Category Archives: Supportive Actions

Community building, Courage, Fellowship, Gratitude, Helpful, Purpose, Service, Step 12

Service in Recovery

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Today I’m truly grateful to be able to do service in my 12 step fellowships. Especially in DA, which has done so much for me. But I didn’t always feel that way about service! At first, I was very scared to make a commitment to chair a meeting. How could I, someone suffering from depression, someone unable to function successfully in daily life, someone who didn’t know if I could get out of bed or not on a particular day, how could I possible make a commitment to chair a meeting? Well, the group supported me and said “we’ll be here if you can’t make it. Just let us know! And we applaud you for being willing!” So I agreed. I also faced technology challenges. At the time the DA meetings were using Skype and I didn’t know how to use that platform (or any online meeting platform, for that matter).  So on a day and a time when a meeting was not going on, I logged on and pretended to chair a meeting. I went for a practice run to learn the technology. I asked someone for help, and they helped me. I faced my fears and I showed up for the first meeting that I volunteered to chair. I stumbled. But the meeting went on, and no one died! I made a mistake and it was okay.

I had feelings of anxiety, but I walked away with an inkling of a sense of purpose. So I kept chairing, and that sense of purpose increased. I started going to business meetings, and they needed people to do service there too. So I volunteered. As I continued, I felt more useful and my confidence grew.

The point I’m trying to make is that doing service has greatly helped my recovery! I learn lessons here in DA that I’m applying to other areas of my life. I’m growing. That is one of my goals – to stay green and growing. Doing service gives me that opportunity. And the icing on the cake is that doing service allows us to help DA as a whole and ensure that DA will be there for others who need it, just like I needed it and still need it.

In closing, the Responsibility Statement, revised for DA:

“I am responsible – when anyone, anywhere reaches out for help, I want the hand of DA always to be there, and for that: I am responsible.”

Choice, Courage, Depressed Anonymous, Focus, Helpful, Isolation, Powerlessness, Supportive Actions, Victim Thinking

The Path and the Holes

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I was walking down a path and I encountered a 40-foot hole. I fell in. The hole was very deep, dark, dirty and miserable.  I was all alone.  I looked around and saw no way out.  So I stayed there.  I made a bed out of the dirt, and sought comfort in the hole. And I stayed there longer.  After a long while, I was rescued.  I eventually got out, and continued down the path.

I walked along the path and I encountered a 30-foot hole. I fell in.  The hole was deep, dark and miserable. I was all alone.  I saw no way out. I stayed there.  I eventually was rescued, and I continued along the path.

I walked along the path and found a backpack labeled “DA.”  I picked up the backpack and put it on.

I walked along the path and I encountered a 25-foot hole. I fell in.  The hold was deep, dark and miserable. I had a backpack with me.  I unpacked the tools and I did not know how to use them. I tried, and I eventually climbed out of the hole. I continued along the path.

I walked along the path and I encountered a 10-foot hole. I fell in.  The hole was mid-sized, dim, and miserable. I had a backpack with me.  I unpacked the tools and had an idea how to use them. I climbed out.  I continued along the path.

I walked along the path and I encountered a 5-foot hole. I fell in.  The hole wasn’t very deep, but it was miserable. I had a backpack with me.  I unpacked my tools and used my favorite ones. I climbed out. I continued along the path.

Today, I walk along the path and I encounter shallow holes that I fall in.  I have my backpack with tools I know how to use.  I use them and I climb out.

And I continue along the path.

12 Step Meeting, Community building, Fellowship, Mutual Aid

Stay six feet apart, Wash your hands, Stay home

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Stay six feet apart. Use sanitizer. Wear mask. Stay clear of large gatherings – especially indoors. Everywhere we went, we got the message, that life suddenly became threatened by an unseen enemy, the covid 19 virus. Most times, the virus took the lives of our elders, who were most vulnerable. Our Grandparents, our elderly loved ones in nursing homes, were decimated

Today, we now use the terms, Pre-pandemic and post pandemic. It’s almost like it never happened. Things are getting back to normal. Almost, but not completely. It has ravaged our businesses, workers without jobs.

It’s still here. Everywhere we go, with floor markings still looking up at us at the post office, pharmacy, the grocery store all reminding of a past where more than 1 million Americans died from this deadly virus. It definitely has turned our lives upside down.

In Kentucky, the Bourbon center of the world, distilleries were using the alcohol, normally for making whiskey, switching to making sanitizer hand lotions.

For many of us, who had the covid 19 , and survived, are “the long haulers” who still carry within them, some of the symptoms, including anxiety, depression, fatigue, insomnia and other health conditions, much of which continue to threaten our own mental health.

The pandemic is taking its toll on us, our youth, our elderly and those who struggle with other serious respiratory illnesses.

What used to energize us and make us, as humans, social creatures, the virus came along and made us into hermits, alone, isolated and fearful.

The “pandemic brain” is a name given to those who are the “long haulers” and whose cognitive abilities are affected and who still face some of those debilitating symptoms which can plague them everyday.

HOW CAN WE FIND THE HELP WE NEED?

I would look for a mental health person or group resource where others like ourselves, who are having the same issues, resultant from the traumatic effects of the pandemic.

Because depression is one of the major issues that are the result of the pandemic, find a support group or mental health agency that devotes its time and care to those of us who are having trouble functioning in this post pandemic world.

As a depression support group, the 12 Step Depressed Anonymous recovery program is now online, offering meetings on a daily basis for those who seek a safe place, with persons like themselves. We do have a voice in this mutual aid fellowship, where we can choose to share our story, or remain silent, listen, feel accepted, and find ourselves among kindred spirits. We are all here to help ourselves, and by that, help ohers at the same time..

Please free to attend our daily meetings on OUR ZOOM virtual fellowship group of Depressed Anonymous. Go to our website at depressedanonymous.org, sign on, go to the meetings menu at the Home page, and it will take you to the link, taking you to our daily schedule of meetings, here in the USA and internationally.

We look forward to seeing you at our meetings. There are no fees or dues.

For the fellowship, Hugh S

Acceptance, Dep-Anon: Family and friends, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Mutual Aid, Serenity, The 12 Steps

Is The Road That You Are Traveling, Taking You To A Place Where You Want To Go?

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If you are going down a road and don’t like what’s in front of you, and you look behind you and you don’t like what you see, get off the road. Create a new path.
– Maya Angelou

When I was traveling down a road that led me into one brick wall after another, I made up my mind to find a new road–without all the brick walls.

The road that I am on now, a road which I have created, still exits with some obstacles, but no longer am I faced with unmovable brick walls. I got off this road.

What happened, you might ask. Well, to keep this brief, I ran into a bunch of people who were traveling on a very wide and level road, one which they said would lead me to where I wanted to go. (no, this is not the Yellow Brick Road of the Wizard of Oz). Amazingly, they all knew where I needed to go. This surprised me, as I didn’t even know where I needed to go.

With my God’s help, a fellowship of wonderful brothers and sisters, all fellow travelers, continuing to travel on this road, a personal path, filled with hope and serenity.

This path has a name, in case you are curious. It’s called the Twelve Steps of Recovery. This path is filled with signs of hope, those spiritual principles which are our guardrails, keeping us all headed in the right direction.

It’s even possible that I might even meet you on this path. I hope.

Hugh S., for the Depressed Anonymous fellowship

12 Step Meeting, Community building, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Gratitude, Helpful Thinking, Mutual Aid, Prayer, Purpose, The 12 Steps

What is an emotional laryngitis condition?

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Have you ever experienced laryngitis, that inflammation of the larynx, often accompanied by a temporary loss of your voice. Most probably you have have had that experience. It’s more of a nuisance than anything. But nevertheless, a problem that lingers around for a short time. This is a case which if you want to be heard, you have to whisper really loud.

Now how about your experience with an emotional laryngitis condition, a metaphor for being unable to voice unpleasant feelings, which causes you to be stuck in the dark pit of depression.

To experience an emotional loss of your voice, usually starts at a young age. You remember the saying, “Children should be seen and not heard.” And as it works out, that is precisely what happened to so many of us growing up. We lost our voice. We couldn’t share our feelings of hurt and loss.
We stuffed our feelings. We buried the pain of growing up, where we felt abandoned and unloved. We tried to forget about them. Which we did. Buried in our unconscious.

When we wanted to have a grownup, a parent, a family member listen to what we had to say, nobody cared what we had to say. We felt invisible. Also, to cry was forbidden. The message that we heard was “Little boys don’t cry.” Or, “just get over it.” Or, “suck it up.”

I remember on one occasion, standing near my mom and dad, I tried to tell them something. They ignored me. I remember feeling hurt that they didn’t want to listen to me. Strange, it was that one time which I do remember and I still wonder why I remember that one time. Does this mean my voice was always heard and that this time was an exception? I don’t know.

How often do I hear adults tell me HOW their home life was chaotic, filled with anger and fighting parents.
Usually, it was because of one or both of the parents were alcoholics and they NEVER wanted or even suggested, that they wanted to know how we felt or what was happening in our lives. In fact, our whole family didn’t want to hear from us. They never seemed to make time for us in their lives. We didn’t feel safe, and definitely we did not feel love. And what do we do? We began to hide, isolate ourselves creating our own little fantasy worlds. We wanted to have someone hear our voice. But there was never anyone that would listen to how we were feeling. We were the lost child.

Fast forward. As adults now, we discovered we have been addicted to alcohol, or opioid or gambling.or pornography. Anything to remove the pain.The core of all of these addictions, both substance and process addictions, were my attempt to fill the hole in my soul. Not only had we lost our voice, but we almost lost our lives. We lost the purpose for our lives. Not being able to tell people who we are had robbed us of the one thing that might have saved me – my voice. I was too scared to use it.
I needed to tell my story. How I survived. I never wanted to lose my voice again. Today is a good day.

Not until I became an adult did I attend a Twelve Step Depressed Anonymous meeting. It was here that I would use my voice and tell total strangers about all the losses in my life. It is here, that all my feelings, both pleasant and unpleasant are voiced. They heard me. They heard my voice. They listened to me. They didn’t judge me. I had RECLAIMED my ability to use my voice. I could talk about my feelings. My worst life hurts could now be shared and voiced. i was no longer the lost child. No longer was I the victim, the martyr, a clown seeking attention. And, all the time seeking for someone to tell me that I was loved.

It is here that my emotional laryngitis, accompanying me throughout my life, would no longer keep me from voicing who I am and who I want to be. No longer were my feelings shut down and no longer was I invisible. I am here–deal with it!

If you, are having an emotional laryngitis condition, and need a way to use your voice, and share you feelings, then we have a group for you. We call ourselves the fellowship of Depressed Anonymous. You will always be welcomed into our fellowship.

For more information about who we are, click onto our website at depressedanonymous.org. Attend our Depressed Anonymous daily group zoom meetings and begin to hear the voices of hope. Come and share your own VOICE.

Copyright (c) Depressed Anonymous, (3rd Edition) 2011. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Ky.

Hugh S., for the fellowship

12 Step Meeting, Acceptance, Addiction, Affirmations, Anxiety, Attachment, Compulsion, DA Literature, Fellowship, Grief, Hope, Purpose, The 12 Steps

The Circle Dance

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If you have ever been depressed or are depressed at this moment, you are familiar with the Circle Dance.

I know the dance steps well, and in fact, I could share with you some of the basic steps, illustrating familiar dance steps.

First of all, let me say that you already know those steps that automatically get you to perform the “Circle Dance. You get caught up emotionally, the moment certain negative thoughts come bouncing across the dance floor into your mind. You know them as that painful hollowness in your gut, a desire to quit the dance and lay down, or to bash yourself with thoughts of how bad you feel.

Sometimes, starting with those life events from childhood, when your caregivers, be they parents or guardians, made you feel worthless and unwanted. These thoughts and feelings are constantly triggered by those with whom you share this life. You avoid people, think of yourself as unlovable –and the dance goes on and on in your head.

The Feelings of hopelessness produces unpleasant feelings. The feelings produce an unpleasant mood and the dance begins. The mood speeds up the dance and whisks you away into that painful circle with its attendant anxieties, sucking you down into the mental quicksand, swallowing you with all the terror and fright of losing all hope, much less your future. The Circle Dance will take you, everyday and in every way, to where you know you don’t want to go.

This dance is familiar. It is like the helpless insect caught in the web of the spider. The why of this hellish addiction to sadness, is never fully addressed with any solutions or answers. We want to know how to stop it. How to control it. We ask ourselves, how is it that I am depressed? How did I get into this terrifying circle, this loop which keeps me locked in a mood of hopelessness and despair. Where did all this sadness, anxiety originate? Will I ever find a way out? Is the dance, on automatic pilot, going to destroy me? Am I, a victim, without a source of help? Is this the way life is for me to be–forever filled with misery?
So much of the time I feel like I am on a train, heading toward a precipice, with no way of stopping it or escaping disaster?

Through all this, pain and confusion, you become an expert dancer, in fact, you know of others who like you, are expert dancers — trapped in dancing within their own Circle Dance.

The dance, it is so familiar. It is a defense, a comfort. We gradually learn to use it to protect us from the pain, without ever having a clue as to how it took over my life.

“A famous psychiatrist, a Dr. Freud, once theorized “that the reason a person continues to do the Circular Dance within themselves, is an effort to touch an unpleasant early life behavior or that long since forgotten event, buried in one’s unconscious. The Circular Dance promotes our addictive nature and the compulsion to repeat, is an effort by our mind to remember what it was that is the cause of our present cycle of misery, spinning us around and around – looking for answers as to what we do and why we do what we do and feel the way that we do, but never able to unlock the prison of our sadness.”

The Depressed Anonymous 12 step fellowship provides us with a possible solution to this question of no longer allowing the Circular Dance to determine the our life’s direction.

It is my belief, after participating in Hundreds of Depressed Anonymous meetings, over three decades or more, that the compulsion to repeat these sslf-destructive thoughts and images, may be linked to early childhood periods, accompanied with their painful, traumatic events. It is in those early days, that our Circular Dance took root and began to keep us locked down in its circular loop.

It is here, in the 12 Step Fellowship of Depressed Anonymous, that those unpleasant feelings, resultant from physical. emotional and mental abuse by significant others (parents and/or guardians, others) can be shared, voiced and talked about safely, and confidentially in the light of the accepting fellowship that we experience in all of our mutual help meetings.

It is possible that with time, patience and work, that these early feelings of hurt and feeling worthless, to name just a few, can be identified and shown how they have affected us negatively in the way we feel about ourselves today. With the help and work of the group, we are able to locate and make conscious those early life experiences that have been pushed aside. Because the feelings were too powerful and painful to examine and so they were buried in our unconscious. Basically, we can say, that there is no longer a need for that compulsive and addictive Circular Dance that our mind had used to punish us with guilt and shame. We now have the freedom to live life, recover from the wounds of the past, and live life today with hope and purpose. That is my wish for you this day.. And for myself.

No one puts me down, for saying that I am depressed. We never hear a “Snap nap out of it” at our meetings. If we could “snap out of it” there would be no need for our meetings. With work, time and the fellowship we no longer need a dance that goes nowhere but down. Now we are spiraling upward. We thrive!

Hugh S., for the Fellowship

Copyright(c) Hugh Smith (1986, 2013) 2nd Edition. I’ll do it when I feel better. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY.
Pages 64-65.