Category Archives: DA Literature

12 Step Meeting, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, The 12 Steps

Our hunches are more right than wrong.

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We think about the 24 hours ahead when we wake up, and attempt to live the day in honesty and peace. We ask God to  ward off thoughts of self-seeking, dishonesty and false motives.  As Alcoholics  Anonymous says,  with the indecision about something, we then ask God for inspiration and we let go of struggling for an answer. Alcoholics Anonymous says that you will be surprised at how the right answers will come after we have practiced this way of living. It also comes to pass that our hunches are more right than wrong. We also pause throughout the day when we are fearful, puzzled or anxious. We pray  to the Higher Power for which direction to take. I like this suggestion the best when Alcoholics Anonymous says : We constantly remind ourselves that we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day “‘Thy will be dome,’ ”  We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. We become more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.  By coming to the meetings and admitting our addictions, we finally get in touch with those emotions that have all but shut down from an early time in our lives, when to feel hurt too much.  We now have  the chance  to let these feelings get displayed and expressed in the supportive and trusting environment of our newly chosen  family of the Depressed Anonymous group.”

SOURCE:   Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky.  Page 101/Step 11.

NOTE: Even though most of us who join the Depressed Anonymous group, do not suffer from alcohol addiction,  Depressed Anonymous is  modeled after the 12  spiritual principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. We have based our  program of recovery on  the 12 steps of recovery and using them on a daily basis. The 12 Steps are now universally used as the basis for a myriad of recovery tools  for those who are trying to free themselves from addictive behaviors and attachments.

 

VISIT THE STORE at the DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS PUBLICATIONS  BOOKSTORE. at www.depressedanon.com. One can order online.

Depressed Anonymous Workbook

They said that I was ‘damaged beyond recovery

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Kim, The author of this comment, speaks  about those  therapists who said  that she was ‘damaged beyond recovery.’ Even though   experiencing  a myriad  of therapeutic interventions, various psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists, her depression just kept on coming. There seemed to be no escape.  Included with all these were a number of popular every 12 Step groups from  which she sought help.

In the following paragraphs,  with excerpts from  the  Depressed Anonymous Newsletter Volume .#1, Fall Issue, 2017,  she shares   her own  experiences . (See Newsletter Archives for full account). She shares with us her  life  Before and her  life After   participating in the Depressed Anonymous HOME STUDY PROGRAM OF RECOVERY.

What my  life was before Depressed Anonymous

While all my program friends had gotten full recovery, the Promises of Recovery had not materialized for me. I would stay depressed forever. This destroyed me. I quit the program and started to take antidepressants, but even that didn’t work: The depressions got  more intense and more frequent. I didn’t want to live anymore. One day I found the Depressed Anonymous site on the Internet, but there was no meeting in Europe.  There was a book though. So I made a deal with God; I could go through the Twelve Steps one last time. And after that I could jump  in front of a train. It was now or never. So I bought the book, and the workbook, and I asked Hugh to become my email  sponsor. That was three years ago.

What my life is like now.

I never expected this, but I have been free from depression for a whole year now.  The next depression will kill me, so it is very importantr to stay out of it. Every Sunday I sit behind my computer and answer questions from   the Workbook. I send them to my email sponsor, who reads them, gives me feedback and stimulates me to keep going.  I discover important things about myself…

In  Depressed Anonymous, I discovered my conclusion was wrong. I do belong to the  group. Indeed, I have always been part of the group. People with odd parents are part of society as well and so are depressed people and people that did rally stupid things. There is nothing to hide. I am human, no more, no less…

I made a deal with my Higher Power, one more time I would take the Steps. I am so happy that I did.

Submitted by Kim, a member of the Depressed Anonymous fellowship.

PS.  Kim has started an online Depressed  Anonymous for SKYPE users at Depanon@hotmail.com.  She is also translating Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition into her home  language.

Kim has  just completed (1/30/2019)  her work on the HOME STUDY PROGRAM OF RECOVERY,  with the assistance of her email Sponsor.    By her  continued commitment and  study of the Depressed Anonymous (Big Book) with the Depressed Anonymous Workbook, she not only knows herself at a deeper level but also lives out the spiritual principles of the Twelve Steps with hope and vigor. One day at a time.

If you would you like to work the Twelve  Steps of Depressed Anonymous, using the Home Study Program of Recovery  and to find  how to have  an email Sponsor, as did Kim,  please write to me, Hugh  at depanon@netpenny.net., and discover how you too can work the Twelve Steps , with a program designed for you — plus  the unique  goals you have chosen for your own recovery from depression.

Make a commitment today, stick to a plan of action, and  grow through  each of the STEPS with your own email sponsor –at your own speed –especially when there are no Depressed Anonymous groups in your locale. See the Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore to find out more  about the HOME STUDY  KIT.

Depressed Anonymous

Is there an alternative?

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Jonathon Rottenberg in his work, The Depths: The evolutionary origins of the Depression Epidemic tells us that

“The mood system has a bias to return to deep depression even with little provocation. Fortunately relapse is not inevitable and it can be countered. Antidepressant medication is currently the domionant strategy for buffering a person’s risk of relapse. Using antidepressants as the first line of defense is consistent with  defect  models, such as the biological model of kindled depression. In line with the idea that drugs address a permanent viability, psychiatrists  often recommend a life time  of antidepressant maintenance treatment for people who have previously experienced three or more episodes.”

This same author goes on to share how antidepressants aren’t the only  proven means for  slowing down or preventing depression. In this section of his book he goes on to explain how other treatments such as cognitive therapy and    mindfulness-based  cognitive therapy provide alternate care . He explains how “the success of brief, psychologically based treatments is encouraging not only because the treatment works, but because it speaks against  the existence of a permanently  brain-based vulnerability to depression.”

With all that has been said here, I would like to add another reality and alternative  for treatment of depression.  Simply put, the treatment occurs in the  midst of those persons depressed who share their struggles with each other. They are no longer alone, shamed and existing on the margins of those  who are  needing understanding  and  support. The group not only can provide moral and physical support, they can be buoyed by a spiritual l belief  that a God  of their understanding,  a Higher Power,  is  guiding  them on the path of their own  recovery. They not only have other members of the group walking the same path as  are they, but this support is buttressed by having a  personal plan of action.

For those of us who are  active members of Depressed Anonymous, we know first hand how our Twelve Step plan of action provides us all with a way out of depression. Whether we happen to be on antidepressants, in a therapy program,  or other forms of help, we discover that being in the midst of a group of person like ourselves, and receiving mutual aid for our own individual pain, it makes it possible to be positive about  our recovery. We are not alone. We now have the tools and we have each other. As we all are so much aware, it is the being dis-connected from life and others that makes our life hell. For most of us,  it is in the being dis-connected that drives us deeper into isolation  and personal despair.

If you the reader are depressed, and you are visiting with your doctor, ask her if she has a depression support group that she might refer you to. You can tell her that it makes sense to talk with someone who has been were you are now. It takes one to know one!

As a therapist, it was always my practice to refer clients to a  Depressed Anonymous group. Those who kept coming back to meetings had a plan in hand that was not only providing hope but the tools for living outside  the prison of  depression.  We need health professionals to be able to provide their patients with other mental health opportunities as alternatives to traditional approaches to depression or in conjunction with them.

Have a hopeful day.

Hugh

SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville KY.

Go to The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore,  at VISIT THE STORE for this and other helpful books  on depression. You can order material online

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12 Step Meeting, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Depressed Anonymous Workbook

I want to start a Depressed Anonymous group in my community? How do I do that?

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This month (12/2018) we have had four requests to start a Depressed Anonymous group in their particular locations. Three were requests from individuals living in the US and one was from a person from Canada.

Our first inclination would to advise them to go to our Newsletter Archives at our Home Page Menu and read the issues from #1- through and including the Newsletter for 2018. Each of the Newsletters has a section about our program of recovery as well as other important information about overcoming depression. Each is titled “How to Start A Depressed Anonymous group.”

Since all of our Groups worldwide use the Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition Manual, it serves as an excellent guide for each of the newly formed Depressed Anonymous group membership and part of their ongoing program of recovery. There is a chapter in this Manual for the Leader of the Group with an example suggested for leading a Depressed Anonymous Group. Also, included in the Manual is a chapter on How to Start a group.

Like most 12 Step programs of recovery they each have their own way of conducting meetings. The 12 Steps and the 12 Traditions of Depressed Anonymous are read at every meeting. Also included in every meeting is the reading of The Statement of Concerns plus How Depressed Anonymous Works.

Most 12 Step groups also have their own “Big Book” which is what the Alcoholics Anonymous program is referred to. In a sense, this is the bible for the fellowship and most members know it by heart chapter and verse. If you want to start a Depressed Anonymous group in your community it is a given that you will want to have a copy of this important book, authored by the early members of the fellowship. In fact, we think it essential to have copies of this book available at each and all meetings. If you are going to be a founder of a local DA group we hope you read this book before you set up your own group meeting. After 30 years working with Depressed Anonymous and helping to set up groups around the world, we have found ourselves continually reflecting on various passages which guide us in our own daily recovery.

You can order Depressed Anonymous Online plus other books written by those of us who WERE depressed. The sale of books provides us with revenue to share hope with others who are in need our support. Please click onto The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore at depressedanon.com for more information.

We want to hear from you and are looking forward to another group meeting the needs of those “Still suffering from depression.”

Please email us at depanon@netpenny.net. Locate us at www.depressedanon.com.

Depressed Anonymous Workbook

Who is in charge here, anyway?

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The God of our understanding

Please reflect on how the group that you are part of, Depressed Anonymous  , has helped you find acceptance, and mercy, from this God   of your understanding.

A comment from the AA Grapevine:

“…The faith of my Sunday school days was gone, and the “God of my understanding” was far off. (But not so far as I thought, as it turned out). It stretched me to even imagine “a power, a strength, and for me to   became willing to take this route. I wasn’t ready to take on God just yet.

However, God was ready to take me on, for in my ignorance I’d done about all that AA asks –I had become willing. And this is how he did it. In some casual reading about seeds, this statement caught my attention: “Science can construct a seed identical to a natural seed in every detail but one -science’s seed will not germinate.” The words seemed to leap from the page. They demanded answers. What is the missing ingredient in the man made seed? Is it some dimension I don’t know about? Is it in everything? Even people? And then the big question. Who is in charge here, anyway?

Backed in a corner finally, by a logic greater than my ego, I conceded. Too many miracles, too much coincidence, and too much evidence of a power greater than  myself all around me left me defenseless and in awe.  I surrendered. And the power wasted no time in reinforcing my new belief with these words from the Big Book:” We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that power which is God…

He is always there if I but look, feel and want him to be; my conscience contact  is dependent upon my being willing.”

How willing are you now to continue the progress that you have made so far?  Please note how willing you are  to help your fellow sufferers of depression in Depressed Anonymous?

Pages 81-82. The Depressed Anonymous Workbook. Depressed  Anonymous Publications. Louisville. KY

Question: Does the natural beauty that surround us everyday lead us to the thought — how did all creation come to be?

Higher Thoughts for Down Days

I am beginning to trust myself!

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“The more I am able to break out of my isolation and fear, the better I begin to feel.  It’s like my past sadness and my attachment to it has prevented me from doing anything at all, including the pleasant feelings of joy and serenity. I have lived tied up in the cords of fear and anxiety. I am learning that this Power, whom I choose to call God, is steadily releasing me  from these  bonds, the more I face my fears and the shame of being depressed.

At one time, I found it difficult to place much trust in those people who crossed my path in this life. Now, little by little, I am beginning to trust myself as I am feeling more in control of what I feel, think and do.”

It is in trusting others, namely, those in my fellowship group of Depressed Anonymous, with whom  I share my hope and positive beliefs about myself. These feelings, when they come time and time again, free me gradually from the prison of my depression moods.

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

Acceptance, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Focus, Honesty, Hope, Mindfulness, The 12 Steps, Victim Thinking

Was finding this phone number a coincidence?

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Helen shares her story about finding help–when she needed it most.

“I finally knew after two year or more of sleepless nights that someone had to help me. I found a card saying Depressed Center, in the back of the phone book. It has a phone number and that was all. I talked to a man on the other end of the phone. I said to myself this man is too busy to talk with me, but anyway I made the first appointment myself. I made myself go. I thank God I did. I thank God that I went for help. It was a whole new beginning for me. I wanted to get well so badly. I think people do have to want to change. I went in with an attitude that I have to get well. I had heard things about counselors that scared me, but this was just all the old negative feelings that caught up with me and boxed me in. I got better and started to think differently. I started to get rid of some of my negative thoughts. I began to feel better and I continued to see my counselor. I started in Depressed Anonymous some weeks later.”

If you are curious about how the mutual aid group changed Helen’s life you’ll need to read her full account in the Personal Stories section of Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition, pages 169-172.

She also has something powerful to say about pleasing people and how she needed to get her priorities straight and begin taking care of herself.

Sources: Seeing is believing: 15 ways to leave the prison of depression. (2017). Hugh Smith. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY.

I’ll do it when I feel better.(2018) Hugh Smith. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. KY

Depressed Anonymous

FREE BEER TOMORROW!

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How many times have we voiced the  words  “I’m gonna do this” or “I’m gonna do that?”  One  of my favorites is  “I’ll do it when I feel better.” The problem with this statement is that I never feel better.  The problem with all these statements of what we are  going to do are  filled  with   conditions.   Or when I say I’m’ gonna do something , I always find some excuse not to do it.

We  like to put off what we need most. I know that I really need to see a dentist, but I keep putting it off. I mean, who likes pain? Or I know that I need to talk to my sponsor, but I’d much rather just stay in bed and sleep off my sadness. My pillow is my counselor. I know I’m gonna go to a Depressed Anonymous meeting, as I promised my friend, but not tonight.  I’ll tell him I’ll  be there tomorrow, .

The problem here is that “one of these days ” is never today.  We don’t want to live and be responsible for what happens to us today. We want to dwell in a past that we can never get back or the tomorrow which hasn’t come yet.  It’s like the guy who goes into the local pub and he sees  a huge sign on the wall with large red letters, ” FREE BEER TOMORROW!”  “Wow” he thought to himself, “I’ll be back tomorrow .”

Sure enough, here he comes. He goes up to the bartender, points to the sign, and says “I’ll take one of those free beers.”    The bartender smiles and tells him,  “come back tomorrow. ” “But today is tomorrow”  the guy tells the bartender. ” The bartender, puts his  hands on the bar, slowly and emphatically telling  the guy, “That’s tomorrow. Today is not tomorrow!”  The  bartender  gives out with a laugh. The guy walks out of the bar and could be heard repeating  “I get it, I get it.”

I will take care of what needs to be taken care of today–today is all I have.

Today is not tomorrow. Get it?

(c) Hugh(2018)

Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship

Thanks to Depressed Anonymous, I am a healer instead of being a victim.

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“These Twelve Steps work for those who work the program and who try to live one day at a time.  Many times  we have been so scared of being rejected once more and that we have withdrawn deeper into the anguish of our shame and hurt.  We need to air our hurts, our shame, and let others hear our story. There is something healing about hearing ourselves speak to others about our  own journey in life an the many emotional potholes that we have fallen into from time to time. We have felt that our lives were jinxed! But now we can begin  to feel hopeful when other members of the group shake their heads in knowing approval of what we are saying when  we tell our story. Most have been where we are now. And the more we make an effort  to come  to  meetings regularly,  the more  we will find members of the group telling us how they  see a change in the way we talk, act and look.   We will accept the group’s comments as being true and honestly expressed. These people speak our  language  and they  al l   have been where we  are now.  You  gradually begin to see yourself as healer instead of victim the  more  you  work  this program and  get  excited  about  the  possibility  of  helping  others. When you start reaching out to others in the group, it is  at  that  point  that  you  are  carrying the  message of  hope  to  others.  You have  a future with  Depressed Anonymous.”

COPYRIGHT (c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky. Page 105.

DA Literature, Focus

Life can be good for a change.

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I read the Depressed Anonymous manual, go to counseling, and attend the Depressed Anonymous meetings. The meetings are a must. I need them to survive. The support group’s  members help each other by listening, talking, expressing their feelings, and giving support on how to  cope with depression. By letting my Higher Power help me, I am beginning to feel free from depression. I am not so nervous and  tensed up. My Christian inner faith is getting stronger. I am not so stressed out  and I am beginning to get confidence within myself. I still have trouble with sleep pattern and I am getting some motivation back. I have learned how to handle anxiety by taking deep breaths when I am nervous or troubled. This was suggested by my therapist. I also am learning how to stand up for myself.

All these tools have helped me and will continue to do so. They also taught me not to dwell on my past, to live life one day at a time, and to look toward the future, but not live there. It  will take me a long time to deal with depression, but I am glad that these tools are available. Life can be good for a change. Please don’t give up.”

~ANONYMOUS

Anonymous, is  one of the many persons who share their  personal story of recovery  in  the group’s  manual, Depressed Anonymous.

For more of her story and many others please go to The Depressed Anonymous Publications at www.depressedanon.com.