Choice, Courage, Focus, Suffering

Unhelpful Comparisons vs. Helpful Comparisons

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We’ve all fallen into the trap of comparing ourselves to others. This is a losing game if there ever was one. You don’t know the struggles that the other person has gone through to get where they are now. Comparing yourself to others in an attempt to boost your own self-esteem degrades the other person’s worth. These are unhelpful forms of comparison. These forms of comparison create suffering in yourself and others.

Don’t compare your insides to somebody else’s outsides.
Slogan heard at a recovery meeting

What then is a helpful comparison (lessen the suffering in yourself and others)? The best way is to compare your current self and situation to an earlier incarnation of yourself. Have you improved or have you gotten worse over time? This is a comparison that provides you valuable information about yourself. This type comparison can show you how you have improved over time, that you are not stuck and stagnated in your present state. You do change, even if that change is slight.

To overcome the challenge of managing your depression stop comparing yourself to others and begin comparing yourself to your past self.

For further information on this please watch Dean Furness’s TED Talk To overcome challenges, stop comparing yourself to others on YouTube. https://youtu.be/IOrmS8vJDQw

Yours in recovery, Bill R

Community building, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Helpful, Higher Power, Mutual Aid, Purpose, Stress

DA fellowship as my scaffolding 

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Some great advice I got from my sponsor was to “find my help and use my help.”  Often times my help comes in the form of DA members.  Over the last two years I’ve spent time at meetings and on the phone in between meetings with members of the fellowship, and they have become an important part of my recovery.  I have built up a network of people around me, much like one uses scaffolding to build a new structure.  I have been built anew by the steps and the help of the DA fellowship.  Now, when life presents me with problems and struggles that previously felt unmanageable and too overwhelming to deal with, I have a support structure in place that I can lean upon.  I have found my help and now I know how to use that help.  All I have to do is pick up the phone and reach out to my DA fellowship.  Through their help, the help of my Higher Power, and the steps, I will be guided to sanity and solutions.

Choice, Judgment

Letting go of good and bad

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Why would I want to let go of good and bad? Do these words help when you use them to describe yourself?

I know that for myself when I label myself bad I tend to classify myself as bad to the core, beyond any hope of redemption and healing! When I label myself as good I either think of myself as being beyond reproach, or I don’t believe the statement.

What about using them when to describe others? Well when you label someone as good aren’t you putting them on a pedestal? When you say someone is bad aren’t you reducing their worth so that they are beneath you?

Are these judgments worth making? Do they put us into a place of calm and serenity, or do they place us into a negative dark place? I say the latter.

OK so then how can I modify my language to not fall into that trap? If I must use those words I will say something along the lines of: ‘Their behavior was bad.’ Significantly less judgment and baggage with that statement!

What about when I want to apply those words against myself? I prefer the terms helpful and unhelpful. They carry far less judgment.

  • Helpful – those things that I think, say, or do that decrease suffering in myself or others
  • Unhelpful – those things that I think, say, or do that increase suffering in myself or others

A synonym for these would be skillful and unskillful.

Let go of judgment, that realm belongs to God. Humans can judge but it may not be the most helpful thing that we can do.

Bill

DA Literature, Dep-Anon: Family and friends

The Depressed Anonymous group and the Dep-Anon family group – a symbiotic relationship

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The dictionary indicates that Symbiosis or symbiotic is the intimate living together of two kinds of organisms, especially if such associations are of mutual advantage. 2. A similar relationship of mutual interdependence.

The Depressed Anonymous fellowship and the Dep-Anon family group fellowship working separately while building families together. These two very essential recovery groups are symbiotic in that they are two kinds of organizations, especially associations of mutual advantage to each other.

Depressed Anonymous is a 12 Step support group for individuals depressed. Dep-Aon is a 12 Step recovery program for families and friends of the depressed. These two recovery groups have an important symbiotic relationship, as they both concern a family member. When one member grows strong, of either group, both groups are influenced in some way, either directly or indirectly by a member’s recovery efforts. A symbiotic relationship can create new healthy areas of relationship in both the Dep-Anon and the Depressed Anonymous fellowship. Our two fellowships will be equally advantaged by having as their central focus the spiritual principles of the Steps as well as the belief in a power greater than themselves.

As the Dep-Anon family group strengthens all the family members, the depressed also find support from their fellowship, Depressed Anonymous, which gradually releases them from the grip of despair and hopelessness. No more is the family concerned about their depressed loved one or try to fix or change their behaviors and thinking. They finally see that the best way for a person to change, especially the depressed is to take a “hands off” attitude while placing their attention on their own problems and begin to fix in themselves what needs to be fixed. The discovery that they cannot cure the depressed loved one, only learn how to cope with it, no longer criticizing the depressed or cajoling them. The family develops a new understanding of the nature of depression and by sharing, discovers their concerns at Dep-Anon meetings while discussing the power of the 12 steps together with their fellowship.

If the group members make the 12 Steps, the spiritual principles a big part of their daily lives and thinking, they will grow. They grow separately, but in the unity of each fellowship, they begin to manifest their strength by their serenity and their willingness to dig deeper into themselves, taking care of their own lives. Family members gather together to help each other and find peace and understanding what depression is all about. The depressed member helps the other members of their group begin to look at how their lives, with their mistaken beliefs about themselves, and how these thoughts and behaviors have kept them isolated from family and friends. The family finds that they have no access to the key that will free their family member out of their emotional and physical lockdown. I believe it is clear how the two groups are entwined together, not only by the fact of a family member’s depression, like the two sides of a coin, but by the fact that this is “family” and all wanting the best outcome for their loved one.

We propose that all those with whom we have a relationship, a sponsor, co-sponsor, or fellow members, encourage us to use the DA Workbook, either as members of the Dep-Anon family or Depressed Anonymous. We take a full look at ourselves and not others. As family members, we see that the only one that we can change is ourselves. To believe that is a lesson well learned.

By now, we realize that we are focused on our own recovery and that we are never alone. We learn who we are by being in the group and sharing our lives. The power of the group is experienced as we go through the Steps, learning not only how depression has crippled countless lives but continues to even threaten and take lives.

It becomes evident that the well-being and growth of either or both groups continue to emerge stronger by having a direct advantage by “by all of us staying in our own lane” and keeping the focus on our own recovery. We continue to learn that the group is our “miracle.” Not just for today, but every day forward.
Copyright@Hugh S.

RESOURCES

  • Copyright(c) Dep-Anon is a 12 Step recovery program for families and friends of the depressed. (2021) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY
  • Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd Edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY

NOTE: Both of these publications can be ordered online at VISIT THE STORE at this site www.depessedanon.com

Acceptance, Avoidance, Depressed Anonymous, Focus, Helpful Thinking, Higher Power, Necessity, Step 02, Step 03

Keeping my Higher Power Highest

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Throughout my life, different things have been my Higher Power.  A certain job that I loved and prioritized above all else, or the person I was dating.  When I was in active addiction, different substances were a higher power.  Before recovery, the looming black cloud of deep depression was a higher power.  

Once I got into recovery and the steps, I was encouraged to find a true Higher Power, or God of my understanding – a Power greater than myself that could restore me to sanity.  In other words, Step 2.  I can honestly say that after many months of praying and working the steps, this Power relieved me of the obsession to drink and helped me to recover from the hopeless dark pit of deep depression. 

My challenge today, now that I am not in that deep dark hole of depression, is to keep my Higher Power the highest priority in my life.  For example, I recently started a short term job in a field that I am very passionate about.  It has been very demanding and time consuming, and I’m finding that this position is consuming my thoughts, actions, and life.  When I talked to my sponsor about this, she asked “So, has this job has become your Higher Power?”  I realized she was right!  Where was God in my life?  In my thoughts?  How can I be working Step 3 if I am not cognizant of my Higher Power and turning my will and my life over to His care?  I realized this job had become my priority in life, instead of my Higher Power and my recovery.  I am grateful for this reminder, so that I can get back on track.  I know that when I don’t place my Higher Power and my recovery first in my life, I start to slip back into old thinking patterns and old behaviors, which for me will lead me back into depression. 

Thank you, God, that You are always there for me, ready and willing to help me, no matter how many times I stray.

Act As If, Choice, Hope

Staying out of the loop. Creating your own circuit-breaker!

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One of the characteristics of the depression experience is to get lost in the loop of negativity. The more we try to think our way out of the mental labyrinth with our mind circling down into the deeper pit of sadness, the more locked and immobilized we become.

So, how do we stay out of the swirling cycle of despair? The loop is our master taking over our minds and emotions. Once we have managed to stay out of the loop, I discovered what frees me and breaks the chain that shackles my motivation.

What I find helpful and kind of simple is to distract myself and do something that takes me out of the loop momentarily as I focus on something else. This something else could be to go for a walk. Talk to a friend. Go to a mall. Visit a lonely friend. Choose your own distracter.

I will give a personal example where I found a distraction strategy that works. Because I was wearing out my mind with my continuous negative swirling thoughts, I was reminded how fatigue is an indicator of feeling depressed and helpless. When I became tired, I would automatically head for the coach. This just prolonged the pain, and it was when I said, “No, not this time,” I went to my desk and started to do some work on my computer. In a short time, my mind was focused on my writing and not on the assumption that I needed a nap. Even though I am no longer depressed, I still find this distraction strategy a real loop-breaker.

So, if you find yourself beating yourself up, ruminating, and mentally circling round and round, going nowhere but down, you’ll need at last 5 circuit-breakers ready to plug in when the looping begins. Be prepared!

Share this idea/strategy at your Depressed Anonymous meetings and let others in the group try it out when their own loop starts rolling.

Hugh

DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous

POLAND: Depressed Anonymous groups publish Depressed Anonymous, 3rd Edition and Workbook into the Polish language

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Congratulations to the Depressed Anonymous fellowship in Poland. We received the first edition of both the Depressed Anonymous 3rd Edition and the Depressed Anonymous Workbook published in the Polish language. The Depressed Anonymous fellowship groups are taking this major step in providing the original DA texts in the heart language of the Polish people.

We wish them all well–one day at a time.

Hugh, for our fellowship.

Dep-Anon: Family and friends

Dep-Anon’s message to families and friends of the depressed

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The following statements are the worst things to say to someone who is depressed.

It’s all in your mind.
Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
You have so many things to be thankful for; why are you depressed?
You have It so good; why aren’t you happy?
Well, at least it’s not that bad.
There are a lot of people worse off than you.
Hae you got tired of all this “me-me” stuff?
Everybody has a bad day now and then.
You can do anything you want if you just set your mind to it.
You don’t look depressed.

This excerpt is from the recently published book Dep-Anon: A 12 step recovery program for families and friends of the depressed (2021) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Pages 99-100.

Dep-Anon is a support group for the family and friends of the depressed. This recovery program is much like Al-Anon, promoting health and healing for the family and friends of the depressed. We do this by focusing on ourselves, using all the tools for maintaining our spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical health.

Over the years, I continue my work with the depressed and with the families and friends of the depressed. I see a great need to offer help for the depressed and their families. Many people do not have an accurate understanding of the nature of depression with its debilitating and isolating effect upon the human mind and physical wellness of the depressed.

– Dep-Anon, P.7

We cannot change anyone but ourselves. Our spiritual principles of the 12 Steps will provide us with a spiritual power we recognize as more powerful than ourselves. And we will, invest in this power, promoting a faith that will keep our focus on ourselves and not the futility of our trying to “fix” them.

– Dep-Anon, Pages 4-5

I see the Dep-Anon program as a powerful resource and tool, as families of the depressed come together as a 12 Step fellowship group, supporting each other, discovering the nature of depression and how it affects the mind and life of their loved ones.

If we want the support of our family during our darkest hours, I will hope that this work of Dep-Anon would inspire families to come together, learn how no human being can ever “snap out of depression” having the spiritual principles of the 12 Steps to guide them along the way. The Depressed Anonymous fellowship and the Dep-Anon family group fellowship are two sides of the same coin. Being in one fellowship will, without doubt, strengthen the members in the other fellowship. With both groups finding answers to their lives while making the Steps part of their daily lives, there is no place to go except up and together –as family.

Copyright(c) Dep-Anon is a 12 Step Recovery Program for families and friends of the depressed. (2021) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY.

Visit the Literature Section at this site to learn more about our work Dep-Anon. Visit the Store and discover literature pertaining solely to depression and the 12 Steps. All books are available online.

Depressed Anonymous, Despair, Helpful Thinking, Isolation, Negativity, Stinking Thinking, Suffering, Victim Thinking

Roadblocks and pitfalls in recovery

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I think sometimes people have the idea that recovery is a straight line angled upward with a positive slope.  For me, that is not the case.   My recovery is a conglomeration of sine waves, bumps, upward swoops, pot holes, and squiggly lines.  Overall, it does have a positive upward slope.  In other words, as the promises state, I have more good days than bad. Today, I have many more good days than bad.

But what to do on those bad days?  That is the question.  How do I navigate recovery when I am in a downward slope, have a roadblock or a pitfall?  How do I get through this period of mild depression?

First of all, I remind myself that This too shall pass.  It may sound cliché, but it is true!  If I am having a difficult day, I do not have to let it become a bad couple of days or a bad week.  I do not have to let it go to a moderate or severe depression.  Sometimes I can even limit it to bad moments.  The point is, this depressing feeling will not last forever.  I do have a choice to realize that it is temporary, to do something about it and not let it take over.

So what do I do about it?

The program gives me tools.  It’s up to me to use them.  Sometimes I have to pray for the willingness to use them.  The willingness to help myself undepress myself and stop being a victim.  When I’m in a pitfall, I feel alone and isolated. That is my disease talking to me.  The reality is that I’m in a program with people who understand me and care about me.  I can reach out to them and be honest about how I’m feeling.  This simple but sometimes difficult action really does help me a lot.  By telling on my feelings, I feel less isolated and more connected to others.   Another thing I do is journal to my Higher Power.  I tell my Higher Power what I’m thinking and feeling.  Sometimes I follow it up with journaling from my Higher Power to me.  This is the voice of truth.  This helps me to contradict those negative thoughts and see the truth as my Higher Power sees it.   When I’m in a slump, I’ve learned that it’s okay to be in a slump and to be kind and loving with myself through this period.  I’ve learned that my recovery is not a straight line upwards, and that it’s okay for me to have some squiggly parts and bumps in that recovery journey.  I can learn to give myself that same love and compassion that I would give another struggling person.  Another tool I like to use is the “way to go self” list.  When I’m in a slump, I focus on the negative, specifically those “I’m not good enough” statements.  I neglect seeing my positives.  So I make a list of my assets or those things that I am doing well, or those things that I am accomplishing.  And I’ll give myself double stars for doing something positive when I don’t feel like doing it – because that is extra difficult for me!  So by making a point to look at the positive things I am doing, it helps me gain clarity and see the positives.

To sum up, bumps in the road of recovery are part of the process for me today.  It doesn’t mean I’m bad or need to shame myself.  It means that life happens, and now I have an opportunity to use the tools this program gives me – IF I choose to do so.

Stacy S

Prayer

What is God’s will anyway?

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Trying to discern what God’s will can be vexing. Where does my will end and God’s will begins?

Many people would say pray to determine what God’s will is. I firmly believe that God answers all prayers, the problem that we have is that the answer is sometimes No. God answers prayers with:

  • Yes
  • No
  • Wait

God will answer No to those requests that don’t conform to His will. By praying those prayers that are answered Yes you will be conforming to God’s will. What prayers are answered Yes to?

I read a book a while back that was very helpful: Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To, by Anthony DeStefano. He posits that God always answers Yes to the following prayers:

  1. God, show me that you exist
  2. God, put people in my path so I can be an instrument of your love and peace
  3. God, outdo me in generosity
  4. God, get me through this suffering
  5. God, forgive me
  6. God, give me peace
  7. God, give me courage
  8. God, give me wisdom
  9. God, bring good out of this bad situation
  10. God, lead me to my destiny

You don’t have to believe this completely. Believe it just enough to put this into practice. Prayer takes time and effort, but it is worthy of that time and effort. Good luck!

Yours in recovery, Bill R

Hope is just a few steps away!