All posts by Hugh Smith

Acceptance, Focus

Coming full circle

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When it first came to me that persons depressed might possibly profit from  a 12 step group approach to overcoming depression, it was not in my wildest dreams which could  have prepared me for what has been unfolding  and continues to this day  in my life.

While experiencing the Hanbedeceya of the Dakota (Sioux) people’s version of the Vision Quest, I experienced the seed of a vision that  gradually  began to unfold in my life over time.

On a lonely South Dakota  hilltop back in 1977, I saw a large circle in the sky – the beginning  of a vision was beginning to unfold for me. This day was preceded by two days of total fast and without so much as a sip of water. The days spent without food and drink –days spent in prayer and waiting–gave me a vision that there was something for me to do with my life. I felt deeply for those suffering isolation and who felt they were all alone in their personal hour of agony. Those alone  in nursing homes and those incarcerated in their own feelings of helplessness and hopelessnesss and despai. Someow, fortuitously for me-gace happens -my direction would be that of helping others get comnected with with those still suffering from the same isolation as themselves. I realize that many times we can best determine god’s will for us by looking back over the events of our lives and see how God has led us to our present work. It was a personal joy to me that a person’s depression  would be greatly diminished if they shared their story with people who much like themselves come together and  learn to work the spiritual 12 step program together. Here they  learn to work the spiritual 12 Step program of Depresed Anonymous.

This is the amazing power of Depressed Anonymous. It is a program that is available 24 hours a day and not just during business hours. It is a program that is based on the suggested 12 step spiritual principles of Alcoholics Anonymous.

What is apparent is that our program is beginning to catch on and provide real lasting hope to more and more persons depressed and who  are discovering that to be connected to a Depressed Anonymous group is tantamount to connecting to hope itself.

I see now that the vision of the circle (1977) in those many years ago (now 2017)  is still gradually unfolding and forming more circles and that these circles of loving fellowship are  continuing to provide the hope  which eventually  will lead us out of the despair of our own depression.

“We made a decision to turn our  wills and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.”  (Step 3 of Depressed Anonymous.)

Hugh

Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Hope

Personal empowerment is an investment in ourselves

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It is with a personal sense of awe that I see the empowerment that comes to those persons who work the 12 Step  program of Depressed Anonymous. The empowerment comes to those who are conscious of the various ways they will have to change if their lives are to grow and change. This of course is not without its risks.

One of the major obstacles that we have to face when we are depressed is to be willing to change the way we think about ourselves, the world and our future. And of course, to change the future we have to dwell and experience the pleasant as well as the unpleasant feelings in the present. We have to be willing to face the discomfort of living life with a sense of unpredictability. This is not an easy task, but it is a task that can be achieved with time, patience and work.

  Empowerment comes from being informed and making choices that help us change our lives for the better.  When I came to Depressed Anonymous meeting I am making the first major step–namely, that I admit with my presence at the group meeting that my life is out of control. My compulsion to depress myself is at the root of my inability to take on the challenge of living life with risk and enthusiasm. But how can I possibly say that I want to depress myself?  We are not blaming ourselves here  but are taking responsibility for our own feelings, behavior and thinking. We are no longer going to  run on mental auto-pilot. Now that I am conscious of some negative patterns of my own for my own behavior I can get on with learning new strategies for my own healing. With the heartfelt prayer of a monk, I now understand that it is by sharing the story of my life –and with the conviction that someone is there to listen, that this can in time help me make it out of my prison of fear and sadness.

I am empowered by taking the bull by the horns and choosing each new day, one day art a time, and start to feel different. I now have the support of the group–a sponsor–support from those people who have walked where I have walked.

I am investing in myself. I am making my recovery my highest priority. I may have been on all the antidepressants medications- I may have seen all the counselors, psychiatrists and doctors but now finally I am going to a room full of depressed people –people who understand me. These people I discover are investing in themselves. What will I find there? I will find some of the most caring people on the face of thee earth. Some of the group will have ben coming for months, and they are having more good days than bad and it’s getting better. The more meetings they attend the better they feel and the more support they receive. They are feeling empowered. It’s the miracle of the group.  Instead of living with a compulsion to repeat old negative and life negating thought and feelings we now have a compulsion to live with hope plus a desire for a brand new way of living. We are now about  to change the way we live –not just the way we talk to ourselves.

We are going to get  a life.

I now feel that I’m getting better in learning how not to repeat my old way of thinking, feeling, believing and isolating myself. I now know that this  healing all takes time. With    work and patience I will get better. For most of us, it has taken us a few years to get here (depressed) so why not take the time and daily work toward getting better – one day at a time-one meeting at a time.

Hugh  /The Antidepressant Tablet

Dear reader: No DA group in your community. Today sign onto the Home Study Program of Recovery which begins online this November 15, 2017. There are no fees or dues just a commitment to utilize the Home Study combo of DA Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition and the Depressed Anonymous Workbook.  This will be an online person to person program where emails between participant will form the basis for discussions between the participant and the sponsor.

Click onto The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore to learn how to purchase study material.  SKYPE may also be an alternative means of communication.

For a description of the program please go to the Website menu at www.depressedanon.com and go to the Newsletter drop down menu where the latest Newsletter, titled The Antidepressant Tablet, Volume 1 Issue Fall, 2017. Here  a member of DA shares her recovery  experience using our new method of contact with the Home Study Program.  All the work is accomplished with emails between the sponsor and the DA member.  I know this  will help so much to facilitate one’s own recovery from depression.

To join, please sign up soon. Contact us at depanon@netpenny.net  for more information. Thank you.

Acceptance, Fellowship, Spirituality, The 12 Steps

Author pens new book, “A Medley of Depression Stories.”

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The following are excerpts from a recent article, from the Edenton, North Carolina Newspaper, written by Staff writer Rebecca Bunch. Portions of the article have been edited and paraphrased.

“Author Debra Sanford has accurately captured the struggles behind depression in a deeper way in her new book, “A Medley of Depression Stories.” The book most ably points out with stories the personal observations on the mental health issues that plague members but also shares the stories of others in their own words.

In the Introduction to the book, Sanford describes it as a Medley of powerful short stories from different perspectives and experiences — meant to help the depressed person – relate and to understand that they are not alone.

The author has the hope that the reader will be able to relate to the stories from others. Debra hopes that you will find your wellness here.

But, according to one entry in the book by someone identified only as “Anonymous” the Depressed Anonymous meeting is promised as a “safe place to fall.”

The meetings are described as an accepting place with friends who truly understand what you are talking about, a place where you don’t have to be ashamed to have a mental illness or to be depressed.

Meetings of Depressed Anonymous are scheduled every week in Edenton, NC., as well as in Elizabeth city.These meetings are there to offer support and comfort to those who need not to feel alone or as they live out their day to day lives.

Copies of Sanford’s book are available at Amazon.com.

You can reach the author at www.depressedanon.com/edentonnc. You can also contact Debra at (252) 333.8855.”

She will be happy to hear from you.

A short review of A Medley of Depression Stories by Hugh Smith, Depressed Anonymous member.

First off, I met Debra and members of the newly formed DA groups from Edenton and Elizabeth NC., about three years ago. It was a wonderful experience for me to meet face to face with a very enthusiastic and dynamic bunch of people. Yes, they were there to support each other and discover the ways the 12 Steps would lead them out of depression.

Debra’s work has stories, 35 of them written by Debra and some who struggled with the pain and isolation of depression. I could pick out a few titles of these short stories but as I look over and read the stories I must admit that they all definitely strike home. I am inspired and given hope that I can get help.

Everyone who reads these stories will find parts of themselves in each of the accounts. I find myself in so many of them myself. If you are looking to find hope, and a way out of depression which has imprisoned all of us, then you have found here a key that will free you.

If you are a member of a local DA group looking for topics to give hope, especially to Newcomers, then I advocate that this book and its stories be selected to be read at all the meetings.

I am proud to have the opportunity to know Debra personally and to see how her love of others is the reason for it being written. And with Debra, we all can say “my story is not over yet.” At every DA meeting another hopeful page has been added to our own story!

Hope is the door that leads into tomorrow!

Denial

Halloween, false faces, masks and other disguises

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Holloween is a great time to pretend to be someone else. It’s a day when we can all live out our fantasies of being someone than our selves. On this one night of  the year we  are given permission to be  a super hero, a great army leader, an Olympic champion, the world’s greatest athlete. This year there was a great number of Supermen running around, accompanied by a few   Spidermen for the evening , plus the  little Princess and the powerful Wonder woman.

It was great fun. Parents walking with their little one’s, going from door, carrying the bags of booty, like little pirates, with such dreadful threats as “Trick or Treat” belted out  like they meant it.  I recognized some of the monsters and figures of fame, and most I didn’t.  But we all had a great nite acting like we were someone else.

This reminds me of a friend that shared with me his great secret and who he was pretending to be. This wasn’t Holloween though. He was  a doctor addicted to cocaine and other addictive substances. As he gradually removed the mask from his face, tears streaming down his face, and he told me his story. The painful and gradual sinking into the abyss of darkness. He told me  the following and I will never forget the emotion with which he shared this secret of himself.

“I just wish, I wish I could go to the roof of this hospital and tell everyone, those who respect me the  most, as what a fraud I am. I can’t. I want to do it.  I haven’t the courage or the guts. ” And of course he never did. He kept his secret until he died of an overdose.

I took off my mask years ago at an AA meeting. And yes, I told them I was a fraud. Alcohol had given me the best false face a person could have. A fun guy.  A happy Jack who never met a stranger. Then it was time to share another secret, my depression. How I always had a smile pasted on my face even though the tormenting demons of fear, anxiety, and isolation were my constant companions.

What freed me? It was others just like me–all telling  their secrets and paradoxically becoming free. We, all of us in the Depressed Anonymous Fellowship no longer have “to fake it til we make it.”

If you want to tell your story, join us in the new  online group called the Home Study Program. Sign up before November 15th. Here you can have a one on one  Home Study program, with a sponsor and guide.  Check out  the story of Kim at our NEWSLETTER   issue #5. Read how Kim’s life has been changed by working the DA HOME STUDY combo, composed of the Manual and Workbook.

The title of our new Newsletter is THE ANTIDEPRESSANT TABLET, ISSUE 1, FALL, 2017.

hugh

 

Denial

Halloween is always a great time for false faces!

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This past week we all had a great time being somebody else. It was great fun to see the little Princess, the Cowboy, a super hero, astronaut and all the rest. Don’t you think that all of us would like to be somebody else for awhile – even just for a short time on Halloween eve? Yes, we all would like to be somebody important, somebody who was a mover and shaker, somebody whom everyone loved. You know, like a comedian, a super hero, a great military leader or a great statesman, like Abraham Lincoln. Yes, Halloween is a great time to act like we are someone else. To put on a false face. Everyone wants to know who that is behind that mask?

Have you ever imagined yourself someone else and felt like it fit you quite well? A perfect fit, so to speak. It’s obvious that it brings great fun and laughter all around. We all know that it won’t last long and I can be me again, but not so magical when we are someone else.

I remember when it was Halloween every day, for over a year at a painful time in my life. I was no grand champion of civil rights for the down trodden. I was no medal of Honor recipient for his or her valiant deeds. I was just me – still wearing my false face from Halloween. I never took my mask off. I had to always wear it because I could not let anyone see me, the real me, the hurting and isolated me, imprisoned in my habitual self, serving time till someone freed me from my anxiety.

Years ago, I had a friend who was a medical doctor and who was addicted to opioids and other addictive substances. I still remember his words like they were spoken just yesterday. He wore his false face well. As we talked late one night he shared with me his soul, the mask peeled gently from his face , the tears streaming down his face, as he told me something he never was able to tell anyone else. He told me, hesitatingly, that if “I had the courage and the guts, I would get as high on this hospital roof as I could and shout for everyone to listen up. For everyone to look at me – a horrible and pitiful addict. I would tell them what a fake I have been all my life, that I am a fraud. I the healer telling every one how to live their life and I can’t even begin to live a day without the shot, the pills, alcohol. I want so badly to just be me. Me, to tell others who I really am.”

My visit that night with the doctor has stayed with me all my life. It has stayed with me because I too was at a point like him later one in my own life.

It came upon me so slowly, the feelings of hollowness, the jitteriness and fear. Always the fear. Fear, that someone would discover someone else behind my mask.

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The birth of Depressed Anonymous. How it all began.

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It was in the Spring of 1984 that I became acquainted with Jane. I was in Graduate school working on my Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology. The University was in Evansville, Indiana.  For my practicum (basically, a training course in counseling) I selected Jane. Jane was home bound, recently having undergone a seious heart attack with  needed surgery  to repair clogged arteries.

I took my recorder along to her home for our weekly sessions and week after week. Jane and I would talk and visit. Jane’s depression started to lift and gradually she began to feel her former cheerful  self again. She was talking again with her husband and children. She was again  cartooning and writing poetry which she had  lost interest in after her heart attack and surgery. But slowly, week after week, she gradually forced herself to  draw again and write one poem each week. This assignment was ongoing and by the time my sessions were complete, we had a more happy and serene Jane than the Jane that I had met on the first session. Thanks to Jane’s depression experience and her successful recovery after being so isolated, it came to me to  get these alone and isolated persons together so that they could inspire each other to hope again. I wanted to model the group on Alcoholics Anonymous.

In the Fall of the year I, with the help of the director of the local mental health association got referrals from the psychiatrists, therapists and counselors to  refer persons depressed to attend a 10 week pilot program that would deal weekly with each participants depression. It was a cognitive approach to how one’s thinking was directly influencing their moods and feelings. Everyone in the group, surprisingly, from the addict to the widow, to someone who lost their lifelong career, all  were able to find the group to be helpful in replacing their despair with hope.  With the help of a fellow graduate student we saw that a group program could assist depressed persons cope, deal and overcome their depression. Also, the participants now knew that they were not going crazy or losing their minds. They were no longer alone in their pain.

After Christmas of that year   a number of graduate students and myself started a Depressed Anonymous group on May 25th, 1985 in the meeting room in the basement of St. Mary’s hospital in Evansville. The rest is now history.

In the beginning, I thought that if only depressed persons would get out of their isolation and come to a group meeting and seek help, their depression would lift. Even though many professionals that I contacted about depressed people getting help from a self-help group didn’t seem to think it was possible. Some said that they thought that depressed persons wouldn’t have the energy to go anywhere, much less to seek help from a self  help group. Many could not get out of bed in the morning they felt so bad.

It is discovered that once a person comes back to the meetings week after week that the depressed gradually find their good days  get more frequent and their down days occur less often. In Depressed Anonymous we call it the “miracle  of the group.”

The spread of Depressed Anonymous is slow and sure. Thanks to Jane and her willingness to get better, an idea whose time has come, is now growing groups and “circles of hope“around the world.

Thanks Jane!

The Depressed Anonymous meetings are upbeat and hopeful, with special emphasis on the 12 Steps and focusing on personal recovery. You would do well to read our Manual, Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications where more than thirty persons share their story about depression and how DA pulled them out of their misery,

Click onto The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore for more information on depression and the 12 steps.

Please sign up for the Home Study Program where a participant can get one on one help by using the HOME STUDY KIT via emails to a Depressed Anonymous sponsor. Find out more from the DA blogs at www.depressedanon.com. Sign up date ends November 15.

Contact us at depanon@netpenny.net if you would like to register to be a participant.

12 Step Meeting, Fellowship

“I thought my depression and sadness was normal.”

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TERRI’S  STORY

When I first came to Depressed Anonymous, I was so depressed I didn’t even want to get out of bed in the morning.

I hated the world and I didn’t want to deal with it and just going  out in  public was  a major ordeal,  even the  grocery  seemed  like an overwhelming task.  Ultimately, I lost my job due to my inability to function  at work. I prayed that God would let me die.

I felt I carried this tremendous load of emotional pain around in my chest all the time.  I wanted to put it down. I wanted to get rid of it but I didn’t  know how. I thought God had forsaken me because I violated a  sacred  code without knowing it and I believed I could never feel the sunlight of the spirit on my face again. That belief forged a bitterness and resentment toward God that grew day by day. I could not believe life would ever be good again or that I could be happy.

I felt emotionally dead. I have had depression for years, although I didn’t know that’s what it was. Being an alcoholic and an active  member of  Alcoholics Anonymous, I thought my depression and sadness was  normal.

I hit bottom last year in the Spring, after 8 years in recovery, when I started to have “flashbacks” of sexual  abuse from childhood. I didn’t understand how God could have allowed this to happen since it happened so long ago. Why did it have to come out now? All my life I had this feeling that I had a deep dark secret: but I couldn’t remember what it was. I lived in constant fear that people would find out my terrible “secret” was out now. Gradually I realized that the big black secret was out now. I had not died. The world had not stopped.

As I began working on the abuse issues in therapy, the piece s of my life began to fit together in a way they never could have before, as I had never dealt with this catastrophic event. In Hugh’s book, Depressed? Here is a way out he talks about how  people find their time of depression to be one of the great gifts of God in their life. The first time I read this I thought it was the craziest thing  I had ever heard, yet during this time  of depression I have learned and I have grown. I have come to understand myself  and my God in a way I never could before,

It’s been nearly a year now. Life is starting to come together for me again, one day at a time by the grace of God and the fellowship of this program. From the  very first time I walked through the doors of DA, I knew I was in  the right place.  Having been an active member of AA for so many years, I was already a firm believer in the 12 Steps. I did what you people told me to do, even when I didn’t  believe it would help. I attended meetings. I worked the Steps with my sponsor. I used the phone list and talked to people about my pain and my day to day problems. I read Hugh’s  book (Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition(2011) DAP. Louisville) and followed the suggestions given in it.

God, through DA, God  literally carried me through the darkest time in my life and he did not let me die, despite  my best efforts to.  I have truly experienced the “miracle of the group.”   I promise you that it works. I have heard it said that sometimes God’s greatest miracles are unanswered prayers and I believe it, after all I am one.

TERRI B

Sources:  Copyright(c) The Antidepressant Tablet. Volume 4  Number 3 Spring 1993..

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

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Help is on the Way!

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   Home Study Program starts November 15, 2017.  Sign up today.  Two members of the Depressed Anonymous program  will facilitate your personalized  responses to the Depressed Anonymous Workbook and the Depressed Anonymous Manual.

There is no fee for this sponsorship of members.  To become members one  has to use the DA Workbook and DA Manual to  participate.  See how to Order online. The reason for developing an online program  is that we find is that there are not that many DA groups extent in the USA. We are hoping that in order to help those still suffering from depression that  they can now have a one on one  sponsor online who  will guide them through  the process of learning about depression as well as finding solutions for overcoming it. Of course this will take work, time and prayer to accomplish. We have no magic wand or magic pills that will take away the reasons for the pain you are experiencing now–but it will give you answers to your own situation. Because of the nature of our approach you will provide your own answers to the questions posed by our Workbook and by reading the Manual. Our guides will respond to your answers from the workbook and make their suggestions along the way.

Both of the sponsors who will relating to you and your work will be members of Depressed Anonymous.  One will be the founder of Depressed Anonymous and the other sponsor  will be the founder of  Depressed Anonymous  in his own community.

If you want to challenge yourself,as others have done with this Home Study program, jump  in and sign up. Many of you have tried everything to free yourself from the pain and isolation of depression.  Here is your challenge to take an individual and hard look at  your own life and be given the tools to overcome and deal with a very serious illness, which effects your physical, mental, emotional and   spiritual realities.

During your online program  participation you will be provided new and helpful ways to respond to those areas of your life which need your attention.

Importantly, we are not acting as therapists or taking the place of any professional medical person whom you are a client or patient of.  We are fellow sufferers reaching out to those like us who are looking for answers and help. We all are no longer alone!!!!!

Also we will hear from someone who  now wants to involve others in her community and join together to form their own Depressed Anonymous program.

Please contact us at www.depressedanon.com for more information.

Also, our email address is: depanon@netpenny.net

Thank you and hope that you will join soon in this positive and personalized approach to recovery from depression.

Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Fellowship

Depression and quicksand–what do they have in common? Online Home Study provides the answers.

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One thing that they have in common is their capacity to suck you down into the darkness in which you feel there is no escaping.  Quicksand is no respecter of persons and neither is depression.  What happens when we step into quicksand our feet become aware that something is drawing us  down into a place that has no bottom. There is no support that will hold us up.

With depression we too feel that once the spiraling begins, the mood changes and we are there alone without support to hold us up. We are afraid to tell anyone that we are depressed. We continue to isolate ourselves and the prison of depression is gradually being built by fear, isolation and ongoing ruminations  about how bad things are.  By withdrawing and living in the small world that we have created all hope appears to have ben sucked out of us.  Now it’s the lack of motivation to do anything to help ourselves and so we begin to eat too much or not eat at all. We want to sleep all the time or not sleep at all. We are no longer interested in those pleasant activities that we once enjoyed but now we get no pleasure from them.

I would like to offer you a way out of depression and protection from being sucked down into the pain of nothingness.

On November 15, we will initiate our HOME STUDY RECOVERY PROGRAM ONLINE. The program is an online process where you can email answers to questions posed in the Depressed Anonymous Workbook and get a response to your progress from a Depressed Anonymous  sponsor. Because there might not be a Depressed Anonymous meeting in your community we have found that providing you with the possibility of working the Steps, gaining information about yourself and what depression feels and looks like. All this becomes possible by taking part in this online individual help from a member of the DA fellowship. You and your sponsor/guide who continues to help those who want to leave the prison of depression. To challenge yourself and free your self from depression this is the program for you. There are no fees or dues, all you need is  a plan, a well marked out path, provided by our fellowship, which we call the  12 steps of recovery and restoration,

Start now and be part of the HOME STUDY  PROGRAM BY signing up soon so that you will be ready to start your one on one in recovery on November 15.  We are accepting only 10 persons in this program. The two books which you will need are the Depressed Anonymous Workbook and the Depressed Anonymous Manual, 3rd edition.   Please VISIT THE STORE here at www.depressedanon.com to learn how you can order online to receive your material. This is NOT  a group meeting, but a program personalized  to meet you where you are in life. The whole step by step process is achieved like a long distance course offered by colleges and universities. You and your guide will be in communication via emails to each other to get the most benefit for your own life.

If you have any questions please contact me here or at our website: depanon@netpenny.net. We will be looking forward to visiting with you. I have been helping others free themselves from depression these past 30 years and I am willing to go to bat for you too.

If for any reason you prefer to SKYPE then that will be fine with me and our guides.

I hope to hear from you soon. Our email address is  depanon@netpenny.net for those who wish more information about the upcoming program on November 15, 2017.

Hugh

for the fellowship of DA.

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Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Mindfulness

Moving to a new home means packing, unpacking, and packing up things we no longer need or want.

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There is a strange but real similarity with moving from one place to another with the packing up and unpacking that  is involved. The same holds true for our lives. We packed  habits of thinking, feeling and behaving from early childhood into our adult lives.  It is no surprise to us then and now that certain habitual modes of behavior and thinking have got us to a place where we either hit an emotional wall or we reflect that something in our lives has to change.  It’s time to pack up stuff in our lives that no longer work for us and discard all the extra baggage. It might be painful to rid ourselves of the stuff that has been such a part of our daily lives, but now we see that  it is time to take a closer look. It’s time to dig up and plant something new that will carry us along with a hope and a feeling of freedom as we continue throwing over board the extra weight (emotional and physical) as we continue on our journey in life.

For my own life I gradually found a way to unpack stuff that had me imprisoned and bound up without hope of ever being free of the shackles. Don’t get me wrong, packing  and unpacking certain areas of our life is not an easy thing to accomplish.  It takes time and work. Today I am still unpacking. With work, time and prayerful reflections on my changed thinking, feeling and behaviors I came to the conclusion that with help I could at least get through one 24 period at a time. And this is the point of my writing this piece today. I am pleased to say that it was when I first was introduced to the 12 spiritual principles of recovery with the tools which these principles provided, I now had a plan, a path, on how to live with hope and serenity.  I feel lighter as I reflected upon what I need to let go of.  I learned what exactly I needed to let go of.

It was after reading the literature of a 12 step program dedicated to help with my addiction that I gradually was  learning   more about me. I found what worked for me.   It was in the  Big Book, as it is called,  and written by Bill W., and Bob S.,the co-founders of AA..  There were questions in this book that helped me unpack those areas of my life that needed to be thrown overboard.

In the past years, when not everyone had the opportunity to join a Depressed Anonymous group in their locality, our Publisher Depressed Anonymous Publications decided to offer a HOME STUDY KIT where a person could begin to learn more about themselves by using the Home Study Kit. This includes the Big Book of our fellowship Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (2011) and the Depressed Anonymous Workbook (2002) –both published by our publisher (DAP). Starting in November,  I will be offering those persons who want a guide to help them with  the Question and Answer part of the Kit, the DA Workbook, which is coordinated with each  chapter of the companion volume   Depressed Anonymous.

Through the years,  persons who have used this method of recovery, have found it has changed their lives. And this, without a group. When I founded this group in 1985 I knew that each persons depression really was unique even though it had many similarities with others depression experience. So with  our Home Study program your own unique experiences can be examined and reflected upon. This is how the healing can begin for you.

I can take only ten persons initially to start this online Home Study program,  which has been  successful  for those who utilize its process. Soon our program will be published in Spanish, as it has already been published in other languages.  One of the fellowship who lives in another region of the world has just written and shared how she feels the program has changed her for the better. I agreed with her that I have seen a change in her thinking and feelings toward herself as she continues to answer questions from the workbook that has enlightened her about her own life. . It’s as she has had a spiritual awakening. A realization that she is not alone.

So, if anyone is interested in a long distance Home Study approach, by email, then you might find it particularly useful. The whole process will be done via our emails. It will be strictly confidential and I will work with any  person who wants to find a way out of depression.   Basically our work will enable us to clarify our thinking about ourselves and help us formulate strategies for gaining back our freedom to be whom we want to be.

We will start our HS program on November 15th, 2017.  If you are serious about committing yourself to this self study then please contact me here at our website or email me at depanon@netpenny.net.

You may find this individual effort challenging as  I was, but in time and with work and the interaction with a sponsor–you will be happy you did. You will learn how to unpack those areas of your life which have kept you imprisoned.  This time you will be living with hope.

I am looking forward to hearing from you. Reading the Depressed Anonymous  literature, which I might add,  has been written by those persons who have been depressed and are now depression free and in recovery will be a great benefit to you and your daily living.  More information will be coming on this BLOG tomorrow.

Please click onto our literature store and discover more about the Manual and the Workbook which will be used for our Home Study program.  I hope that you will be joining us soon.

With gratitude, for the fellowship,

Hugh S