Category Archives: Helpful Thinking

I no longer have to endure like a passive victim

August 15, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Victim or survivor? Which shall it be? How can I be a survivor when I can hardly motivate myself to do anything, just anything positive to kick start my recovery. What is the first thing that has to happen for me to get on the road to recovery.

For my own life, the motivator was to face the fact that something physical was happening to me as I was finding myself in a continual funk. Since we are of one piece, the fatigue that came from just the simple process of thinking began to affect my whole body. I found that my thinking became obsessive and compulsively totally centered on my life’s losses plus the shame and guilt that accompanied them. I felt like the guy who is walking around with the sign on his back saying “kick me.” In my mind there was no way out. I was in lockdown. I was down on my luck and flat on my back.

It was then that I knew I had to make a decision–get up and move or stay down and die. I got back up on my feet and decided to move. I really had not a clue where I was headed but I knew that doing nothing was not the answer. It was then that I went to a Twelve Step meeting, developed by persons like me, depressed and flat on their backs. But there was a major difference between them and myself. These folks had a solution. They explained how their own way out was to get connected with those like themselves (depressed), flee their isolation and start using a plan that promised hope and freedom from the prison bars of their own depression.

These folks wrote a book, it is called Depressed Anonymous and presents us with a plan that works. The plan is filled with hope. And if there is no Depressed Anonymous in your community you can use the Home Study Kit for your personal guide.

You will discover that your recovery commitment to yourself has placed you on the recovery road. The Promises of Depressed Anonymous as outlined in our program will bring you to a new place, an horizon where your life appears filled with the light of hope. You will become a survivor. If you want to learn more about who we are and what we can achieve as part of the fellowship, you will find the tools that will bring a change about in your own life which will bring you in contact with others like ourselves but also will bring hope and serenity. For information that will inspire you and guide you for what works for us, and for you, is to go to our Homepage at depressedanon.com where you will find a list of articles and info, plus books written by those of us who have been depressed, but now live to help others like ourselves. We’ve been there –done that. Now we live one day at a time with hope and freedom.

Resource

The Promises

I want to change!

July 7, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

AFFIRMATION

“When I keep my focus on the solution and not on the problem, my attitude seems to lighten up! “Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.”

This expression is one of the many Promises made to those of us who want to follow and live out the 12 Steps of Recovery in our daily lives. By doing so we are able to change the way we think, feel and act everyday of our lives. How is this possible you might ask? Well, for starters, you are given a dynamic action plan for your guide all the time, 24/7. That in itself is something that I had been looking for when I found myself locked down, in a corner, emotionally, spiritually and psychologically. I was in a hole and I knew I had to stop digging.

“My depression was my constant companion. There was no change. It was like a shadow that went anywhere and everywhere I went. It was then that I decided that I’d rather have security and hope as my daily companions. I’ve decided that I can choose between being depressed and being serene. Misery is an option. I know that since I have been in denial about my depression continually weighing me down for years, I am making a decision that I believe my faith in my abilities can cause me to feel differently about myself. My new life is trying to live without depression. The more I succumb to wanting to isolate myself and hunker down with my depression, the sicker I get. I know that I will find a new beginning by ridding myself of any fear that is oppressing me now, today. The only thing that can make me insecure is to slip back into that awful feeling of sadness and with the belief that I will never feel better. Now I also feel secure being back in contact with God, as I understand God, my Higher Power. My new faith in my Higher Power makes me fearless.”

A solution for me is to be part of a fellowship of men and women who are looking to have that same hope as did I more than 30 years ago. The solution came to me in a prepackaged format, Depressed Anonymous, a book which outlined how to live this new life, while simultaneously putting me on a path of hope. Not only have I stayed on this path these many years but I have given to others how they can have the same experiences as I have.

I continue to share my gift with you, which is the “gift of my depression experience. Without this experience, my life would never have turned into the powerful reality that it is today. In fact, I am doing right now what I have been doing most of my adult life–sharing with hurting depressed people how there is hope and serenity.

The biggest gift is to know there are many Depressed Anonymous groups around the world who are willing to share with you their own stories of being set free from the chains of depression. We are a community of hope. Will you join us?

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

+ Please go to Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore to discover helpful and inspirational books which may be ordered online.

Fellowship, Grief, Hope

I have learned and I have grown

June 25, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

“As I began working on the abuse issues in therapy, the pieces of my life began to fall together in a way they never could have before, as I had never dealt with this catastrophic event. In the book, Depressed? Here is a way out! the author talks about how people find their time of depression to be one of the great gifts in their life. The first time I read this, I thought it was the craziest thing I had ever heard. Yet during this time of depression, I have learned and I have grown. I have come to understand myself and my God in a way I never could before.

It has been many years now. Life is starting to come together for me again, one day at a time by the grace of God and the fellowship of this program. From the very first time I walked through the doors of Depressed Anonymous I knew that I was in the right place. Having been an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous for so many years, I was already a firm believer in the Twelve Steps. I attended meetings, I worked the Steps with my sponsor. I used the Depressed Anonymous phone list and talked to people about my pain and my day to day problems. I read the book and followed the suggestions in it.

With God, through Depressed Anonymous, this program and the fellowship literally carried me through the darkest time of my life and God did not let me die. I have truly experienced the ‘miracle of the group.’ I have heard it said that sometimes God’s greatest miracles are unanswered prayers. I believe it. After all, I am one.”

–Anonymous

Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition.(2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Pages 119-120.

Positivity

Don’t Let Life Get You Down

June 20, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

+ People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

+ If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

+If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies. Succeed anyway.

+ If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you.. Be honest and frank anyway.

+What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight. Build anyway.

+If you find serenity, and happiness, there may be jealousy. Be happy anyway.

+The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow. Be happy anyway.

+Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough. Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

+You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

Copyright (c) Mother Teresa

12 Step Meeting, DA Literature, Fellowship, Spirituality

Depressed or unhappy?

May 23, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Depressed Anonymous bases its healing and recovery on the premise that once depressed persons admit they are out of control, even to the extent of attempting suicide, they come to believe that a power greater than themselves can restore them to sanity, while at the same time, making a decision to turn their minds and wills over to the care of God, as they understand God,

The God, as we under stand God, is what appeals to more and more persons as we admit our helplessness over our compulsive, depressive thoughts, actions, or behaviors. We feel we have lost all control over everything including our thinking. The depressed person is aware that their unpleasant thinking is a cyclical and spiraling process where there is never a respite. This obsession, driven by one’s one feelings of guilt, shame and worthlessness is the fuel that that continues our own isolation. This experience is not so much a psychopathology as it is a way for the human spirit to comfort itself. The depression is more of a disease of isolation and being disconnected than a biological disorder.

The Twelve Step program helps people to become God conscious. It is in working the program while making no excuses for the spiritual nature of our recovery. We can begin to attribute our new found sense of hope and peace to the Higher Power. For the active member of Depressed Anonymous, there begins to glimmer in the distance the bright light of hope.

By recognizing how it feels to be depressed, more people will have the help and guidance that will get them through their depression. Lives will be saved as well. Besides reading the Twelve Steps at each meeting, the group learns on a firsthand basis about the “miracle of the group.” It is in the sharing and getting connected with the other members of the group where one’s recovery begins.

RESOURCES:

Please click onto The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore for more information on Depression, spirituality and recovery.

Acceptance, Choice, Fellowship, Higher Power, Mindfulness

There is hope for you now

May 21, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

AFFIRMATION

“One of the most important things to remember in the midst of depression is that it won’t last forever, that there is hope for you to begin to feel better. We won’t tell you to SNAP OUT OF IT (who have never experienced depression) like other folks, because we are not turning something on and off like a water faucet. Just as it took years to get where you are now, it takes time to get better and air out your sad thoughts as well.” D. Rowe

I know that in our program of recovery we try and live one day at a time. This is not easy for someone who usually wants to know the outcome for something that might happen ten years from now, not to mention the need to try and make right something not done properly ten years from our past. When I work my program I want to work on myself, finding serenity in knowing that in time and with patient work I can begin to feel better. There are just too many success stories of how people get better when they work their Twelve Step recovery program.

Forever is a word that hardly is heard in a Depressed Anonymous meeting. I intend to try and live just for today. I accept that I am depressed but that I do have a choice to find my way out of this sadness. I also believe that it is irrational to think that this sadness can last forever. The more I change the way I think and behave the more positive will my attitude be about my recovery.

MEDITATION

Our Higher Power, or our God as we understand God, is guiding and leading us toward a life free from sadness. We intend to place more of our trust in its hands. (Personal comments).

RESOURCES

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

Note. To discover more literature about depression and recovery please click onto The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore at VISIT THE STORE. All literature can be ordered online.

Acceptance, Faith, Focus

When the student is ready the teacher arrives

May 18, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

My shame of not being in control of my life has paradoxically placed me in more of a state of powerlessness, feeling hopeless and helpless.

“…that’s the way it is with depression –over the years you get comfortable with being miserable, which doesn’t mean you like it, but that you’re just too afraid to risk feeling different.

Now that I have admitted I am having a difficult time living, I wanting to learn some new avenues that will make my life more enjoyable and more livable.

I know now that at this point that I think my life is at its lowest point – that is when this program of recovery came into my life. I believe with the Psalmist that who said that we need to commit ourselves to God, trust in God, and that the God of my understanding will act in my behalf.

When I learn to let go of all those persons, mental images, past hurtful situations and memories, the better I am able to let God control my life. I find this “letting go” a fearsome project. I nevertheless find that I must do it– if I want to find hope .

Some of the major ways people help build the walls of their depression are to consider themselves worthless. They won’t allow themselves to get angry. They can’t forgive themselves or others, and they believe that life is hard and death is worse. Also, they believe that since bad things happened to them in the past bad things are bound to happen to them in the future.”

Resources:

(C)) The Depressed Anonymous Workbook. (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. KY. Page 7.

See the Home Study project for more information for working with another for one’s recovery.

Fellowship, Hope, Service, Spirituality, Step 01, The 12 Steps

Stepping out of hopelessness

May 15, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

One of the greatest feelings I experienced in confronting my depression was that I began to have hope. I began to believe what others were saying about the Steps. They were telling me that the plan that they followed everyday of their lives was giving them a positive feeling that they were going to step out of the swamp of sadness and hopelessness. In fact, those who spoke these encouraging words already were manifesting the strength and power of the 12 Steps in their own lives. I was one of these people.

A question that continued to cross my mind during my period of pain and isolation was basically “is life worth living.” Many folks depressed still debate this question in their minds. And far too many have provided us their answer that “life is not worth it.”

This has been my mission over these past years to show by example of other’s recovery (plus my own) that with appropriate faith, work and the spiritual tools, life can be good again. There is a faith, a strong indomitable spirit at the core of every human being, that hope is available to all who seek it.” What you seek, will seek you.” It’s almost akin to the belief in Karma–as you give out so will you receive back–in some way, at some time in your own life experiences. I don’t know how or why, but I do know that it just works out that way.

When I was first introduced to the 12 Steps, I came to my first meeting, willing to learn what I could to recover fully from my addiction. I had to have hope that something would work. It would have to work for me. And members of this 12 Step group presented me stories, facts and situations where persons completely down and out, physically, mentally and spiritually found hope in the confusion and despair of their own hopelessness and became free.

No longer did we feel hopeless of finding a way out of what was killing us. Yes, “we” found a way out. The plan was before us and the group was behind us as we plodded along, each of us supporting the other til we finally completed our Steps. We now share how our stepping into hope continues to be the North star for me these past thirty plus years for my own life.

Is life worth living? For many years now I discovered how a faith, a strong belief in my Higher Power, and a bonded group of men and women have continued to travel the same path as my own.

If you want more information about our group Depressed Anonymous please check out our website at www.depressedanon.com for a full explanation of who we are and what we do. You’ll want to step out with us.

Faith, Fellowship

Having a secure base in life.

May 10, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

After ten years of repeated meeting with the depressed of Depressed Anonymous meetings, it’s clear that the meetings create a secure base for those who in their childhood had neither kindness nor the life-giving warmth and affection of a loving family.

People who keep coming back to Depressed Anonymous continue to grow and become aware of the inner change taking place week after week.They find not only attention to their story, but find that they are loved and cared for at the same time. Possibly for the first time they find that they look forward to each weekly meeting and become attached to the positive feelings that emerge inside themselves they continue to share the story of their pain. In time, they share how their week is suddenly being filled with more good days than bad. It also becomes obvious to the participants that childhood behavior and experiences are carried right on into adult life. Trusting is such a hazard for the depressed because every person is different. You can’t trust your environment because it could suddenly shift and you would be without a certainty that you were bad and worthless.

The meetings gradually present to you an opportunity to be someone worthwhile and valued. Your starting and risking information about yourself begins the construction of a new and secure you. The Depressed Anonymous group becomes for possibly the first time in your life, a very secure and stable environment where you can share, trust and grow.”

–Anonymous

Fellowship, Spirituality

The prescription for sanity in one’s life.

May 8, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

This idea of choosing sanity is what we desire. Who would ever choose insanity? But, believe it or not, people choose insanity all the time. You remember the saying, “doing the same thing over and over again is insanity.” If you are honest with yourself, I think you might remember a time when you yourself kept doing something that was assuredly insane. Today, if you can honestly say that you always choose sanity, then my response to you is that is a good thing. I am happy for you.

In our 12 Step program of recovery we learn about the 2nd Step, “Came to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity.” Now for most of us, like it says in the 12 &12 and 12 Traditions, written by Bill W., co-founder of AA, sanity “means soundness of mind.” Now here is the point, when I was in the throes of depression, I was scared and I really did think that I was losing my mind. I could not concentrate. My feelings and emotions were flowing through me like a river overflowing its banks. My thoughts always circled back on themselves, making a tight grip-like on every thought that flowed from my mind. I was in a circular round dance – without a partner. I would try to think my way out of my depression. What was happening to me I thought? The more I thought, the more I got tangled up in my own mental fog. After the mental wrestling which went on in my mind, hour after hour and day after day, I begin to wonder if there was any way out of this labyrinth. The paths led to places which indicated that there was no exit. I began to believe there was no way out and so my daily recourse/solution was to sleep. Sleep was the only thing that would deaden the assault on my mind.

Many times my own mind goes back to the time when as a therapist I tried to help others break down their life choices into small pieces. When I was depressed, all I could think of was a wall, a huge wall that would show up, every time I wanted to go and try to figure out a solution for my problem. And it was here that I would continue the insane banging my head against a wall that would not let me gain entrance. But when I began to break the symptoms of my depression into smaller parts and take a closer look at where the solutions might lie. I discovered a way out of my own prison by this method and it gradually provided hope for me. I discovered that what I needed to do was to utilize some of these ” tools ” as a way out of the prison of depression and gave me a gradual exit out of my prison. Instead of going over and over in my mind on how bad or worthless I was, I began to cut off these self-bashing thoughts with hopeful designs on making a new me. No more was I engaged in that insane circular thinking that provided no solutions, but instead, always sent me right back to square one from where I started. Insanity! It was like a dog chasing its tail. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Sorry, it doesn’t happen that way when we are with a group of people at a Depressed Anonymous meeting. We all have experienced the type of thinking that puts us deeper in the lowest mood possible. It is the group experience and the spiritual principles of the Steps that help us to spiral upwards into wholeness and sanity.

One of the great lessons that I have learned over the years is listening to those persons who share their stories of hope. They tell the stories of their own recovery sharing with us how they used all the “tools” at their disposal for their own recovery

.(See Tools of Recovery at our website Menu where you will find a list of many of the effective tools for extricating oneself from depression. You will be able to use ” sane” tools as a means of rejecting the insanity of our own lives and making sense out of how to live a life without depression. A life with hope. It happens.)

Also read the many stories in our Depressed Anonymous “Big Book” Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.KY). Personal testimonies section.

More information at the Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore.

Order are accepted online.

Hope is just a few steps away!