Category Archives: Purpose

Making decisions

July 24, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Doubt invariably rears it’s ugly head when suddenly we realize that we are lost. This has happened to me when I was driving across a mile long bridge and I needed to turn around and go back. But there is no place to turn around. What can I do? All I can do is to keep driving. I have to accept the consequences. I knew the first five minutes on the bridge that something didn’t feel right. I realized that this large metropolis, with a myriad of its bridges, that I had chosen the wrong bridge.

I believe that making the wrong decisions in our lives is part of why we end up in the wrong place. We are lost. We tell ourselves that we “shoulda” or “woulda” or “coulda” done it differently.

Or for the alcoholic, berating himself for taking that one drink too many. Or the addict shooting up–just one more time. And one more time. And one more time. But if you are fortunate like me, I didn’t spin the wheel one more time and hope that I might get the rush and win the prize. Not this time.

If this is where you are in life right now–on the bridge, and realize that you are lost, please take a good look at why you feel lost. And if you want to find your way, out of the darkness of depression, you’ve come to the right place.

Learn more about Depressed Anonymous, a 12 Step program of recovery, and if you are depressed, we can help you.

Hugh, for the fellowship

Belief, Believing Is Seeing, Fear, Fellowship, Mindfulness, Purpose, Step 04, Step 10, The 12 Steps

I will make a daily inventory of all my strengths

June 15, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Believing Is Seeing: 15 Ways To Leave The Prison Of Depression – Eleven

I will make a daily inventory of all my positive strengths. I tended to magnify the worst in everything in my life and make mountains out of molehills. I will focus on my stars and not my scars.

“One of the problems of being depressed is that every circumstance and situation is filled with potential hurt and disappointment. The depressed person has a tendency to think in patterns of despair, hurt, and disappointment. It appears to be a proven fact that the more a person keeps their fears and anxious thoughts to themselves, this can cause the mountain to grow larger. But by sharing these fears and thoughts with others, either by writing them out, as in a daily journal, or group discussion (like on SKYPE and ZOOM) we soon discover that our fears are not as big as we thought. The expression of fear many times decreased the size of their fear. Now that we are accepting ourselves we can begin to see that we possess the strength and persistence to tackle whatever obstacle lies ahead.

One of the features that stands out in our lives when depressed is we see everything in dark colors. Nothing looks hopeful. There does not appear to be a light at the end of the tunnel – except that it might be an oncoming freight train. We feel that we do not have a friend in the world. We feel that we’ll never feel good again. The list goes on and on.

What may be of some help is to take out pen and pencil and begin writing down your good points that you feel are your strengths. We have already done this, but it still remains an excellent exercise no matter how often you do it.

What do you remember as strengths before being aware that you are depressed? Going to Depressed Anonymous meetings has the potential to restore your sense of proportion about your strong points. At the meetings your friends in the fellowship will begin to tell you are showing improvement the more you are participating in the meetings. To listen to those who themselves are working the program and who share their lives week after week, you begin to realize that you too can begin to feel differently. Today can be a new start and yes, you do have it within yourself to be that person who is reversing old negative patterns of thinking and replacing them with thoughts of hope and optimism. You now believe that there is hope for yourself. Right now your strength seems to be that of maintaining a habitual way of thinking thoughts of hope. By the fact that you are reading this, takes the strength to want to feel good and continue to maintain a positive recovery. Begin now and reflect on your strengths. Believe that you have a way to maintain a personal persistence and desire to continue with gratitude for this new feeling of hope.”

NOTE: Take your pen and/or pencil and begin writing your thoughts down in response to the questions posed in the DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS WORKBOOK. Depressed Anonymous Publications.

Resources

These basic books of the Depressed Anonymous Fellowship can be ordered online.

See: www.depressedanon.com

Literature Available

To receive a mailing of Depressed Anonymous literature, send a Self addressed stamped envelope to: DAP, Box 465, Pewee Valley, Kentucky. 40056.

The material can be used as “handouts” at your local Depressed Anonymous meetings.

Purpose

Get out of “park” and put ‘er in first

June 10, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Hey, so good of you to come to our BLOG here at Depressed Anonymous website. We try and give encouragement to those of us “who are still suffering from depression.” And let me tell you, we are not alone. Again, we are not alone. We all have work to do. I have work to do – you have work to do. We are in this together.

Have you ever felt like, “what’s the use” or “I just can’t seem to get into gear.” Many days in my life, some more recent. I just feel like I want to stay in “park.” I can’t get in gear. My mind says “let’s get in gear.” My body says, “No, I feel comfortable right where I am at.” So there is the problem. How to put my body in first gear so as to get moving?

I think all of us have heard the saying about making it to a 12 Step meeting. It goes like this: There are two times I should go to my 12 Step meeting. One, when I want to go to a meeting and two, when I don’t want to go to a meeting. That sort of breaks It down in a language that I get. Simple. Basic. No gobblygook nonsense. That’s what I call getting in first gear. We get the car (body) moving. We don’t go to the remote or surf and expect anything that might do us any good. We put another quarter in the “parking meter.”

In the book “I’ll do it when I feel better,” I write about procrastination. I know about it. I lived it. If you want to know anything about procrastination, I’m you’re “go to guy.” Most days I get that little red flag that pops up in the meter. Expired. And when that happens you never have seen me move so fast. Out of park in record time.

This is one of my character defects. I am blatant at it. It might be a hidden anger problem–you know, I really don’t want to go to work today. So my body wants to slip back into “park.” So, where am I going with all this?

Let me tell you this. When I was depressed my life was definitely past “park” and I just gave up. What’s the use. Eventually, coming to my senses, I knew that I needed help. I ended up in a 12 Step group. This move was the best move I have ever made in my life. Really. The fellowship, but most importantly putting the spiritual principals of the 12 Steps got me moving toward health, sanity and a program of self-care that has been my moving force for most of my adult life. For that I am grateful to the God of my understanding or my Higher Power.

Are you depressed. If so, join us. We are online everyday with our fellowship. We are the Depressed Anonymous fellowship. Everyday, I hear and see good people doing good things for those others, like ourselves, now, who have found a “spark plug” if you will in the leadership of all those lives which have been changed. I mean CHANGE. Hear the good news. There is hope. I can hear good news everyday. Set your watch. Go to a SKYPE or ZOOM meeting and hear how others have got moving. They are on it and now they want to help others. If you are out there and wanting to feel differently and live with hope, check us out online.

Fire up that body of yours and your mind will follow right along. For info on our fellowship, please come to this website (www.depressedanon.com) and read and listen and be part of a world where hope starts and resides. Be part of the solution. ZOOM and SKYPE groups are looking forward to meeting you. Don’t wait. We are like you.

Hugh, a recovering procrastinator and member of the DA fellowship.

Hope, Purpose

Simple is as simple does. – Forrest Gump

June 7, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Affirmation

Even though I don’t feel better right now, I am going to make a mental decision to desire to feel better. I have a choice.

“We need to ask ourselves but one short question: Do I now believe or am I willing to believe that there is a power greater than myself.” As soon as a person can say that he or she does believe or is willing to believe, emphatically assure that person that he or she is on their way. It has been repeatedly proven among us that at this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective structure can be built.

Reflection

I have found that the program of the Steps is simple to understand. It is a spiritual program one that doesn’t force me to think of God in pre-established ways. I am truly free to allow the God of my understanding to clear from the path of my life the thoughts and various saddictive ways where I have learned how to depress myself.

I know that the world simple means without a fold. The word denotes a reality that you get what you see. Hopefully I can see that my program of recovery is a most simple one to follow and one to practice in all affairs of my life.

Meditation

We want this God of our understanding to be with us as we face our fears and try to keep my thoughts focused on the here and now, not the pain of yesterday or the fears about tomorrow. (Add your personal comments).

Sources

© Higher Thoughts For Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for 12 Step fellowships. (1998) Hugh Smith. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY 40241. June 7. Online purchases can be made at The Depressed Anonymous Bookstore, at www.depressedanon.com

Fellowship, Purpose

Spoon feeding is no use to you. You have to feed yourself. – D. Rowe

May 29, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

AFFIRMATION

I will build up my self-esteem and self-respect by learning a hobby or skill that will bring me pleasure. “Dorothy Rowe says that “Spoon feeding is no use to you. You have to feed yourself.”

REFLECTION

I believe that feeding oneself is really the idea that grabs hold of most people who have a genuine desire to stop saddening themselves. It appears to me that once I make a commitment to myself to begin to learn how to feel better, I really do begin feeling much better. I imagine that even though my passive depressed behavior had some benefits – like not having to risk changing the way I lived my life. I believe that since there is a way out of my depression that I do want to move into a different way of living my life. I want to live with hope and I am going to do something about it to make it happen.

I feed myself junk thoughts when I think that there is no hope for me in my life. This is the stuff that depression is made of. If I want to get well and out of the prison that I call depression, I need to begin feeding myself with such hopeful thoughts, that my sadness won’t last forever, whatever I believe and expect to happen, just the way I want it to happen.

MEDITATION

We are thankful that we can feed ourselves healthy thoughts and that we can change our diet by discovering what has been junk food in our past life, substituting healthy food (thoughts) for the present. God will show us a way to live in a healthy and serene way. (Personal comment).

SOURCE: (C) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Kentucky. Page 89. May 29.

Visit the Store to order this book online.

Fellowship, Journaling, Purpose, The 12 Steps

Recovery people delight in how they are becoming more assertive

May 20, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

“Responsibility is the name of the game in recovery and it is here that we need to focus our attention. As we get into a discussion with other people who are depressed – much like ourselves – we see that they talk about feeling better while at the same time acting on their own behalf. These people who are doing better are also taking responsibility on their own behalf. Those who are doing better are also talking about taking charge of their lives and doing things for themselves instead of constantly trying to please others. In fact at DA meetings the recovering people often delight at how assertive they are becoming now that they have gained a sense of recovery over their lives. They are now committed to their own recovery. People who want to change begin to swallow their pride and ask for help. They begin to get in touch with their feelings and feel! This is truth and this is getting in touch with one’s own best self.”

COPYRIGHT(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY 40241. (Page 91. Step Ten)

Courage, Fellowship, Isolation, Kindness, Mutual Aid, Purpose

I’m having cabin fever during this pandemic self-isolation. How are you doing?

April 9, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Updated 29 Dec 2020: The US based ZOOM meetings are no longer being held.

Getting a daily rhythm during this time of self-isolation is getting to be a must for me. How about you? After a month of isolating myself this isolation getting old. And, it appears that it isn’t going to be over for a spell. We are all created as human beings to be close to others. We love the fellowship of groups. Ironically, this is what will kill us or make us very sick at the very least. Physical/social distancing is a must now.

I am getting my stride. Athletes talk about getting into their rhythm. I am much aware that I can’t fiddle my time away – getting myself depressed, or just staring out the window, watching TV , streaming on my computer or just sleeping through it.

So, I have developed a schedule. I make sure that I eat every day and at the same time. I use my 12 Step literature for prayer and reflection in the morning. I also do some writing on my online WordPress blog . Because I have gone through self-isolating when I was depressed – I definitely do not let it happen again. In my schedule I go to the park and exercise everyday and at the same time. I spend a part of the afternoon catching up with friends and members of the Depressed Anonymous fellowship. At these times I connect with member s of the large DA fellowship in Iran and other DA members outside US. (Everyone with whom I have contact are going through the same pandemic as we are.)

The Depressed Anonymous fellowship have an International daily DA SKYPE online meeting. I am able to contact and participate in this group in early afternoon. Then there is a new ZOOM online fellowship that has just been formed. You can find times and places at our Depressed Anonymous website. Or on Facebook. Please try and attend these meetings. Great resource for keeping in touch and helping to maintain our recovery – one day at a time. In the late afternoon I follow our Governor’s daily TV meeting(Kentucky) where he keeps us up to date on things that we have to do to keep each other safe and out of harms way. Then evening news and then other news sources. So by night time I am saturated with news – mostly sad news about how there is so much suffering and isolation among all of us who need each other so much.

I am especially grateful for our 12 step fellowship where we can see each other f2f and maintain our sanity and sobriety. Please check out our recent blogs at www.depressedanon.com or FB Depressed Anonymous. Today is the first day where we are offering our eBooks for $1.00 a piece. These are the 3rd edition of Depressed Anonymous and The Depressed Anonymous Workbook. Both of these eBooks can be downloaded on the computer or printed out on your printer. These are the books which we use at our Online group meetings. If you want these books today, they are yours for downloading. We felt that now is the time to make these books available to as many people as possible. We wanted to make them available on line free – but somehow that was not possible. So we went for $1 buck apiece. I do hope others take advantage of this opportunity – especially most of us who might be hard pressed to come up with any money now when food and shelter is our most critical need. Depressed Anonymous Publications is a very small business operation and all our work is done by volunteers – including me.

My suggestion is to do the same thing everyday, have a schedule for each day and now that the children are home, and with the kids out of school, they will always need some help with their eLearning classes.

Do some fun things for yourself – I personally liked the old Three stooges, Jim Carey’s movies and older comedies keep me laughing. It sure helps lift my mood.

Plan to call at least one older person who is alone. Maybe a neighbor who needs food. My wife and I are now trying to make some strategic decisions in our food purchases and TP. Trying to make do with what we have, sharing what we have with others.

Call your sponsor everyday or a fellow member of our 12 Step fellowship group.

Finally, get into your own rhythm – take it one day at a time-make a schedule and as a family get together and decide how we all can decide how we want to spend our day.

Thank you and may all of us remain safe and secure. This too shall pass. We are all in this together. We are going to get through it. We are going to get through it together.

Love and peace to you all.

Hugh, for the fellowship

Purpose, The 12 Steps

Our whole outlook and attitude upon life changes. A sense of purpose transforms us.

February 25, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

To really believe, possibly for the first time in one’s life that I can free myself from the prison of depression and begin to feel better. I know I’m needing to be proactive in my efforts at self recovery. But what causes our outlook and attitude to emerge?

I have to begin to believe that hope and healing is possible. Once we have gone through some painful inner changes, such as dealing with our character defects and our isolating tendencies we see there is a way out. We have to have a positive attitude that will move and motivate us to want to go get to the next step. Watching someone actually take these steps week after week and watch that feeling of wellness rise up in them and can promote a belief that with work and time, their lives do improve. Soon we see that a sense of purpose begins to manifest itself the more time and work, into our personal recovery.

A door opens ever slightly, and there appears a potential route to freedom. A way out! I do believe that when my hope and faith and recovery rises, my symptoms of depression go down.”

Resource:

Order online from The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore at our website www.depressedanon.com.

Journaling, Purpose, The 12 Steps

How to work the 12 Step program of recovery and put them to use in your everyday life

January 28, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

When someone new comes to a Depressed Anonymous meeting they will hear about people in the group working on the 12 Steps. What this means is that since the group of people are into working the 12 Steps they intend to live out what the Steps mean.

The first Step that all of us make when we walked through that door into our first DA meeting was our admission that we were helpless over our depression. We needed help.

We need to admit that at the present time our will power is powerless over this constant sadness and emptiness that we have been carrying around most of our lives. We just need to talk to someone who will understand us and respect us and not tell us to “snap out of” our depression.

Working the 12 Steps means reading all we can about the Steps and how these Steps relate to my own sense of aloneness and sadness. The manual, Depressed Anonymous is specifically designed to help the depressed person learn about each Step is treated with it’s own chapter in the book.

In order to have a change of feelings we have to work the Steps, which means putting them into practice in all our daily affairs. It means that we have to try and live out the message of the Steps one day at a time.

A person needs to take each Step and reflect on how that particular Step speaks to our own life. If a Step that we are studying is unclear as to how it applies to us then we need to bring that up in a group discussion so that other members can share how that Step has been applied to their own lives. Sometimes persons who have been in recovery for a long time have more experiences with the Steps and they can share how this or that Step has helped them. We know that at the DA meetings there are people who are each at different levels of the understanding of the Steps.

Steps Four and Five really have to be faced head-on if our depression is to go away. Step four and five are all about cleaning house. We must square off with ourselves and begin the rooting out processes that will in time free us from our sadness and our “feeling less than” as a depressed person. So often a person depressed is afraid, panic stricken really, in facing some issues that were never their fault in the first place.

It is possible that our anger hasn’t as yet been released over some things that have been done to us as children.

Step Twelve speaks about practicing these principles in all of our affairs – that means exactly what it says – we have to practice these Steps day by day. We have to say I’m sorry as soon as I am aware that I have said or done anything that is out of the way. We again need to study each Step, tear it apart and get every ounce of truth from the Step as it relates to ourselves. We then write down how each of them has a special application for my life. We also have a practice of finding quality time everyday of our lives for making room to listen to our Higher Power, or God as we understand God and how that power is going to operate in our lives today and everyday. It is like we must learn to let go and let God operate in our lives.

For all of us who have had a dependency on depression and sadness, it is hard to let go of the sadness and thinking that somehow gave us an identity to our lives. Depression can serve as a safe defense and haven againt the uinpredictableness in our lives.

Practicing these principles in al our affairs or as we say “walking the talk and working the Steps” means that we have to be ever mindful through our times of prayer and meditation, which is a way to find out what God’s will for us is for my life. Hope appears on the horizon.

Practicing these Steps, for me, means they will promote an ever growing awareness that the Higher Power is leading me according to its will and promise.

RESOURCE:

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

Ordering online is possible through this website at www.depressedanon.com.

Belief, DA Literature, Fellowship, Hope, Journaling, Love, Meditation, Mutual Aid, Prayer, Purpose, Spirituality, Victim Thinking

That which doesn’t kill you will probably make you stronger – Nietzsche

January 14, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Stress put me in the hospital two years ago. First, pneumonia put me in the hospital for a week. Then, following a diagnosis of clogged arteries with other assorted problems, open heart surgery. Cardio/rehab for 24 straight weeks gave me my life back. But this was not my first experience with stress and /or depression.

Nietzsche had it right. In my case at least. What made me stronger and saved my life was not only heart surgery but my new way of dealing with stress. I now see stress for the trouble maker that it really is. The stress in anyone’s, continues to impress me how dangerous living under stress, of any kind, can be.

I know that the daily stress that I had put my mind and body through every day, every month, gradually destroyed my immune system’s ability to defend against constant fear, worry and anxiety. Because of the environment with which I was living in, day after day, finally caught up with me: pneumonia and then open heart surgery. So you might wonder how can stress do all this damage to your mind and body?

THEN

This takes me back to my first experience with sadness. It didn’t kill me, but it did force me to look at my lifestyle, staying in a bad situation and the ongoing ruminating which poured adrenaline into my veins, hyping up fear and anxiety day after day. Finally, all this weakened not only my body but my mind as well. My thinking started circling around and around as I tried to figure out exactly what the problem was knocking me off my feet. Not only that, I couldn’t concentrate. I would read a sentence or so and then would forget what I had just read. I was always tired. I always wanted to sleep. I never laughed anymore. My sense of humor went out the door. I started to isolate. I pushed friends away. I always had an excuse for cancelling meetings and appointments. Every morning I woke up, dead on arrival. No energy. No purpose and nothing to look forward to. I was losing all spontaneity and replacing it with boredom. I gradually was being sucked down intro the quicksand of futility and hopelessness.

After a year and half of this pain filled life I gradually walked out of the fog. I walked at least five miles a day-like a forced march looking forward to regaining my life. That was 1985.

NOW

Now, I am stronger because I know all the red flags that pop up in my mind, wanting to suck me back down into that environment which almost killed me in the first place. I am definitely stronger now that I have a sponsor, a 12 Step program (Depressed Anonymous) and a daily plan for my ongoing recovery.

My heart is stronger now. My commitment to taking good care of myself with proper rest, good healthy food, and physical activity at least three times a week or more. I also know that keeping in touch with those “still suffering from depression” by email, Home Study, website BLOG (depressedanon.com), phone and reading Depressed Anonymous literature. What we give away comes back in countless ways. For me, continued sobriety and hope!

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

Online Depressed Anonymous International Skype meetings ( Check website Menu for listing and links).

Order online: The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore