Category Archives: Helpful Thinking

12 Step Meeting, DA Literature, Fellowship, Mutual Aid, Spirituality

What is the power of Depressed Anonymous?

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“What is the power of Depressed Anonymous? Well, let me say that when I started attending Depressed Anonymous meetings, I went for a couple of months and then stopped. I stopped going because of my depression was so bad that I didn’t want to leave my apartment. I didn’t want to be around to talk with anyone. I didn’t want to do anything but crawl in a hole somewhere and isolate myself from everything. Then after about six weeks of isolation, I called the residential treatment facility where I had been a client to see if I had received any mail there.  One of the members of the Depressed Anonymous group  where I attended answered the phone. I spent a few minutes talking to her and there was something in her voice that told me that for some reason, it was important for me to be at that meeting. After the meeting was over, I suddenly realized the importance and power of Depressed Anonymous.

So what is the power of Depressed Anonymous?  For me, its just like attending the first  meeting. I was a little scared and apprehensive at first, but then I found the Depressed Anonymous meeting was a place to go  where there were other depressed people just like me. They could relate to and understand what I was going through. They didn’t judge me or think of me as crazy.  I was accepted.”

SOURCE: PERSONAL STORIES. A quote from Ray in Depressed  Anonymous (2013) 3rd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications.  Louisville, KY. Page.133.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              OPOWER

12 Step Meeting, Belief, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, Prayer, Spirituality, The 12 Steps

HOW TO BE A WORRYWART.

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AFFIRMATION

I INTEND TO LIVE IN TODAY!

“As an expert in guilt you cannot live in the present.  You are constantly worrying about the past and fearing for the future. As an expert in guilt you cannot enjoy happiness when it comes, for you believe that as night follows day, suffering will follow joy. When good fortune does come your way, you know it will not stay, for you are the guilty ones and you will b punished.”  (7)

REFLECTION

I have believed for most of my life that since most things never worked out in my life, why should things work out now. I have always had the belief, mostly unconscious, that nothing ever works out for me and that this belief is reinforced by the way I habitually think about my life.  I have lived my life so much in the past and in the future that I have forgotten about trying to live for today. 

What I have learned is that most of the things that we fear never happen and if they did we would have the resources to deal with them in some effective manner.  Steps Four and Five of the Twelve Step program insure that we find a way out of this depression by looking at the way we guilt ourselves and then make amends to those, as appropriate, who we need to make amends to.

MEDITATION

God, we ask you to help us to make amends to ourselves as we go through this day. We want you to help us rid myself of the guilt, worry and fear that prevents us from living with any serenity or peace today.  We pray that our lives will improve as we make attempts to change the way we feel and think.”

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SOURCE: Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 Daily Thoughts and Meditations for 12 Step fellowship groups. DAP. Louisville, Ky  Page 199.

Higher Power

“We have less concern about self and gain interest in others.” PROMISE #7 of Depressed Anonymous.

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This is a Promise that I can vouch for. When I first became a member of the AA fellowship, a 12 Step Program of recovery, that my entire life was turned upside down. I learned how AA  is a spiritual program where I came to believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. The first thing I did to bring sanity into my life was to go to as many meetings a week as I could, read every bit of literature as I could which pertained  to using the 12 Steps to gain sobriety and sanity.

It was later in 1985 that I developed a program for depression using the same 12 Steps of recovery. I called our organization Depressed Anonymous and have been helping others like myself  to know and believe that we are not alone.  I talk, e-mail, write and now blog about my own experiences with depression with the view of helping others out of the prison of their depression.

As it says in I’LL DO IT WHEN I FEEL BETTER, “It is almost a truism to say about those of us who want this program, are not now focused on self but on the will of God for our lives. I personally believe that once I have made the first step, and admitted my powerlessness, I set in motion a force, a loving force of the creator in my personal life. In time I am filled with energy and find that this power can change me and restore my life with purpose and meaning. It can prepare me to meet those who are willing to risk leaving the prison of their depression. By my own interest in getting in touch with the Higher Power and getting its direction to “do the next right thing” I find that my own life is gradually becoming more filled with purpose and energy.

There is a saying that to gain energy you must give energy. I found this to be true for my own life.

The spiritual writer Joel Goldsmith stated that: “There is an invisible bond between all of us. We are not on earth  to get from one another, but to share those spiritual treasures which are of God. Our interest in each other is, in truth, purely spiritual.  Our purpose in life is the unfolding of the spirit within..”

12 Step Meeting, Hope, Spirituality, The 12 Steps

THE FEELINGS JOURNAL.

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FEELINGS ARE ENERGY IN MOTION 

Many times just writing down what you are feeling will help you get rid of the pain of that particular feeling. Also, when you speak to someone about how you are experiencing an unpleasant feeling, then others can and will be with you through the pain. Many persons who are in recovery keep a feelings journal in which they list the various feelings that they experience from one time to another during their day. It’s wise to try and stay with these unpleasant feelings and sort out where they are coming from and how we caused them. Many times when we describe what we feel, we begin to release in ourselves the “stuckness” that keeps us in a mood of hopelessness.”

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd ed. (2013) Depressed Anonymous Publications  Louisville, Ky.  Page 90.

12 Step Meeting, Fellowship, Hope, Mutual Aid, Spirituality, The 12 Steps

Getting into action! To get out of the hole we have to stop digging!

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Getting into action comprises one of the chapters of the Alcoholic Anonymous Big Book.  It was last nite that a person in our weekly phone meeting told us a way that she was “getting into action.”  She mentioned how  saying STOP to herself when certain thoughts spiraled her down into deeper ruminations that this enabled her  to change her thoughts into a physical hope filled action.

There is also another positive mantra that I personally like to use  is MOTIVATION FOLLOWS ACTION! Get the body moving and the body will follow. And finally I know that to get out of the hole of my depression is in fact to stop digging. How often have I continued to depress myself with all these unpleasant ruminations.

12 Step Meeting, Fellowship, Hope, I'll Do It When I Feel Better, Mutual Aid, The 12 Steps

SNAP OUT OF IT!

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 THE PROMISES  #6   The feelings of uselessness and self pity disappear.

In the Promises of Depressed Anonymous we see that “One of the major areas in our lives that change quickly by our attendance at the group meetings is that we pity ourselves less and less. We begin to be grateful for all that we have and all that we are.  We begin to see that once we start getting connected to others like ourselves on a regular basis, through our Depressed Anonymous meetings, we now are listened to by others and we are validated. We don’t hear “snap out of it” at our meetings. Suddenly our years of self pity, isolation and desolation have been cashed in for a currency that buys us a new competency, a new identity, autonomy and a burgeoning interrelatedness with others. We know we are not alone.

We now can speak about our experience with depression in the past tense. We can now show how we have the tools of self-care whereby we can dig out and begin to construct an edifice of hope that will last the rest of our lives. As long as we continue to use the tools of the program we are bound to feel different as well as think differently.”

COMMENTS, PLEASE.

SOURCES: Depressed Anonymous (2011) 3rd edition; The Promises of Depressed Anonymous (2002); I’ll Do it when I feel better (.2013) Page 41.

12 Step Meeting, Fellowship, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, Mutual Aid, Spirituality, The 12 Steps

A SAFE HAVEN: THE DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS GROUP.

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Higher Thoughts for down days for September 27.

AFFIRMATION

I am not going to have any expectations about any person, place or situation.

” The great attraction  of telling ourselves that we know how other people see things without making the effort to check whether we are right is that we can claim that other people will reject us, we do not have to make the effort to meet people and get to know them. If we tell ourselves that other people will find us boring , we do not have to make the effort to talk to people.” (3)

I am less prone to read people’s minds, but I am beginning to check other peoples feelings instead of trying to read their minds. I am finding that the more I am in tune and in touch with my own feelings, the more able I am to feel comfortable around other people. I am less concerned about their opinions of me as I am concerned about the feelings that I have about myself. I am no longer going to operate out of the belief that I am worthless or unacceptable. Gradually, the fellowship of the Twelve Step program has made me aware that I am acceptable, especially now that I am part of a group that talks of being wounded and in need of repair. I am no longer alone.

In the fellowship, we are all equal. When I first came into the program, I found it a safe haven and I felt strengthened by the support of the other members of the group.  The people who are like me understand me. They never tell me to snap out of something that has been going on in me for many years.

MEDITATION

The words that give us the most hope, are the words that by experiencing a spiritual awakening, we can find the serenity and life that we have been wanting to find all these years.

SOURCE: Higher Thoughts for Down Days:365 daily thoughts and meditations for 12 Step fellowship groups.. Page 193-194.

Faith, Hope

The way out of the prison of depression takes work, time and a belief in a power greater than ourselves

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Higher Thoughts for Down Days: September 23rd, 2014

AFFIRMATION

“My God is a God of mercy not of vengeance and punishment.”

“Indeed, the greater the misery , the more I believed God was putting me on trial.”

REFLECTION

One of the steps that I decided to take to get out of my prison of was to get myself involved in this Twelve Step spiritual program. It was hard at first to get involved with the program because I didn’t and wasn’t able to have immediate relief from my sadness. I wanted the program to work right now. I wanted someone to say hang on and in a day or two, it will start to work. Instead, I hear that the more meetings I attend, the more I listen and share at my meetings, the more my attitudes about God will start to change and I will understand how God is truly walking with me out of this prison of sadness, one day at a time.

I do believe that my depression was one of the greatest miseries that I have ever experienced in my life. I know that if I didn’t have a hope that it would be a temporary misery, I would have given up hope of ever feeling better. It is now my experience and my personal truth that I can feel better and that I am feeling better, thanks to the fact that I have admitted my powerlessness over depression. By doing just that, I have learned the rest of the ways I have to live and think to be free from the anguish. My greatest addiction was to the belief that I would never feel happy ever again.

MEDITATION

“But I will always hope and praise you forever more and more.” Psalm 71:24

We know that the more our thoughts go to a larger field, namely the consciousness of God’s presence, the more we get beyond the narrow focus of our own little world of pain and isolation. By letting our minds be open to God’s energy and direction, we are open to a new life lived with hope and healing.”

Hugh

The Promises

#3rd PROMISE OF DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS

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The 3rd Promise of Depressed Anonymous

WE DO NOT REGRET THE PAST  NOR WISH TO SHUT THE DOOR ON IT

How do we know that this particular Promise will come true for us?  The only thing that we can rely on is our own experiences. Our experience tells us that the more we live in the solution of the Promises of Depressed Anonymous the more serenity and peace is ours for the moment.

We have discovered that it  is when we begin to live in the solution that our solution focused program leads us past the fear of what might happen to the serenity of the present moment.  Our freedom begins when we start to reflect consciously on what is happening now at this very moment. I have noticed that it is when I become conscious on what is happening now at this very moment. I have noticed that it is when I became conscious about what I am feeling–the direct result of my thinking–it is at this moment that I make the conscious decision to bring myself back to the present.”

SOURCE:  Copyright(c) The Promises (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY  Page 8.