Category Archives: Fellowship

Acceptance, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Fellowship, Higher Power, Mindfulness, Miracle Thinking, Step 04, Step 05, The 12 Steps

The Miracle Of The Group

January 22, 2016 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

“By our continual shutting ourselves up in the little world of our own mind, we gradually sink more and more into despair and feel that no one can understand how we think and feel. The biggest freedom that we can gain from confessing to someone else is that we no longer have to have it all together and be perfect. We can begin to admit it when we are petty, selfish and self-centered. We can then admit that we want to have restored a sense of peace by getting free from all worry and fear from the past and by turning those over to the Higher Power. We can then discover that forgiving ourselves and being forgiven by God are one in the same thing. The group will see to it that the more you admit your own fears about yourself and the future, the less terror the present will hold for you.”

“My dear friends, it is this spiritual experience, to feel that God is with you, and that this joy is the joy that will restore your youth and renew your spirit. We no longer have to be the way we are -we can choose to feel and be different. Others are doing it-so can you!”

“Depression feeds on hurt, pain and self-doubt. When we are depressed we have a need to bash ourselves for our misguided errors and sinfulness. The Fifth Step if done genuinely and prayerfully, will in time help restore our sense of freedom and belief that we are truly forgiven. It is in the miracle of the group and its acceptance, love and nurture that helps the depressed person feel secure without recourse to depression.”

THE DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS WORKBOOK, examining Step Five, asks the following question at 5.21: List what action you will have to take if you want to respect yourself again? Remember, it’s our past need to tell ourselves how bad and unacceptable that we are that keeps us depressed. This is a “wrong” if there ever was one.

HOME STUDY KIT

SOURCES: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition.(2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 64 (Book One of the Home Study Kit).

The Depressed Anonymous Workbook (2002). Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 52. (Book Two of the Home Study Kit).

VISIT THE STORE at this site for ordering online.

Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Exercise, Fear, Fellowship, Journaling, Mindfulness, Negativity, Prayer, Serenity, Spirituality, The 12 Steps

How to live outside the box? The depression box!

January 17, 2016 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

If you really want to begin to “live outside the box“, a description of what the box feels like and looks like might be helpful to you. First of all, a box has an identifiable shape. It is a box mainly because it contains something–whatever that might be. And when we speak of the subject of depression, we talk about depression having us boxed in. The box as it is used here, in this context is a metaphor for feeling enclosed and which there is no exit. It is like being trapped or like in a prison.

Now, in order to live outside the box we want to live creatively, which means that we are having to learn how to live outside the box. Now, if you find this hard to believe -stick with me now as I will explain what I mean.

Just briefly, my own experience with depression can be used as an example. First of all, when I was depressed I thought that I was losing my mind. The box that I put myself in was getting more restricting by the day and making my life hell. I could see no way out. I was trapped. What could I do I asked myself? As hard as I tried, I couldn’t just will these feelings and scary thoughts away–like taking a broom and brushing them out of my life. No matter which way I turned I hit a wall. With no answers forthcoming on how to keep my head above water, my body slowly was being sucked down into the quicksand of despair. The thought came to me, much like that small glimmer, a tiny light so far away, but nevertheless a light. It was like the lighthouse which with its intense brightness warns seafarers that rocks were nearby and to be watchful before approaching. My mind began to race here and there for a way out of the box and then it hit me — get moving. Move the body. Get busy. The key out of this prison was already in my hand. And now, those of us here in the Depressed program of recovery,who have been putting “out of the box” ideas to work in our daily lives, we want to share what has worked for us and we know, if you actually use them for your own recovery, they are bound to ultimately free you. That is the promise I share with you today.

The following activities, listed below are some of the tools that will get you “out of the box” when you get serious about using them.

I think taking a close and personal look at the following tools will not only help you get “out of the box” but can be tools that you will be able to utilize, day after day as you continue your recovery.

Exercise is a great tool if you happen to be depressed.
Getting out into nature will also help put your mind on beauty and your surroundings.
Overcoming fear is also a great place to learn how to get out of the box. Learn about “first fear” and “second fear.” Fear doe seem to be at the center of our life when depressed.
Recite the “SERENITY PRAYER” as often as you need it.
The present. Staying in the now.
Making use of the God box. This is an exercise, a simple one at that, which helps us learn the discipline of “letting go.”
Feelings need to be examined and expressed. We will look at why expressing feeling is so important, instead of having them bottled up and causing all sorts of physical and emotional problems.
Disable negative thinking: learn how to short circuit negative thoughts when they pop into our minds.
Reading Depressed Anonymous literature and all material on the subject of depression.
Learn how we all have choices. We make those decisions that bring us closer to freedom–not those that continue to imprison and box us.
Journaling is a great tool for writing down what has been our experience for the day. It helps to clarify our thinking and puts things into perspective.

NOTE

In the next post, I will begin placing attention on each of the eleven ideas listed above. Gradually we can take time to evaluate our response to each individually and make our own notes as how to use these recommended ideas for our own recovery.

Hugh

12 Step Meeting, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Meditation

Frozen feelings

January 11, 2016 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

My feelings get frozen for me when I am depressed. My face sometimes masks the feelings of despair that lurks in my whole being. I feel only the pain and hurt of yesterday. I say “I’ll do it when I feel better.” I never do it because that day never comes. I need to have a list of feeling words that will help me best get in touch with what I feel and desire. The words that describe the feelings are just that – words- but the words that I describe myself with are the same words that I have allowed to imprison me throughout my life.

The major feelings are mad, sad, glad and fearful. It is when I can name my feelings, feel them, that I can make some headway accepting that they are there and then deal with them. In the past, I fled from what was new and uncomfortable.

Meditation

In the spiritual life, I find that God is there whether I feel its presence or not. What I know is that there is some grand design for this universe and for myself. I am in debt to its plan and to its process. Right now, as I yield to its desire for my life (it’s desire is my desire). I will and I can find a way out of my depression. Even though I fear that I might lose something of myself, my very self, if I trust, just the opposite can happen. I will gain a new life filled with hope and a new way of feeling alive.”

SOURCES: Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. (1999) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. January 11.

Acceptance, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, Hope

I am choosing to live now-today!

January 7, 2016 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

AFFIRMATION

I am choosing to ask the God of my understanding to help me be open to all the persons like myself who are getting free of their hopelessness.

“Being constantly on guard against the future is exhausting, but it does have the advantage of directing your attention away from the present. Since the past and the future are ideas in our minds we can insist that the past and the future are exactly as we see them. The trouble with the present is that it has the habit of suggesting that my ideas may not be entirely right.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

To live now takes more courage, on some days more than on others. What I need to do is to attempt to live right now. The living in the present will make it possible for me to gradually learn some new truths about life and myself. This opening myself up to the present moment will give me the opportunity to hear how I can live with hope and serenity.

No longer do I have to choose to live in the encapsulated and isolated prison of my own fears and prejudice about the past and the future. The past is always full of hurt and unexpected anger. The future never seems to be without its colossal fears and “what if’s.” Now is the time to accept the fact that I want to change the way I think, act and believe. Right now I am wanting a change and am willing to face the challenges that making changes bring. To do this is called living.

The Third Step tells me that I have made a decision to turn my mind and my will over to the care of God as I understand him. This is the freedom that I am looking for. This is the source of my strength today, namely, these healing Twelve Steps. Granted that I have to clean house and admit that I have unknowingly constructed my own depression (See Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition)

MEDITATION

I will make a decision. This is the first step in getting free. I make a decision to choose freedom over the security of isolation and a life that is lived in the past.

SOURCE: (c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. (1999) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. January 7. Pages 4-5.

Depressed Anonymous, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Fellowship, Prayer, Spirituality

Choices: To be or not to be!

January 5, 2016 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

For many, just knowing that they might have a choice and be able to choose to feel differently can be a startling revelation. I can choose to be happy or I can choose to stay miserable. ” Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) DAP. Louisville.

The following is a story of how one person, deeply depressed told her story of how by letting go she was able to hang on. And she not only was able to hang on but she was able to help others and hang on and live life to the full.

” I started sleeping more, stayed in bed mostly and let the house and the children go. I felt empty inside. No one or anything could help me. If I hadn’t thought that suicide was the cardinal sin, I would be dead today. So one night I lay on the floor crying and praying from my heart. In the past when I prayed I wanted God to do all the work, while deep down I didn’t want to let go of my miserable, yet safe way of life. And as long as I wouldn’t really let go, God seemed to have no answers for me. This time though, I was at his mercy. Life for me could no longer go on this way. I prayed the most releasing prayer. I offered up my entire self to him. Nothing magical happened after this except the sudden urge to call my Church for Christian counseling. They referred me to this very affordable, warm, lady counselor, who I had seen in the past. She suggested that I start attending Depressed Anonymous, a Twelve Step meeting. This was a great effort for me. I was SCARED AND SKEPTICAL Since that first night I’ve been attending weekly Depressed Anonymous meetings and reading Depressed Anonymous literature. I also attend drug free therapy, attend church and church activities and continue to pray and walk regularly. I know that my life is being richly blessed. I am also using the Depressed Anonymous literature and listening to the people in the Depressed Anonymous meetings where I have received valuable tools which I put to daily use. The moment that I read that I had a choice to stay in depression, I immediately knew that I could make the choice to get out of my depression.”

And finally, a word from Bill W., the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous who tells us, “When we look back, we realize that the things which came to us when we put ourselves in God’s hands were better than anything we could have planned.”

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Personal Stories section.

NOTE: For more information on a broad variety of subjects dealing with depression and the Twelve Steps click onto the VISIT THE STORE.

12 Step Meeting, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, I'll Do It When I Feel Better, Miracle Thinking, Purpose

I am investing in myself

January 2, 2016 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

“I am making my recovery my highest priority. I may have been on all the antidepressant medications and I may have seen all the best counselors, psychiatrists and doctors, but now finally, I am going to a room full of depressed people who understand me. These people I discover are investing in themselves. What will I find there? I will find some of the most caring people on the face of the earth. Some of the group will have been coming for months. They say they are having more good days than bad and its getting better. The more meetings they attend the better they feel and the more support they receive. They are feeling empowered. It’s the miracle of the group. Instead of living with a compulsion to repeat old negative and life negating thoughts and feelings, we now have a compulsion to live with hope plus a desire for a brand new way of living. We are now about to change the way we live and not just the way we talk to ourselves. We are going to get a new life.”

SOURCE: I’ll do it when I feel better. (2013). Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.Page 59

12 Step Meeting, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Fellowship, Focus, Mindfulness, Purpose, The 12 Steps

In getting my priorities straight, my depression got better

January 1, 2016 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

On this New Year’s Day, I find that my work for my life today is to reflect on a happy period of my life where I have experienced happiness and contentment. If I can’t remember such a time, then I will construct a situation of contentment in my mind and just imagine it happening right now.

In my relationship to God, I am beginning to realize that it isn’t so much that I don’t believe that I’ll ever feel better, but that I just can’t know for sure. My first priority is to admit that I do have a problem and that with God’s help I can get through my depression.

As soon as I give up my victim stance and begin to take responsibility for my feelings and my life, I can start to work as if my recovery is really up to me and that I will in time, succeed in getting out of this deep dark hole that I call depression. My priority is to begin each day with the conviction that the Twelve Steps will be an aid in getting out of my depression. I know and believe without a doubt that WE have a solution for depression!

MEDITATION

God, we seek your guidance and your strength for our lives. Whatever we have lost or feel we have lost, please heal the holes in our soul and fill it with your love and peace. In our quiet time today, show us what part of us needs to be healed.”

HAVE A NEW YEAR FILLED WITH PEACE !

VISIT THE STORE TODAY AND DISCOVER THE TOOLS THAT WILL BE THE PATHWAY TO YOUR OWN RECOVERY, DAY AFTER DAY.

An excellent tool that is highly recommended for the Depressed Anonymous group use or individual study is the HOME STUDY KIT which is composed of Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) and The Depressed Anonymous Workbook (2002) both published by Depressed Anonymous Publications. These two books give a complete listing of the Twelve Steps and a commentary for each Step. The Workbook provides a coordinated listing of Steps with its appropriate questions related to each Step in the Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition.

Fellowship

With a little help from my friends…

December 22, 2015 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

I believe that many of us will remember well the Beatles song “With a little help from my friends.” I can reminisce with a big gratitude for the many friends who have walked with me on my journey of recovery.

In the beginning of our fellowship (1985) known then and now as Depressed Anonymous, I can think of the many people who joined with me in getting the word out that there was hope for people depressed. It all started as a pilot project while I was earning my Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology at the university of Evansville, Indiana.

Because of the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and my being part of the fellowship, I was restored to sanity by using the recovery plan of the Twelve Steps. The spiritual principles of the Twelve Steps gave me a lifeline as did the fellowship of those many others who like me needed to be freed from the addictive and life crushing disease we call alcoholism.

In 1985 we began a program that we called Depressed Anonymous. Because of our anonymity as members of this new fellowship others would soon recognize us as a program of recovery using the spiritual principles of 12 Step recovery to help us leave the prison of depression.

In 1990, because of friends who believed in what we were doing, I was able to gather the funds to publish our first book, Depressed Anonymous. In this book, members of our first Depressed Anonymous group in Louisville, Kentucky were able to take each of the Twelve Steps, give their own reflections on the Step, record a summary of their discussions, then move onto the next Step. When each of the Steps were thoroughly discussed, the summaries were edited for clarity and then made ready for publication. The fellowship now had the means to make available to others “still suffering” from depression a program of recovery based on the Steps. Our initial work, now in its 3rd edition,(2011) continues to help persons depressed find hope in our Step by Step recovery program.

The following quote from the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous may be helpful to you now as you have just read a very short history of our Fellowship and the origins of our first Big Book publication, Depressed Anonymous. Again, let us say that do not have the magic pills nor the easy formulas for success. To get well takes work and time.

Even though you may not be afflicted with the addiction of alcoholism, we believe what Alcoholics Anonymous speaks about also applies to those who suffer from depression. Our fellowship of Depressed Anonymous brings hope to the hopeless and those feeling there is no hope.

Now let’s read what Bill W., a co-founder of AA who writes in the AA Big Book (pages 162-164) to those who want what all of us want who suffer from life threatening addictions:

” We know what you are thinking. You are saying to yourself: “I’m jittery and alone. I couldn’t do that.” But you can. You can forget that you have just now tapped a source of power much greater than yourself. To duplicate, with such backing, what we have accomplished is only a matter of willingness, patience and labor.

And so can you, though you be but one man with this book in your hand. We believe and hope it contains all you will need to begin.

Still you may say, “but I will not have the benefit of contact with you who wrote this book.” We cannot be sure. God will determine that, so you must remember that your real reliance is always upon Him. He will show you how to create the fellowship you crave.

Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come, if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven’t got. See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the Great Fact for us.

Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of The Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of Happy Destiny.

May God bless you and keep you – until then.”

The writer is a member of Depressed Anonymous and with a little help from his program friends (30 years) , is sober and sane…today!

Fellowship, Mutual Aid, Service

We want to think in terms of responsibilities and connections

December 21, 2015 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

We have to acknowledge humbly that I am the one who is having the harsh and negative thoughts about myself and that I alone must take responsibility for the feelings that I have about myself. I can’t continue to blame others for my depression and still think that I will feel better. Dorothy Rowe says that instead of blaming someone else or making someone else the scapegoat of our problems, we need to put aside blame and guilt and think in terms of responsibilities and connections. What she means here is that when she has dealt with depressed people, they seem as if they are carrying the weight of the world and feel responsible for everyone and everything except themselves. She says that when it comes to themselves they see themselves as totally powerless. We need to look at what is happening in the here and now and take responsibility for our lives, without living in the fear of tomorrow and the hurts of yesterday. Humbly ask God to help you live in the now, even if that means living with the temporary horrible pain of depression.”

_________________________________________________

SOURCES: Copyright (c)Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 73-74.

Copyright (c) Depressed Once – Not twice: The spiritual autobiography of a journey out of depression. (2000) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

Copyright (c) Higher Thoughts for down days:365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. (1999) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

VISIT THE STORE for publications on the subject of Depression and 12 Steps.

12 Step Meeting, Fellowship, Kindness, Miracle Thinking

We are not the people with the magic pills and the easy formula for success

December 14, 2015 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

The following instruction, How Depressed Anonymous Works, is read at every Depressed Anonymous meeting.

“You are about to witness the miracle of the group. You are joining a group of people who are on a journey of hope and who mutually care for each other. You will hear how hope, light and energy have been regained by those who were hopeless and in a black hole and tired of living.

By our involvement in the group we are feeling that there is hope – there is a chance for me too – I can get better. But we are not the people with the magic pills and the easy formula for success. We believe that to get out of depression takes time and work.”

And so at each and every Depressed Anonymous meeting the group listens as we hear what it will take to escape from the prison of depression.

Also at every meeting of the fellowship we hear how by using the spiritual tools, our Twelve Steps, we can gradually find the path that will and can lead us out into the light of freedom.”

SOURCES: Copyright(c) I’ll do it when I feel better. (2014) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

The following books listed below indicate the “toolbox” by which one can find the path that leads out of depression.

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

Depressed Anonymous Workbook (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

VISIT THE STORE for more information on available literature.

Hope is just a few steps away!