Ordering our eBooks hit a glitch. Help!

March 27, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Two days ago (3/25) we indicated that we were going to have persons that were interested in downloading eBooks from our Bookstore that they could down load for free for a three week period of time. I thought with so much heartache, loss of jobs and the depression that goes with these losses, that this would be a good time to make as many copies available as possible. Our tech agreed initially, thinking that it would be a good idea. Then after a bit, he got back to me and said that he wasn’t able to reset our online payment process. Not so easy. I thought that we could just press a few buttons and we were ready to go. So, now we are back to square one.

If anyone has a suggestion, please let us know. You can send a message here at our website depressedanon.com or to us at depanon@netpenny.net. I apologize for this foul-up. There must be a way to make this happen , that would allow someone to download free. Our tech indicated that we will continue to try other routes. We will think of other ways to meet this challenge. Hoping to hear suggestions from you, the fellowship of Depressed Anonymous,.

Hugh (Admin) for the Fellowship

12 Step Meeting

ONLINE DA GROUP MEETINGS EVERYDAY

March 26, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

REMINDER: Everyday there is a scheduled Depressed Anonymous International Skype meeting online at 12:30PM Central Standard Time, and 1:30 Eastern Standard time. Go to your browser and type in: https://join.skype.com/ Download and sign into Skype. Search depanon@hotmail.com and send a message asking to be added to the group.

You can join with a great group of folks who are working the Depressed Anonymous program of recovery. Don’t miss it!!

Thank you.

Choice, Faith, Hope

A Pathway To Hope

March 25, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Ray, a member of DA, tells us how to talk about the various parts that make up one’s progress on the path to recovery.

“I think most depression sufferers go through a time of hopelessness. This feeling is very disabling for many of us. But with most problems or illnesses there is always hope. Hope that our problems will be solved or that we will get better. So if hope is part of the solution, how do we find our own path to hope? Before we take that path I think it is important to see how the path is formed.

The first item is choice. We make choices everyday for ourselves, some simple and some complex. These choices may affect us for the rest of our lives, that is, what do I want from my life? What are my goals in life? Our lives are formed and maybe our own meaning of what life is, is revealed to us. So our path is first formed with the choices that we make.

Next comes acceptance. Acceptance for who and what we are, accepting our own ideas, values, feelings and emotions but even more important is accepting the fact that we can change our ideas, values, feelings and emotions. Accepting the fact that these changes can and will be made by ourselves, as other people can’t do that for us. They can only add to or detract from those changes, By accepting our choices and taking responsibility for these choices for our journey on the path of hope has begun.

The third item is trust. Trust in ourselves to make the right choices. Trust, in ourselves to overcome any obstacle we face no matter how difficult it is. Also, trusting another person, especially when that person loves, cares or just believes in us. Trust is important, it tells us we are not alone and we can accept and trust in another to lead us down our chosen path as well as trusting in ourselves.

The last item is faith. Faith in ourselves that things wil be solved even when no answer or situation is in sight or seems impossible. Faith in others to help us when we need help and that they will be there for us. Faith in God or our Higher Power and through Him our anguish, our sorrow, our pain will be lifted. Faith in our path of hope.”

The path of hope for depression sufferers is not easy to build or to find sometimes. That’s why I think it is so important to take your medicine, if medications are prescribed, see your Doctor, counselor, 12 Step sponsor or therapist. Go to a Depressed Anonymous meetng as often as you are able. Remember – when all seems to be lost, there is always hope.

Resource

Please go online and click onto DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS BOOKSTORE for more literature on the 12 Steps and depression. You’ll be happy that you did.

Fellowship

Here is a Higher Thought for you today!! ONLINE DA MEETS EVERYDAY!

March 23, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

NOTICE: Whenever a blog post mentions an online meeting be sure to consult the page Online Depressed Anonymous Meetings for the most up to date and correct information. If the blog post is more than a few days old there is a chance it could be incorrect.

Website: www.depressedanon.com

ONLINE DA GROUP MEETINGS

REMINDER: Everyday there is a scheduled Depressed Anonymous International SKYPE meeting Online at 12:30PM Central Standard time, and 1:30 Eastern Standard time. Go to your browser and type in: https://join.skype.com/

There please sign up or log into SKYPE. You will see something that says “join meeting.” You will be sent a link that will enter you into the meeting. Great meeting with those who are working their DA program of recovery. Don’t miss it.

A HIGHER THOUGHT FOR TODAY!

Today I will do one thing, just for myself.

“Treating yourself kindly means looking after yourself and accepting yourself in all your humanness. You are not the most perfect, wonderful person that has ever walked on this earth. Neither are you the worst, most imperfect, wicked person that has dared to draw breath.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

This “treating ourselves kindly ” might not fit into one of our personal beliefs. I think this is particularly true when so often we want to compare ourselves to others who are more beautiful, more popular, wealthier. And because of this, we might have a strong impulse to want to please others. Remember the book, “Looking for love in all the wrong places” this leads to a dead-end of disappointment and sadness. Is this not true for most of us as we keep searching for the fountain of youth, that lucky lottery number giving us millions?

Let me tell you that more often than not it makes everything worse because these “pie in the sky” wishes never materialize. Obviously these thoughts do more harm than good. We ruminate how bad we are and life is and how we think that things never work out for me.

But now that I am in recovery, working the powerful 12 steps of recovery, I am guided by a different standard.

I am beginning to realize, thanks to my program of recovery and my Higher Power(the God of my understanding) that I am not as bad as I thought I was. I am beginning to see that the more I live in the present, and live out my in today, the more I become myself and learn to love who I am.

My way of looking at the world prevents me from seeing the world, all creation as a wonderful manifestation of a Power which by its diverse and marvelous creations sends me a personal message of hope. Like the great poem Desiderata tells us, we have every right to be here–depressed, unhappy, happy or whatever. Also as it says in the 12 step programs, we are all equal in our fellowship. I am not ashamed to admit that I am or was depressed. I now have a way to free myself from the bonds of depression. The lockdown–the mental bars of my imprisonment are gone. I now believe that my own depression has made it possible for me to help others. “It takes one to know one.” I believe with all my heart that this is my purpose–this is what gives me meaning–this purpose and meaning leads me to the next person seeking freedom and release of the shackles that bind us and keep us unmotivated and helpless.

And so “to be kind to ourselves” reminds us that we are to treat others as kindly as we would like to be treated.

Send email to us at :Depanon@netpenny.net if you would like to talk with a member. Thanks. Hugh

(C) Higher thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts for members of 12 step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. March 23.

Order online at The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore.

12 Step Meeting

Daily Skype Depressed Anonymous meeting every day

March 22, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

https://join.skype.com

Greetings! To access the daily Depressed Anonymous Meeting @ 12:30 Eastern Standard Time. To join the meeting, simply log onto Skype and sign up either @ 12:30 EST. You should see something that says “join meeting.”

If there is a problem with the signing up, you can email the address given and we will send them a link directly.

At the meeting you can turn on your mic to talk and video if you wish.

Higher Thoughts for Down Days

Nothing is so simple that it has a single cause.

March 18, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

I know that millions of pieces of sand make up the seashore. I know that many drops of water make the ocean. I also know that many days make up the years of any one’s life. Many pieces and patches make up the quilt. I also know that today is that one piece of my life that I will do all in my power to grow and work myself out of sadness. I have only my one day, this twenty-four hour period to be strong, to study and talk to others in the program as to how I am recovering, by working my Twelve Step Program of recovery. I am excited about the good things that are possible for me when “I let go” of my need to sadden myself.

I am thankful that today I am finding a way out of my depression. First of all, admitting that I am depressed. Secondly, Feeling better knowing that just as there is a cause for my depression, with time and effort, I will gradually the source of my sadness. Day by day, I am finding pieces of the solution due to my recovery efforts.

I am alert to all knowledge that can help free me from my sadness. I do know now that what has happened to me in the past, continues to operate in me now. I am learning how to be aware of these unconscious motivators, which suddenly and inexplicably pop up out of nowhere saddening my self and lowering my mood. These bad actors will gradually be faced and examined as I work through the steps, at my DA discussion meetings, the reading of Depressed Anonymous literature, and my ongoing help from my sponsor. This is a promise.

RESOURCE

(C) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of Twelve Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. KY.

Choice, Fellowship, Higher Power, Mutual Aid

I can make it through the next 24 hours. We will show you how

March 11, 2020 Hugh Smith 2 Comments

AFFIRMATION

My best chance of surviving and living through this sadness that is worse than death is to hold on to the conviction that it will not last forever.

REFLECTION

I now can see how the Depressed Anonymous group program changes people from week to week. The longer a person attends DA meetings, online or face to face, I can see a change in their physical features as they seem not so brooding and preoccupied. The people who work the 12 Step Program of recovery begin placing their trust in their Higher Power which gives them the courage to resist falling back into that old familiar and comfortable pattern of saddening themselves. Each new day brings with it a stronger sense of hope as living becomes less restrictive and harsh.

My sadness began so long ago that the interminable feelings of hopelessness and despair seems to me so much of being human that is, until others tell me that this sadness is not their own experience. Then I knew I was different but that with time and help, I would be feeling better about myself as I discovered some of the ways I got the way I am. The more I hear the stories of others recovering members of Depressed Anonymous groups (See Depressed Anonymous book/Personal stories section) , the more hope I have. I now believe that in time I will begin to feel better.

MEDITATION

Seeds with proper nourishment grow strong and healthy. Some plants grow well at night and in a cooler environment. Some in daylight. We pray that God will let us go through our present darkness completely turning our will and life over to its purpose.

RESOURCES:

(C) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville,. KY.

12 Step Meeting

Depression is more than being sad

March 3, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Georgina, from the newly formed Depression Anonymous group in Sydney, Australia sent us her reflection.

Depression doesn’t really feel like sadness to me….it feels like

exhaustion,

irritability,

no motivation,

no desire to do the things I love doing.

Being depressed is more than being “sad.”

Thank you Georgina E., for this powerful quote which you are sharing with us. We are always happy to get contributions from Depressed Anonymous members. It is a gratitude of ours that the Depressed Anonymous groups are sprouting up around the world. Please go to the depressedanon.com homepage menu and see the International SKYPE groups meetings listed. Please join up. Check time zones so that you can go online live .

Please feel free to access our website at depressedanon.com and check out our BLOG and share your own thoughts with our international fellowship…We want to hear from you. We are not alone.

Fellowship, Journaling, Love

The 12 Step program of recovery is helping me learn how to love myself

March 3, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

AFFIRMATION

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

“You desperately wanted people to love you, but you became very 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 so holed up in my own little world of feeling hurt and rejected that to attempt to love someone else seems 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 witnessing the miracle of the group of Depressed Anonymous, where depressed people come with their feelings of being hurt and rejected, I find that other’s love and nurture challenges 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 want to just lay down and die.

I am open now to let the light of love from others, who like myself, realize that I am not alone and that I am beginning to affiliate and give of myself fro someone else’s good. In the program of recovery 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 to love ourselves.

(c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.KY. Pg. 38. March 3rd.

Depressed Anonymous, Depressed Anonymous Workbook

To be honest, open and willing to look at ourselves gets us the hope we are looking for!

March 2, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

We notice in Step Seven (Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings) we don’t tell God how we want God to remove our shortcomings – we leave that up to God. This of course takes time just as it took time to develop our shortcomings and our defects of character. Sometimes, we hear some professionals say that people who are depressing themselves shouldn’t spend time taking an inventory of their faults or shortcomings because that is what got them here in the first place – namely dissecting and bashing ourselves for all the bad things we have done and become. Why would those depressed want to make themselves sadder? The answer to this is that you will not make yourself sadder, you will make yourself healthier as you admit how you have kept yourself locked up in the prison of your depression by any or all of the following: your perfectionism, your anger, anxiety, indecisiveness, feeling always overwhelmed, self-doubts, all or nothing thinking, your passivity and avoidance of getting in touch with your feelings, people pleasing, pessimism toward yourself, lack of feeling competent, loss of identity, feeling unconnected to the world, and finally feeling socially isolated. These are some of the shortcomings that each of us has to look at if we are to live with any amount of freedom. Some of the above are sure to be part of the depressed person’s life and thinking.”

Quoting Dorothy Rowe, tells us that

“People won’t change until they have some assurance that when they do change they will be completely happy. They want to have someone promise them that if they decide to change, they will have no more problems and will be happy.

This request is based on two assumptions, namely: 1) Anyone who hasn’t got my problems has no problems at all (therefore when my present problems disappear I shall have no problems); 2) Happiness is total certainty (therefore unless I know exactly what is going to happen I cannot be happy).

Change is always difficult. I need to examine in my own life and check out to see if I always expect my actions to produce perfectly happy results or I won’t pursue them.”

Ordering can be done online (depressedanon.com) The two works listed here make up our HOME STUDY RECOVERY KIT. It is a long distance approach for learning more about the power of the Twelve Steps and how to apply them to oneself.

RESOURCES: (C) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY Pg. 72.

Hope is just a few steps away!