events quite beyond his control

Therefore he becomes resigned. And this is the second spiritual act: resignation.

What happens is that one realizes that he is a speck of dust, a plaything of events outside his reach. Nevertheless, he may at the same time discover that he has a certain liberty, as long as he lives.   Sometimes or another all of us must have found that happy events have not been able to make us happy, nor unhappy events to make us unhappy. There is in each of us a modulation, an inner exaltation, which lifts us above the buffetings  with which events assail us. Likewise, it lifts us above dependence upon the gifts of events for our joy. Hence, our dependence upon events is not absolute; it is qualified by our spiritual freedom. Therefore, when we speak of resignation it is not sadness to which we refer, but the triumph of our will to live over whatever happens to us. And to become ourselves, to be spiritually alive, we must have passed beyond this point of resignation.

The great defect of modern philosophy is that it neglects this essential fact. It does not ask someone to think deeply on himself.  It hounds him into activity, bidding him find escape thus.  In that respect it falls far below the philosophy of Greece, which taught people better the true depth of  life.”

SOURCES: Copyright(c) Albert Schweitzer :Essential Writings. (2005)  Orbis Books.  New York. Pages 154-155.

Copyright(c)  Believing is Seeing:15 ways to leave the prison of depression. (2015) Smith, Hugh.  Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

Copyright(c) Higher thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

Ego Deflation, Fellowship, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, Miracle Thinking, Mutual Aid, People Pleasing

It’s the miracle of the group where I can start loving myself!

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I have hope that I can accept myself today and just let fly all the old messages from the old tapes of childhood.

“You desperately wanted people to love you, but you became wary of giving your love to others.  You reasoned that the less you loved another person the less it would hurt when the inevitable rejection came.” Dorothy Rowe

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I have been holed up for so long in my own little world of feeling hurt and rejection that to attempt to love someone else like the greatest challenge of my life.  I desire so badly to be loved by someone else that this lack of another’s love makes my isolation from others so hurtful.

After having witnessed the miracle of the group in DA, where depressed persons come together with their feelings of being hurt and rejected, I find that other’s love and nurture challenge me to hope once again,. I can share with the group the fact that I haven’t measured up, that I am angry and that I just want to lay down and die.

I am open enough now to let the light of love from others , who like myself, realize that I am not alone and that  I am beginning to feel better already now that I no longer need to be perfect.

This means to be willing to affiliate and give of myself for someone else’s good. In the program I am starting to love-myself.

MEDITATION

We are going to make a mental decision right now to let God, as we understand God, guide us and instruct us on how best to love ourselves .”

____________________________

Source: Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. March 3rd. Page 47.

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Seeking Guidance

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Bill W., tells us how to solve personal problems, in his own words.

“Man is supposed to think, and act. He wasn’t made in God’s image to be an automaton.

My own formula along this line runs as follows: First, think through every situation pro and con, praying meanwhile that I be not influenced by ego considerations. Affirm that I would like to do God’s will.

Then, having turned the problem over in this fashion and getting no conclusive or compelling answer, I wait for further guidance, which may come into the mind directly or through other people or through circumstances.

If I feel I can’t wait, and still get no definite direction, I repeat the first  measure several times, try to pick  out the best courser, and then proceed to act. I know if I am wrong, the heavens won’t fall. A lesson will be learned in any case.”

As Bill Sees It. page 55.

What do you think?

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Foundation for life: Self-examination, meditation, prayer.

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“We discover that we receive guidance for our lives to just about the extent that we stop making demands upon God to give to us on order and on our terms.”

In praying, we ask simply that throughout the day God place in us the best understanding of His will that we can have for that day, and that we be given the grace by which to carry it out.

There is a direct linkage among self-evaluation, meditation and prayer. Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an  unshakeable foundation in life.”

As Bill Sees it. Page 33.

Meditation, Mindfulness, Prayer, Purpose, Spiritual Heroes, Spirituality

Our thought life will be on a higher plane…

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“On awakening, let us think about the 24 hours ahead. We ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity and from dishonest or self-seeking motives.  Free of these, we can employ our mental faculties with assurance,  for God gave us brains to use.  Our thought life will be on a higher plane when our thinking begins to be cleared of wrong motives. If we have to determine which of two courses to take, we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought, or a decision. Then we can relax and take it easy, and we are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.

We usually conclude our meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, asking especially for freedom from damaging self-will.” Page 243 (As Bill Sees It).

And some more thoughts from our friend Bill W.

“In meditation, debate has no place. We rest quietly with the thoughts or prayers of spiritually centered people who understand, so that we may experience and learn. This is the state of being that so often discovers and deepens a conscious contact with God.” Page 108(As Bill Sees It).

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I am gaining, day by day, a new and hopeful attitude about my life…

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A Higher Thought just for today

“Strangely, I feel as if I have been incredibly lucky. Logically, I don’t believe in luck. I believe that people make their own lives what they are, but still feel so lucky to have been involved in a group which gave me the opportunity, and incentive, to start to make changes in my life. To understand why I am so angry, why I have been  so self-critical and self-destructing. Understanding why you feel as you do opens the gate for the even harder struggle of changing what you do.” (7)

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

Making changes is part of making a life. If I choose to stay mired in the deep pit of depression, I can choose that. I have this as an option. But, if I want to choose and risk changing myself, I have the option of working to construct a different way of looking at my world. Just by changing my attitude about my life and the direction where I want it to go. I can make the hard changes. I want to change my attitude. I will now want to listen to those who have been in recovery for months/and or years and listen to their hopeful attitudes and how they are feeling better now that they are living one day at a time, and no longer fearful that their old nemesis, the sadness, will sneak up and change everything back to the way it was.

I can only change myself. I will try always and keep the focus on how I need to change, not how others around me need to change..

 MEDITATION

God, we are always heartened and healed by the group. Please guide us and let us be led to that healing community of those persons who are struggling to find the serenity that you promise to those who do your will. “Fear not, for I am always with you.”

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for all members of 12 Step fellowship groups. (1993, 1999) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 43. February 27.