Category Archives: Supportive Actions

12 Step Meeting, Acceptance, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Exercise, Fellowship, Journaling, Kindness, Prayer

My anti-depression tool kit: An arsenal of weapons to defeat depression.

June 27, 2018 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

The following is a personal story of how a member of Depressed Anonymous used her anti-depression Tool Kit to disarm and dismantle symptoms of depression in her daily life.

I am no longer alone

” I am writing this information with the hope that it will help anyone who is suffering from depression that is brought on by stress, anxiety, loneliness, physical or mental emotions, death or insecurity.

I am a thirty-four year old single female, who has been suffering from depression for a long time. Most of my depression was brought on by feelings of insecurity, such as not being able to express my inner feelings, being controlled by a dominating parent, loneliness, stress, workaholic, anxiety attacks (related to work and everyday pressures of living), too much sleep, nervousness, lack of motivation, being tired all the time, sadness, weight gain, digestive problems, a feeling of being trapped, self-consciousness, not trusting myself, dreams of dying but yet managing to come back to life, withdrawal from family, or loss of interest in meeting with the opposite sex.

It seemed that I was living in another world until one of my parents gave me a phone number of Depressed Anonymous meetings, plus reading the Depressed Anonymous manual have provided me with the tools to live without being depressed. Most important of all, the Twelve Steps mentioned in the book have made me understand that God (my Higher Power) will give me strength to deal with my depression and get on with my life and be happy with myself.

The book with its Twelve Steps, has taught me that I am not alone. And that I am not the only one who is suffering from depression. It has taught me to believe more in my Higher Power and to let it handle my depression.

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 give 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 problems with sleep patterns 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 am also learning how to stand up for myself.

All these new tools have helped me and will continue to do so. They also taught me not to dwell on my past, to live one day at a time, and to look forward to 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.

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (Louisville, KY, 2011. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Pages 148-149.

Please go to MENU and click onto TOOLS* FOR RECOVERY. There you will discover those tools which can be used to dismantle those painful areas of your life which in the past have imprisoned you.

RECOVERY TOOLS: Exercise; Meditation; The Serenity Prayer; Cutting off negative thinking-The Law of the Threes; Being in Nature; Journaling; Managing stress; Music; Nutrition; Positive self-talk; Sleep; Social engagement; Stay in the Present.

Read more stories of persons who have dismantled their own depression. Check out the Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore and order online.

DA Literature, Fellowship, Isolation, Journaling, Mutual Aid

Got too much on your plate?

June 26, 2018 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Yes, I have too much on my plate. So, now what can I do to make my plate lighter? How can I slow down, smell the roses and deal with all those pressures coming at me at the same time? Even before I get out of bed I get depressed just thinking of all the things which are facing me today. I just want to take the bed covers, pull them over my head and say goodbye to it all. I keep telling myself “I don’t want to do this anymore. My life is a metaphor for a roller coaster. I just wanna get off!”

Ok, my life is out of control. My life is unmanageable. I feel like the clown in the circus, who has dinner plates all spinning around at the same time – all zipping around at top speed and not a one crashing to the floor. Amazing! Today we call this multitasking. Yes, I multitask and it’s killing me! But I want to know how to keep life simple? How to gain control of what is on my plate and how to rid myself of those things which I can live without.

In Higher Thoughts for Down Days, I read how ” I can learn to keep my life simple. I plan to do that by first of all admitting that I am powerless over my depression and that my life is unmanageable. I also believe that I can get out of this mess by focusing on respected and workable solutions rather than keeping focused on my ever present difficulties.

The word simple comes from the Latin word “simplex” meaning one fold. Also, it means to just have one part. I think to keep it simple means to be single-minded and keep the focus on the solution and practice that particular solution in all my daily affairs.”

Here at our site (depressedanon.com) we have listed a number of tools which each of us can use for our own personal recovery. (See Tools for Recovery at Site Menu). I guarantee that if you begin to use these recovery tools, on a daily basis, you will begin to free yourself from being overwhelmed and your life will no longer feel out of control and unmanageable. Each of the tools describe a particular action to take which can give you more control over your life. You will in time be able to take issues off your plate, which once immobilized you, providing you with a sense of hope.

I recommend that you take one of the listed tools, read up on how to put its action into your daily life. Take one at a time and get good at doing it on a daily basis. This will form a habit and habits determine what course our behaviors will take. Please write to me and let me know how you are doing with this exercise of hopefulness.

I will leave you today with this riddle:

QUESTION

How do you eat an elephant?

ANSWER

One bite at a time!

SOURCES: Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. June 26. pg. 128.

VISIT THE STORE at Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore for more information available. Ordering online is available.

Fellowship, The 12 Steps

Is your soul getting what it wants?

June 25, 2018 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Thanks to (c)Dep-Anon, which is the name of the Depressed Anonymous Family fellowship group, we can find ways to give support to each other whose lives are intertwined with those significant others who are depressed. Our basic text makes use of the 12 Step principles of Recovery just as does Depressed Anonymous, the basic text for those of us who are depressed.

Dep-Anon, with its thoughts of support and with a foundation of 12 Step spiritual principles are written by those persons who have Family members and friends who are depressed. Their experiences speak and carry great weight for those of us who are desirous of learning how to live with understanding and serenity in very trying circumstances.

A psychologist James Hillman stated that “Until the soul gets what it wants, it must fall ill again.”

For what does our soul yearn? Can you tell me? Can you tell me even what is this soul reality. Is it my personality? Is it my character. Is it me? Is it all of me? And then, what is it that your soul yearns? Is there a “hole” in your soul that is continually filling up with sadness and despair? In order to make a difference in our lives, day by day, is to reflect on the Serenity Prayer (below) and make it one’s mantra throughout our day.

“God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

“We treasure our “Serenity Prayer” because it brings new light to us that can dissipate our old and nearly fatal habit of fooling ourselves.

In the radiance of this prayer we see the defeat, rightly accepted, need be no disaster. We now know that we do not have to run away, nor ought we again try to overcome adversity by still another bulldozing power drive that can only push up obstacles before us faster than they can be taken down.” (ABSI. pg.20).

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Dep-Anon Family Group Manual. Pgs.33.

“We can only live now, and so we have to let go of past hurts and past resentments.” Depressed Anonymous. p. 37.

Further reflection points! See website MENU at the drop down Tools of Recovery site and check out The Serenity Prayer and Live in the Present.

12 Step Meeting, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Step 01, The 12 Steps

Dep-Anon Family Support Group

June 23, 2018 Hugh Smith 6 Comments

Dep-Anon Family Group

When family members of a depressed loved one were asked to prioritize, describe, and list which feelings they experienced most often and most intensely, the following are those which they documented:

Feeling overwhelmed and burdened by a family member’s depression. 2) Feeling restricted around the depressed, feeling of something similar to the expression of “walking on eggshells.” 3) Feelings of helplessness 4) Anxiety about the situation and not knowing what to do about the feelings they were experiencing 5) Feeling emotionally drained 6)Feeling inadequate faced with a love one’s immobility and lack of motivation 7) Feeling anger and frustration at the depressed 8) Being an enabler 9) Feeling that one was living an unproductive life as one was stymied by the depressed unproductive depression 10) Having feelings of irrationality and impatience 11) Feeling inadequate 12) Unhappy 13) Feeling betrayed in retirement by spouse’s late-life depression 14) Indecisive 15) Lack of confidence in oneself.

With the publishing and production of the 3rd edition of Depressed Anonymous the loved ones of the depressed will not only have a book written by the depressed, a fount of valuable information about the way the depressed live out their lives, but now with the DEP-ANON FAMILY GROUP GUIDE will have their own guide with its suggested ways on how to relate to the depressed family members or friend. This DEP-ANON guide will, chapter by chapter outline a process whereby family members can understand depression and the various ways to cope with those who suffer from it.

DEP-ANON is also about how family members and friends of the depressed can find help and support. I believe now is a good time in the history of our Twelve Step fellowship to spend time refining and detailing strategies for helping family members and friends of the depressed. In fact, the name chosen for this companion to Depressed Anonymous is DEP-ANON. The name and philosophy is much like AL-ANON, the support group for family and friends of the alcoholic.

DEP-ANON places its focus on creating a relationship with the depressed that is not only supportive, but also creates an environment where the whole family can find healing. Also, we want to spend some time speaking about how we can help our depressed family member find the necessary support so that any future relapse can be prevented. There are a number of routes that can be taken to ensure that this happens and we will discuss them in the following pages . We hope that what you read here will not only be a help to you, but will help your loved one recover and stay out of the prison of depression.”

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Dep-Anon Family Group Manual. Pages 1-3

NOTE: .Comments about the DEP-ANON recovery program will continue in future blogs at depressedanon.com.

Fellowship, Isolation, Prayer, Purpose, Spirituality, The 12 Steps

I have been crippled by saddening myself!

June 20, 2018 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

I know that I am going to be alright as long as I let God direct my thoughts today.

“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.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I know that at first, when I was depressed, I wondered how this could apply to me. Then I realized that for so long I tried to live in the solitude and isolation of the comfort of my depression, where everything stood still. The way I lived my life was left unchallenged. I now realize that at the center of every one’s life must be the spiritual life of each of us and it is the amount of care and time that we give to this center that determines the amount of hope and change that we bring to our lives.

The more I plan to work my program, I admit that truly my life has been unmanageable since I have been hampered by my saddening myself, I can truly move forward and plan more pleasant and fun activities into my life.

MEDITATION

We ask you God, the center of our life, to continue to provide for us the necessary courage to know you on a more personal level so that we might have the daily courage to put our life and plan into your hands. (Personal comments).

SOURCE: (c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Page 122.

VISIT THE STORE and learn more about Higher Thoughts for Down Days, now in a Kindle edition.

Act As If, Anger, Blame, Journaling, Victim Thinking

#METOO. Shouting out our anger and rage

June 13, 2018 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

THIS SOUNDS RIGHT

Dorothy Smith has shown how women are forced into a secondhand understanding of the world. Women are trained to invalidate their own experiences, understanding, and feelings and to look to men to tell them how to view themselves. Ideas, concepts, images, and vocabularies that women use to think about their experiences have been formulated from the male point of view by universities, churches, and other social institutions.

In Women and Madness Phyllis Chesler describes women’s experiences as psychiatric patients. Very few of the women she interviewed appears to have a mental disturbance. Most were unhappy and responding to the oppression in their lives. Seeking help, Chelser pointed out, is not valued in our society, and women seemed to be punished “for their own good” by the institution for exhibiting such weakness.

Jean Baker Miller looked at the relations between dominant and subordinate groups. She isolated certain characteristics of subordinate groups as typical of any irrationally unequal power relations based on ascribed status such as race religion or sex. Those in a relationship of subordination need to survive, above anything else. Direct response to destructive treatment must be avoided, as it may be met with rejection, punishment, or even death. Women who step out of line Miller noted, can suffer a combination of social ostracism, economic hardship, and psychological isolation. They may even be diagnosed as having a personality disorder if they do not conform to the male-defined norm for a woman.

If conflict cannot be expressed openly, it is turned inward and the ground is fertile for depression. Once depression is identified, the victim is blamed for her illness, and she accepts this responsibility until she is helped to examine her own self-defeating patterns, to see how she allows herself to be victimized.”

SOURCE: Melva Steen, Ph.D, RN. Historical Perspectives on Women and mental illness and preventing of depression in women using a feminist perspective. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 12:359-374, 1991.

Appeared in THE ANTIDEPRESSANT TABLET in the Spring edition (v.5, #3: 8-9).1994.

The following is an excerpt from the Basic Text for the fellowship of Depressed Anonymous world wide.

Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition , 2011,2008, 1998. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky. Page 82.

“Maybe I need to make amends to my children for making a clean house the number one priority the number one priority and never allowing them to give expression to their feelings. Or maybe I was the good daughter or son who never told anyone how I really felt because I was afraid of how my parents would react. Now we might be dredging up all the old feelings of anger and resentment that we have submerged under a mask of kindness ands sweetness over the years. We need to voice our anger for having to act like someone we aren’t. I can think of many women who in therapy begin to get in touch with the times when as little girls, they were conditioned to think that good little girls didn’t get angry, and so they stuffed and sat upon all these powerful and unpleasant emotions. Feelings that are not expressed can accumulate in our bodies and can’t get out until we share them and express them. These stuffed feelings get lodged in our bodies and immobilize us until we feel completely wrung out!

Some have heard all their lives that you shouldn’t get angry as mother won’t love you anymore. This makes it quite difficult suddenly to shout out our rage and anger at a world that has made women in general feel less than second-class citizens. ”

Acceptance, Fellowship, Isolation, Mutual Aid

The protective wall of the community

June 12, 2018 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

I do believe the term “protective wall of the community ” is surely an apt and meaningful description of those who are messengers of hope in the 12 step Program of Depressed Anonymous. The program and suggested principles of Depressed Anonymous serve as a protection against the frailty of us all producing in each of us a solidarity with other’s sense of futility and isolation. We then become a wall against which our addiction(s) attempt to overcome and divide us. It is on the ramparts of struggle that we gain access to hope again. We, the group, now serve as a protection against despair. We know now, thanks to our active participation in our 12 Step program, that we no longer stand alone, isolated and vulnerable. We now stand together with those “others” who are aware and conscious that some Power greater than themselves is to restore us all to sanity today.

Only by gaining an insight into my addiction to sadness and misery that I can be free from this need to numb myself from the feelings of hurt and despair.

In recent retreats many of the participants gathered there were in agreement that they could do something about their depression. In fact, one of the participants said that she was surprised and pleased that she could in fact take responsibility fir her self and begin to work herself out of depression.

This was a revelation for her that she could be an active participant in her own recovery process.

I think that too often people depressed mistakenly think that they had nothing to do with their depression – and if they had nothng to do with it, then they think that they have no power to undo it. And like other problems in life, we have to consider our habitual attachment to those thoughts, behaviors and actions which continue to keep us isolated with the comfort of not making a decision on our behalf to escape the prison of our depression. We are NOT helpless.

Now that I am willing to assume responsibility for my depression I have begun to take a closer look at my life and the way in which I was living it. It now has become clear that I have to make some changes in the way I think, feel and behave.

I had to become conscious that with the help of God, as I understand God and my recovery group called Depressed Anonymous, that I could in time free myself from my depression.

So often we want someone to take away our pain, our hurt and our grieving with out any effort on our part. Of course –life doesn’t work that way. For more information about our program of recovery click onto the Depressed Anonymous menu and discover how you to can find hope .

Hugh

Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Mutual Aid, The 12 Steps

“Help is on the way!”

June 10, 2018 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Learning some creative ways to deal with depression, based on one’s own personal experiences utilizing the power of the Twelve Steps of Depressed Anonymous. Our program is modeled after the recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Many times a person depressed will look for help from our website, hoping that we have something that will give them relief and present for them a positive solution. We do our best to help them with our solution focused approach to overcoming depression. Most are thankful to know that we are here and have developed various avenues for one’s own recovery from depression.

To understand who we are and what we do, we always advise that the seeker read each of the items listed on our website menu. We also point them to past issues of our published Newsletters in the Newsletter Archives.

Our readers are treated to timely posts at our website center (www.depressedanon.cm) which include those topics which are most helpful to a person depressed as well as for one’s family members and friends.

Recently, we initiated an ongoing program of recovery for those persons who would like to start their own Depressed Anonymous group This program is one in which our DA members (SPONSORS) work collaboratively with those who choose this HOME STUDY PROGRAM OF RECOVERY. The program enables the person desirous of learning more about depression and their own unique experiences, to communicate with their sponsor by email. The participant answers questions from the Depressed Anonymous Workbook and reading from the Basic text of Depressed Anonymous. Each of the Twelve Steps is reflected upon as it relates to one’s life past and present. The participant’s responses are then emailed to the sponsor and a return mail by the sponsor answers those questions which the participant may have during the course study of their ongoing Home Study Program. The best part of the Home Study is that you can go at your own pace and get feedback from someone who has lived the program in their daily life!

If you choose to start a group that is entirely up to you and there is no obligation to initiate a group in your locality.

So there you have it. You may discover things about yourself that you never know existed. And whatever questions you might have about the origins of your own experience may come to light during this program. The best answers are there in your own life experiences and your taking the time to reflect upon them by using the DA WORKBOOK and the DA BASIC TEXT.

A participant will need the two books mentioned above for the program of Home Study and these are used in the group program. You can purchase both books as a unit from the Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore as well as purchase the books as eBooks from the Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore onsite at www.depressedanon.com.

If for whatever reason you are financially unable to purchase these books, please send me an email (depanon@netpenny.net) and we will contact you privately about the matter. Our main concern is to get these positive materials in the hands of those who want a way out of the prison of depression.

For an explanation of the HOMNE STUDY PROGRAM in more detail please click onto the Website Menu and click onto the drop down menu labeled HOME STUDY PROGRAM.

Fellowship, Purpose, Step 04, The 12 Steps

June 8, 2018 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

The following is an inventory designed to enable you to evaluate your present level of depression as well as your level of self-esteem. The painful experiences of depression has a profound and devastating effect on your self-esteem and self-concept. If you have a few moments, please take some time out to find out how you stand in these areas. And remember, this is only an inventory – how you score may be due more to your mood today and what you had for dinner more than anything else. No paper and pencil test is that all knowing. We are merely providing this tool to allow you to evaluate where you may stand in your own feelings of yourself.

While some people seem to have been born with a melancholy temperament and have therefore attained the state of depression quite naturally – others have been awakened to bad feelings only after experiencing certain life events. Loss of a loved one, a prized possession, one’s health or job, for instance, will often result in depression and low self-esteem and how we feel about ourselves. Still others may need to study the following principles of thinking and behaving to reach their desired levels of lost self-esteem and despair.

Although the following suggestions will not necessarily result in a full blown “clinical” depression (that is, a depression observed in a counseling session or with a physician), they can be of great help to you if you have a desire to commit yourself to continue to make yourself feel bad. These principles are widely promulgated and are guaranteed to lower or destroy your self esteem in short order.

Circle the answers below that best describe your own thinking, feelings and behavior. And in order to get yourself undepressed it would be smart to do just the opposite of each of the items listed below. The more we do the opposite the better you are going to feel.

Avoid vacations or other pleasurable activities plus staying away from things your apt to look forward to.
Work should be approached in one of two ways: Work without ceasing or never work at all. Draw the shades and stay in bed.
Seek not to find a sense of meaning or purpose in your life.
Cultivate negative thinking.
Indulge on a regular basis, in self-blame, guilt and remorse.
Pity yourself. Do it convincingly and for sustained periods of time.
Pity others in the same way.
Hinge your happiness on the achievement of a major life goal and watch it turn to ashes in your mouth.
Do not make effective use of leisure time by planning too many activities, none at all, are only those you consider a worthless waste of time.
Practice ongoing self physical and emotional abuse and dehumanization techniques. Beat your self up with punishing shame and guilty mind talk.
Attempt to do the impossible, striving always to meet expectations and standards you cannot possibly meet.
Habitually subordinate your own needs and wants to the needs and wants of others.
Always believe that yo must repay every good thing that happens to you because you are unequivocally unworthy.
Visualize a supreme being who is meddling, controlling and heavy handed rather than one who is sustaining, guiding and encouraging.
Never infringe upon understanding persons by asking them to sit and listen to your story.
Avoid cultivating any sort of intellectual or creative potential you may have.
Live vicariously through others, never attempt to create a life of your own.
Refuse to accept any notion that there may be meaning and purpose in your life whether you see it or not.
Squarely face the fact that in whatever pain and misery you may have experienced and or experiencing now, there is no purpose or meaning whatever.
Take hold of the conviction that others opinions of you have far greater validity and significance than any opinions you may have of yourself.
Believe it is more important to have someone else approve of you than any opinions you may have of yourself.
Accpt and practice the widespread belief that the proper response to your failures, mistakes and hurtful behavior is self-condemnation, guilt and remorse.
Remain convinced that you have something to prove to someone, whether you can identify that “someone” or not. Accept that there are things abut yourself which you will constantly need to explain or defend.
Realize that it is selfish, egotistical and unacceptable to treat yourself kindly and lovingly.
Accept as immutable truth that you are by nature a miserable and unclean wretch, deserving only condemnation, guilt and punishment.
Refuse to see yourself as worthy and acceptable on the basis of your failures, mistake and shortcomings.
Make it a practice to defer to others because of their education, wealth, power or position.
Believe that you deserve and (accept with passivity) all insults, put downs, destructive criticism and other abuse from others.
Accept the proposition that your personal worth and importance depend on what you have and what you achieve, rather what you are.
Get comfortable with the belief that acting bad makes you a bad person.
Try always to coerce others into making decisions for you in the vain hope of avoiding responsibilities for their consequences.
Learn to identify with your actions, realizing that what you are is wholly determined by what you do,
Adopt the popular belief that you could be better if you only tried harder.
Embrace the maxim that you always have compete freedom of will and choice.

Explanation Of The Inventory

All the items contained in the inventory are very negative and that is the issue at stake here, namely when we are depressed we can’t find anything positive to say about ourselves, our future or our present life. But our attitudes have more to do than how we talk to ourselves. It has more with the way we have perceived ourselves in relation to the world outside ourselves. it also many times has much to do with the way we related in childhood to those adults who were responsible for our safety, love and nurturance.

Practice The Opposite

In order for you to gradually begin the process of un-depressing yourself it is best that you start right now – today. Whatever items on the inventory that you circled you can start chipping away at your negative lifestyle and do the opposite of the behaviors of those circled items. For example, if you circled item #21 you would want to start approving of yourself in small ways instead of always depending on others approval. This is the way to greater self-esteem and the way out of the prison of depression – namely, turning the negative behavior into something positive and life giving. If you have a sponsor it would do well for you to go through each of the list on the inventory and work to commit yourself to positive behaviors for the items selected. Good luck! And God speed!

Acceptance, Anger, Attachment, Choice, Depressed Anonymous, Despair, Focus, Grief, Hope, Journaling, Mindfulness, Mutual Aid, Purpose, Serenity, The 12 Steps, Victim Thinking

Drinking Depression: One Man’s Story Of Recovery From Alcoholism And Depression

June 7, 2018 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

DRINKING DEPRESSION: One man’s story of recovery from alcoholism and depression and the parallels between the two.

By Steve P.

“I have had experiences with alcohol abuse since childhood. I have also struggled since childhood with depression. I quickly learned to rely on both.

I call this paper “drinking depression” because that’s exactly what I did when I no longer had the alcohol. The following thoughts will express my feelings and the parallels that I have seen between these two addictions.

RELIANCE

There was always an excuse to drink, mostly I was upset with something –I should say angry, for it was anger at the root of my depression that I was trying to suppress in medicating myself with alcohol. Later, I learned to do the same thing with my depression except to be in a depressive state high. I didn’t even have to leave the house and after awhile I didn’t want to break the cycle of reliance that dependency had begun. Where I was absorbing alcohol into my blood stream I was now injecting the depression into my soul and absorbing it like a sponge

FAMILIARITY AND COMFORT

As a recovering alcoholic, I can look back on my drinking and see where I took comfort in being drunk because eventually the numbness became the only way I could feel better. When I was drunk I could retreat into myself and not have to deal with everyday life.

The same escape tool was used in the form of depression. I could ball up like a wooly worm and the outside world was not going to hurt me. However, the more I wallowed in the darkness of my depression the deeper I got stuck in the mud of despair and hopelessness.

DESPERATION

In order to deal with alcoholism and depression I had to hit rock bottom. I had reached a point in both that I had to call out for help or drown in my addiction. I called on my Higher Power to help deliver me from alcohol and he led me to a counselor to also help me with my depression. With the guidance of the Holy Spirit I am harnessing my talents now and I am seeing incredible results. My recovery has not been overnight but it is a day by day and step by step recovery process.

THE PHYSICAL

After some time had passed, the drinking affects the physical body breaking it down. Once I saw a film in which the brain of an alcoholic was compared to the brain of a heroin addict and they were very similar. The depression I experienced also had physical implications. For over twenty years the way my body would respond from too much emotional stress was to pass out. Instead of blacking out from alcohol I was using depression to numb myself and my brain.

THE SPIRITUAL

When I was drinking I felt alienation and guilt. I felt professing Christians did not drink. The more I drank the more guilty I became. I felt much more distant from God the more I drank and spiraled further down into a cycle of despair.

In my depression, I felt God had no time for me and that I was unworthy of his love. Again, it was a carousal filled with guilt and anger going round and round so that I couldn’t get off the merry-go-round.

SELF-ESTEEM

When I was drinking, I was sure that no one cared or could understand what I was going through, so I had many pity parties and I was the guest of honor. Why should I care if no one else cared? This was my way of thinking.

From painful experiences in my childhood I felt I was of no worth and just taking up space. It has taken therapy and the support of family and friends to finally look in the mirror and begin to like what I saw.

HOPE

I have been sober over two years although I often have the desire to drink I daily call on my Higher Power to help me and march on one day at a time experiencing serenity and a release from my need to take that first drink.

I have been in therapy for almost a year off and on, although in order to recover one has to stay with it. I have to take my emotional and spiritual healing, like my drinking —one day at a time knowing I can make it. It is only by opening the door of the past that the light of the present can get rid of the darkness today, providing hope for the future.

It is my hope and prayer that this has helped you, in some small way. It has helped me by writing about my experiences. May God put walls of protection around you so that the way ahead for you may be crystal clear so that today may be your first step towards recovery.”

God bless.

Steve P.

+This article first appeared in THE ANTIDEPRESSANT TABLET, Spring 1994.

Depressed Anonymous