12 Step Meeting, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, I'll Do It When I Feel Better, Miracle Thinking, Purpose

I am investing in myself

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“I am making my recovery my highest priority. I may have been on all the antidepressant medications and I may have seen all the best counselors, psychiatrists and doctors, but now finally, I am going to a room full of depressed 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 the earth. Some of the group will have been coming for months. They say they are having more good days than bad and its 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 thoughts 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 and not just the way  we talk to ourselves. We are going to get a new life.”

SOURCE: I’ll  do it when I feel better. (2013). Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.Page 59

12 Step Meeting, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Fellowship, Focus, Mindfulness, Purpose, The 12 Steps

In getting my priorities straight, my depression got better

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CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

On this New Year’s Day, I find that my work for my life today is to reflect on a happy period of my life  where I have experienced   happiness and contentment.  If I can’t remember such a time,  then  I will construct a situation of contentment in my mind  and just imagine it happening right now.

In my relationship to God, I am beginning to realize that it isn’t so much that I don’t believe that I’ll ever feel better, but that I just  can’t know for sure. My first  priority is to admit that I do have a problem and that with God’s help I can get through my depression.

As soon as I give up my victim stance and begin to take responsibility for my feelings and my life, I can start to work as if my recovery is really up to me and that I will in time, succeed in getting out of this deep dark hole that I call depression. My priority  is to begin each day with the conviction that the Twelve Steps will be an aid in getting out of my depression. I know and believe without a doubt that WE have a solution for depression!

MEDITATION

God, we seek your guidance and your strength for our lives. Whatever we have lost or feel we have lost, please heal the holes in our soul and fill  it with your love and peace. In our quiet time today, show us what part of us needs to be healed.”

HAVE A NEW YEAR FILLED WITH PEACE !

VISIT THE STORE TODAY AND DISCOVER THE TOOLS THAT WILL BE THE PATHWAY TO YOUR OWN RECOVERY, DAY AFTER DAY.

An excellent tool that is highly recommended for the Depressed Anonymous  group use or individual study is the HOME STUDY KIT which is composed of Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) and The Depressed Anonymous Workbook (2002) both published by Depressed Anonymous Publications. These two books give a complete listing of the Twelve Steps and a commentary for each Step. The Workbook provides a coordinated listing of Steps with its appropriate questions related to each Step in the Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition.

The Promises

Mindfulness, serenity and the present

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Let’s start with the power called The Present. This reality is like the sun, shining  its light on what lies before us in perfect illumination. This is our guide  as we proceed on the path of life. This  light illuminates our mind and where we stand right now. The Present takes in all that we are, where we are and how we are.  If you traverse outside its boundaries, mostly in the yesterdays and the tomorrows of your life then there may be problems.  If you do spend more and more  time in what was and what might be, then the illumination casts its bright light away from the NOW and into a path not yet taken.  All I have is the Present and the NOW. Today is all that I have and the 24 hours that make up this light and darkness of my daily life.

Mindfulness means the awareness with how we live out our lives in this 24 hour time period. To be mindful is to be aware and conscious of all our surroundings, both those  inner and external realities that make up our world. Mindfulness also relates  powerfully to how we talk to ourselves in the Present and in the NOW. Are we aware of our feelings that break through and into our immediate consciousness? What do these many feelings, pleasant and unpleasant tell us about ourselves? Are these feelings fearful? Or are these feelings filled with peace and hope for ourselves in the NOW and in  The Present? And for a time, have we denied these feelings of darkness and despair and managed  to blunt them, numb them with mind altering substances, with numbing thoughts that keep us in the dark?  Is there a way out of this powerlessness? Yes. Simply stated.

Speaking for myself and the many, many folks who now are mindful of another way of thinking about their selves and what is going on in and around them have experienced this  bright light. A path is revealed. All of us who have been in the darkness are finding hope, serenity and the stepping stones to help us to continually  walk with hope. We are mindful  NOW of how to live in the Present and how to gradually walk this wide road with so  many other mindful travelers. Because we have been willing to see where this light leads us, we NOW know that healing is ours and that we are never alone. We have risked living in the light –refused to live in the darkness of the past and march on today using as our guide the Twelve Steps of recovery. I am now mindful of a Power greater than myself. Because I came to believe in a power greater than myself (finally- tired of living in the hell of despair)  I “surrendered”  and made a “decision to turn  my  life and will over to the god of my understanding.”

So, in order to be free of unconscious living I am always mindful (at least I try to be) of the work to be done that lies right in front of me. I’m sticking to the plan.

I  am mindful of all the “red flags” that warn me of potential dangers that could throw me back into those life threatening days of depression. I am mindful that when my mind turns to resentments, self-pity, hopelessness, hostility toward others,  and negative thinking and isolating behaviors, that I need to get back into the bright light of hope, serenity, prayer,  a daily meditation(Higher Thoughts for Down days)  and the Fellowship of our mutual help support group, Depressed Anonymous. I also talk with a group member of the fellowship whom we call a sponsor.

All of what I have written above can produce what all of us are yearning for, namely, that peace that rests the mind and relaxes the body. Serenity is what we want. We want to leave the mess of our lives, get a grip on  how to change it, and choose to live with hope. Oh, there will be problems, as always, but now we have the mindfulness, to recognize where  lies the hope and  the freedom for living…in the NOW, with Mindfulness!

Do you want to live in the Present, in the NOW, with mindfulness and serenity?  Please think about doing what I have done and as has countless others, to be a part of this great human fellowship bound together by our living out the Promises of the Twelve Steps.

I hope to meet you along this path someday. Please join us!

Hugh

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

VISIT THE  STORE : Check out the literature for more help on how to be part of this fellowship.

Uncategorized

I learn that I am not alone…

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CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

“It doesn’t ever do anyone any good to call someone a saddict –they usually will come into our group because they feel that their lives are out of control and they are in need of some sort of help.  Most who come will be seeking some sort of immediate relief from their pain and that is surely understandable. They usually won’t be back as they find that there will be work involved in getting out of the prison of depression. Only those who repeat their visits to the meetings, week after week, are the ones who show marked signs of improvement as they gradually learn to use new tools of recovery that they learn about from other members of the group.

One of the better ways to gain hope is to listen to the stories of those people  who are working the Twelve Step program and getting better. These real life stories are the best antidote to despair because I learn that I am not alone, and that I can make it like those others who are working the Steps.

MEDITATION

God, help us know how to respond to your love and let us know how to love ourselves  today.”

SOURCES: Copyright(c) Higher thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. December 30. Page 258.

Copyright(c)   Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. See Personal Stories of Depressed Anonymous members on pages 110-152.

12 Step Meeting, Choice, Depressed Anonymous, Focus, Higher Power, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, Mindfulness, Mutual Aid

I believe that misery is an option

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“If surrender of our wills to the ‘care of God’ is of the essence of the spiritual life, for anyone who truly desires to free themselves from a chronic and compulsive behavior such as depression, then the Twelve Steps can be your stepping stones to the path of a hope filled life.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I used to hear the word “surrender” as it made me feel like I was in the hands and under the total domination of another.  It was like I had no control whatsoever as to what I was to do or what I was to be. I was blind to the fact that in reality I had already surrendered my life to my sadness so that whenever I wanted to hide, or isolate myself, I just saddened myself and  so didn’t have to feel anything. I am surrendering to the God of my understanding;  slowly my life is filling with light and hope and this is what I really want for myself. I am finding that the ‘care of God’ is much better than anything I could ever  wished for.  My life is one filled with hope rather than being hopeless.

The spiritual life for me is filled with the excitement of knowing that  this God of mine, as I understand him, is  today wanting to lead me further into the light of his healing power. My spiritual life is filled  now with a close and personal relationship with a God who loves and guides me on a minute-to-minute basis.

MEDITATION

We are going to get as close to God today as we choose to get.

SOURCE:  Copyright (c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups.  Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 257-258. December 29.

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“This self-pity never brings us into any personal sense of peace…”

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“The depression is so bad at times that we feel no one would ever understand how we feel unless of course they have been there.  We just have about given up on our God, church, family and friends as allies on our behalf.  We feel resentments and anger toward people for not feeling more sympathetic toward our never ending sadness. We feel people aren’t kind and don’t treat us with the  same respect that they do other people such as a diabetic, insomniac or arthritic person.  Most people don’t want anything to do with us because they get tired of our moaning, groaning and pessimistic way of looking at life.  Why shouldn’t they?  Life is tough enough without  having to  be subjected to another’s gloom and doom.  But this is the place where we  recognize the difference between ourselves and others, and of course we think our lot is always the worst of all.  This self-pity never brings us into any personal sense of peace, but has just the opposite affect in that it helps perpetuate  the myth that depression floats in like a dark cloud over which we have no control. We need to tell our spouse, family and friends that we want to start again and begin to take charge of our lives and start to chip away at our sadness.  We won’t blame our need to sad ourselves on what my wife,/husband did  or do not do for us, or what a friend said or didn’t say.  We finally have to take the bull by the horns much like the recovering alcoholic, overeater, gambler or smoker, and admit that it is  “I” that has the problem and that it no longer does any good to blame others  for my problem. Once I admit that I am addicted to depressing myself, then I can begin  to walk through the door of the prison that binds me. I must realize the fact that my depression will only get worse unless  I put a stop to all the ill thinking, feeling and acting out behavior that keeps me perpetually locked into my sadness.”

SOURCE:  Copyright (c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 86-87.

Comment

How true it is that only unless one has experienced depression  personally do you know how it feels. It does take one to know one. This is why our 12 Step fellowship of Depressed Anonymous makes it possible for those of us who are or were depressed to find a group of people who know what we  feel and what we are talking about. There is hope here.

Hugh

Fellowship

With a little help from my friends…

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I believe that many of us will remember well the Beatles song “With a little help from my friends.” I can reminisce with a big gratitude for the many friends who  have walked with me on my journey of recovery.

In the beginning of our fellowship (1985) known then and now as Depressed Anonymous, I can think of the many people who joined with me in getting the word out that there was hope for people depressed. It all started as a pilot project while I was earning my Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology at the university of Evansville, Indiana.

Because of the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and my being part of the fellowship, I was restored to sanity by using the recovery plan of the Twelve Steps. The spiritual principles of the Twelve Steps gave me a lifeline  as  did the fellowship of those many others who like me needed to be freed from the addictive and life crushing disease we call alcoholism.

In 1985 we began a program that we called Depressed Anonymous. Because of our anonymity as members of this new fellowship others would soon  recognize   us  as a program of recovery using the spiritual principles of 12 Step recovery to help us leave the prison of depression.

In 1990, because of friends who believed in what we were doing, I was able to gather the funds to publish our first book, Depressed Anonymous. In this book,  members of our first Depressed Anonymous group in Louisville, Kentucky  were able to take each of the Twelve Steps, give their own reflections on the Step, record a summary of their discussions,   then move onto the next Step. When each of the Steps were thoroughly discussed, the summaries were edited for clarity  and then made ready for publication. The fellowship now had the means to make available to others “still suffering” from depression  a program of recovery based on the Steps. Our initial work, now in its 3rd edition,(2011)  continues to help persons depressed find hope in  our Step by Step recovery program.

The following quote from the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous  may be helpful to you now as you have just  read a very short history of our Fellowship and the origins of our first Big Book publication, Depressed Anonymous. Again, let us say that do not have the magic pills nor the easy formulas for success.  To get well takes work and time.

Even though you may not be afflicted with the addiction of alcoholism, we believe what Alcoholics Anonymous speaks about also applies  to those who suffer from depression.  Our fellowship of Depressed   Anonymous  brings  hope to the hopeless and those feeling there is no hope.

Now let’s read what Bill W., a co-founder of AA who writes  in the AA Big Book (pages 162-164) to those who want what all of us want who suffer from life threatening addictions:

”  We know what you are thinking. You are saying to yourself: “I’m jittery and alone. I couldn’t do that.” But you can. You can forget that you have just now tapped a source of power much greater than yourself. To duplicate, with such backing, what we have accomplished is only a matter of willingness, patience and labor.

And so can you,  though you be but one man with this book in your hand. We believe and hope it contains all you will need to begin.

Still you may say, “but I will not have the benefit of contact with you who wrote  this book.” We cannot be sure. God will determine that, so you must remember that your real reliance is always upon Him.  He will show you how to create the fellowship you crave.

Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us.  Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come, if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven’t got. See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the Great Fact for us.

Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of The Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of Happy Destiny.

May God bless you and keep you – until then.”

The writer is a member of Depressed Anonymous and with a little help from his program friends (30 years) , is sober and sane…today!

Fellowship, Mutual Aid, Service

We want to think in terms of responsibilities and connections

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We have to acknowledge humbly that I am the one who is having the harsh and negative thoughts  about myself and that I alone must take responsibility for the feelings that I have about myself.  I can’t continue to blame others for my depression and still think that I will feel better. Dorothy Rowe says that instead of blaming someone else or making someone else the scapegoat of our problems, we need to put aside blame and guilt and think in terms of responsibilities and connections. What she means here is that when she has dealt with depressed  people, they seem as if they are carrying the  weight of the world and feel responsible for everyone and everything except themselves. She says that when  it comes to themselves they see themselves as totally powerless. We  need to look at what is happening  in the here and now and take responsibility for our lives, without  living in the fear of tomorrow and the hurts of yesterday. Humbly ask God to help you live in the now, even if that means living with the temporary horrible pain of depression.”

_________________________________________________

SOURCES:     Copyright (c)Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 73-74.

Copyright (c) The Depressed Anonymous Workbook (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

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

Copyright (c) Believing is seeing: 15 ways to leave the prison of depression.(2014) Louisville.

Copyright (c) Depressed Once – Not twice: The spiritual autobiography of a journey out of depression.  (2000) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

Copyright (c) Higher Thoughts for down days:365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. (1999) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

VISIT THE STORE for publications on the subject of Depression and 12 Steps.

Acceptance, Compulsion

Spirituality requires risk

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Alcoholism (depression) and addiction , characterized as they are by the rigid clinging of obsession and compulsion, help us to understand the experience of release. Perhaps the greatest paradox in the story of spirituality is the mystical insight that we are able to experience release only if we let ourselves go. This is the paradox of surrender. Surrender begins with the acceptance that we are not in control of the matter at hand –in fact, we are not in absolute control of anything. Thus the experience of surrender involves the “letting in” of reality that becomes possible only when we are ready to “let go” of our illusions and pretensions (our unreality).

If surrender is the act of “letting go” the experience of conversion can be understood as the hinge on which the act swings – it is the turning point, the turning from “denial” as a way of seeing things to acceptance of the reality revealed in surrender. The self-centeredness that reflects a false relationship with reality, and that false relationship begins with distorted seeing, with some kind of false understanding about the nature of reality and our relationship with it. Breaking through that denial and confronting reality is what members of Alcoholics Anonymous and Depressed Anonymous mean by “hitting bottom.”

The experience or release most frequently comes at the point of exhaustion, at the moment when we “give up” our efforts to just be…

What blocks release more than anything else is the refusal to “let go” that comes from the demand for security, for certainty, for assured results. Release, like spirituality, requires risk.”

SOURCE: The Spirituality of Imperfection. (1992) Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketchum. Bantam, NY. , Page 173.

Hope is just a few steps away!