One of the problems from my past was my need to worry about things. I worried about everything. Depression in particular incited me to worry about the past, the future and the now. I couldn’t escape the hold that it had on me.

All I needed to get the ball rolling was an event from my past for which I felt responsible  and which   I felt I had not sufficiently worried about.  Not only did this thinking of this  problem cause me a lot of pain, it also stimulated in me a low mood, pushing me deeper into that  dark well of hopelessness. 

 “Somehow when I spend time worrying about whether or not I am loved or whether this or that awful thing will befall me, I spiral down into our familiar state of hopelessness and anxiety. Worry helps to keep me isolated from others as I need to know whether this or that calamity might happen to me.  My guilt about what I have done in the past or perceived to have done, is incessantly forcing me to examine in detail my every fault and mistake.” Higher Thoughts for Down Days. July 20.

With worry, we tend to think that we can fix whatever we are worried about. But then when we begin ruminating about the matter at hand, we give more power to  the cycling mind to go deeper into the quicksand of hopelessness and despair. Now our low mood begins to take its toll and   sadness begins to  deepen till  our body is physically weakened and our mind   gradually exhausts itself.

A solution that I have found helpful when worry gets the best of me is to initiate the LAW OF THE THREES. Basically what this amounts to is that when the worry and rumination begins its circling  we imagine a Stop sign to halt the incessant negative thinking, and replace them with three thoughts which are upbeat and  positive.   Of course there is no magic in all of this, but just plain old persistence and  keeping focused on the solution.  I have also learned that when a negative thought pops into our minds, we usually have only about 3 seconds to dismiss it for what it is.  We must take charge and immediately replace it with three positive thoughts which build us up and are not allowed to start  spiraling us downward. 

The best thing is to prepare ourselves for those times when thinking gets “stinking” and irrational. Most of these thoughts turn out to be catastrophic with dire predictions about our future. Practice  of the Rule  of  theThrees Law can  be the tool that will eventually free us from being dominated by thinking which is irrational and despairing.  Even though the low mood begins to deepen into a state of depression, believe that you can stop the cycling with a STOP command and start thinking of positive thoughts, one after another.

Another solution which I have found to work is to tell yourself that your worry time  is for only 20 minutes a day. You will also set that  time at any point of the day that you choose. That’s all the worry time you will allow to take up your time. So worry all that you want.  Twenty minutes. That’s all.

Be sure that you will have an activity to put your mind and energy toward when the 20 minutes is up. It is at this point that the mind will have to be reined in, because it has been conditioned to act like a “drunken monkey” and jumps from one thing to another.

These are just suggestions and I hope that you give them a try and see if they can work for you. They work for me. Takes practice  and perseverance but it’s a tool that can work and can bring  peace and serenity to your   mind. Tell that monkey to take a leap!

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

Please visit the store for more information on publications which are available. Ordering online is available. 

When I was depressed a few years back, I believed  I  couldn’t  escape this  self-imposed lockdown. It was like looking down a stretch of highway  with no  end in sight. The mystery  of the whole thing  was   trying to figure out how I got in this fix in the first place?

That’s the problem with depression. Where does it come from and how to get rid of it? Like getting rid of a cold or the flu.  We all know how   this ordeal begins: slowly and with that intense grip  that sticks to us like swamp mud.  And then comes the backing away from family, friends and those with whom  we are closest.  Our enclosure is much like the prison  cell, excepting that we have the key that could free us. Only I have the power to free myself.

So now, today, I can share how in my own time in lockdown I found the way out.  At first I really didn’t know what I had, just that something had me. I had had this experience before  when I was addicted to a substance that I felt I could not live without. But for thirty years of days sober and serene, my recovery  was accomplished by living a program that not only promised hope and peace, but a program that actually delivered on that promise.

I want to share that book with you, just as Dr. Bob and Bill W., shared their recovery experience with others like themselves and now   thousands of  grateful recovered addicts.

In 1998 the thoughts and miracles of others who were depressed,  who use the 12 Steps have their own book, describing in detail, Step by Step, how they unlocked their own personal  prison. Actually, it is a book  that has HOPE written all over it. It provides a way out for all of us who thought that there was no way out–and that suicide was our only escape. We all know how depression and its  debilitating  isolation  completely immobilizes and deadens us to all hope and meaning. 

To set a goal for our own recovery is possible now with Depressed Anonymous. We know. We’ve been there.  Depression doesn’t have to last forever. Now this is not some “pie in the sky” stuff.   Read the stories of those who did find hope and recovery,  and see how they put their trust in that power greater than themselves. They made a decision to give it their all, finding a meaning for their lives. and a reason to live.

We all were able to  gradually  free ourselves  from the fog, the isolation, and begin to find a continual hope  with the support of our Depressed Anonymous Fellowship.

If you want to find out about this hope-filled message  for yourself or  for a friend/ family member, please check it out here online or at your favorite bookstore. You can also order online from the Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore here at this website depressedanon.com.   If you are depressed today, this book can be what you have been looking for.

“If we have worked the Twelve Steps on a daily basis, I do believe we   now realize the value of surrender and the power that releases in us. Just by making a decision at Step Three “to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God” is the beginning of reconnection with life and with our selves. Now, we are conscious how our own isolation paradoxically  isolated family, friends, loved ones from us.  The more our friends tried to help us the more we went deeper into the darkness. Our darkness and their inability to comfort us in turn pushed them deeper into their own feelings of helplessness and isolation. Many times the desire to help the depressed pushes the helper deeper into the isolation of the depressed –mirroring the reality of the depressed person.”

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(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. (Appendix B: The Vital Spiritual experience.).

(c) The Dep-Anon Family Guide (2000). Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.KY.   ( This important work will soon be reprinted and published at the end of 2019.)

Today, Depressed Anonymous Publications has published the First Spanish Edition of DEPRESSIVOS ANONIMOS.   (This Spanish edition   is  the English  edition of Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition).

This Spanish edition provides the 12 Step fellowship with a Step by Step program of recovery.

See our website at www.Depressedanon.com for information on ordering online.

DEPRESSIVOS ANONIMOS  can be ordered from Amazon.com and/ or from the Depressed Anonymous website at www. depressedanon.com.

For more information  email at  depanon@netpenny.net.