Category Archives: The 12 Steps

12 Step Meeting, Acceptance, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Fellowship, Journaling, Purpose, Spirituality, The 12 Steps

I can’t do anything to remove my compulsive behavior until I choose to live without it!

December 14, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

REFLECTION

I know that I have to continue to work on myself and the way that I speak to myself on an ongoing and daily basis. My letting go and let God take over my life doesn’t mean that I’ll just sit back and let God do all the work. No, it means that I will work on myself and leave the outcome up to my Higher Power. I know that my life can be lived differently if I make the effort to choose to become conscious of the thoughts that I let myself ruminate and think about during my day. The more I monitor my thoughts, the more I am able to filter out the negative thoughts and have them replaced with positive and constructive thoughts.

So often, when I am depressed I continue a thinking style that was learned as a small child. I am not even counscious as to how I would always select the negative attribute about myself to reflect upon, instead of thinking positive and hopeful thoughts about myself and my relationships. The more I believe that I have a choice as to how I am to feel, the more I become conscious of the thoughts that influence the way I feel.

BECOMING MINDFUL

God, let me just for today, dwell on your mercy and kindness that you desire to bestow on us. We pray that our awareness of your love for us will free us from our sadness.

Resources:

(c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY December 14th.

Put a HIGHER THOUGHT in your life every day. A spiritual vitamin will increase your spiritual metabolism so that you begin to replace negative thinking with thoughts of hope and serenity.

You may order online from the Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore at www.depressedanon.com

Acceptance, DA Literature, Fellowship, Kindness, The 12 Steps

A secure base providing recovery: Depressed Anonymous.

December 6, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

One of the areas of my life, when I was depressed, was to begin looking for that personal and secure base providing me with hope and resources for a complete recovery. My first attempt at finding this refuge and secure base was preceded by a search for answers. Why was mind always distracted? Why couldn’t I remember anything? I would read a paragraph and within no time I couldn’t remember a word of what I had just read. I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. I was always tired and just wanted to sleep. Coming home after working all day I would hit the sack. My mind was like in a dense fog. I felt like I was driving a car at night with my headlights on off. I was lucky just to be able to get to work. For me it was do or die. No job -no Master’s degree. My job paid for my education. It was that simple.

What can I do? What is wrong with me? I have never in my life felt so filled with anxiousness. Constant jitters. I even began feeling tremors in my hands. That is when I got worried. I didn’t have a doctor to consult. Since I lived back in the “stone age” there was no Internet. So, here is what I did. I forced myself out of bed every morning and I started to walk. I went to a mall located where I lived and walked. I mean I walked miles around that store. Early morning walkers, like myself, were allowed to walk before the store opened. I can relate to Forrest Gump in the movies. It was boring but I did manage to do it for over a year. And then it happened.

A feeling of lightness came over me. Wow! I almost wanted to shout with joy. That horrible jitteriness stopped for a moment. I felt a cheerfulness that I thought would never come back. My mind was clear. Momentarily I began reflecting that something good had just happened. And then the words, flashing across my mental screen, began spelling out the words, It won’t last!”

And just as quick as the words flashed in my mind, with it’s lifting mood, it too disappeared. I retuned downcast to my walking. And then slowly everything started to feel different for me. My mind cleared, my mood spiraled upwards and I began to feel like my old self–now, a renewed guy with a deep gratitude that all my walking paid off. I gradually began to see everything coming back into place. Whatever it was (it was only later that I could put a label on my experience and call it what it was, depression.)

Eventually, I designed a pilot project at my university using the 12 spiritual principles of Alcoholics Anonymous to determine if those depressed persons gathered in the program would respond to the power of the Steps. The Steps continue to help the alcoholic to recover from alcoholism. Now we learned that the 12 Step discussion groups, would also help others make progress, like our depressed participants in the study, as their moods lightened over the 10 week pilot discussion period. Today, the group that we call Depressed Anonymous is spreading worldwide and its Big Book (Depressed Anonymous) is now translated into Spanish, Dutch, Russian, Farsi and English.

If you are looking for a secure base, that is a group, where everyone speaks your language of depression, and where you can be accepted and introduced to a program of recovery that promises healing and a brand new start in life.

RESOURCES

You can check out our literature at The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore at www.depressedanon.com. You may also order books online.

Step 07

“Humbly asked God to remove my shortcomings.” Step Seven of Depressed Anonymous

July 10, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

In our program of recovery, looking at our lives and making an inventory of our good points and our shortcomings is a process of staying healthy, mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

One of my shortcomings is putting things off that needed to be dealt with at a time a correction needed to be made. It’s like the sailor who realizes the direction he is taking now, will put him off course unless he makes a navigational correction. The ramifications of waiting for a better time, a more convenient time, all can end up with disastrous consequences. Let me explain what I mean.

Years ago, I had my first experience with depression. It was a most painful experience. You all know what I am speaking about. I didn’t understand what was happening to me as my mind turned to cotton, energy level was zero and I was unable to get out of bed. I didn’t have a clue what I had. I couldn’t even give it a label. In this situation there was no blinking light telling me of an impending problem. There was no warning.

My point here, briefly, is that if I had taken care of some of my personal problems, shortcomings, some from my childhood and some from my earlier adult days, I might have prevented my life from going off the tracks.

Not too long ago my car engine light started blinking. My engine was out of oil. I called for help. The main motivation for my seeking help is noticing the red light on my instrument panel blinking on and off. If I didn’t add oil NOW I will have a cracked engine block. I turned off the road, bought a few quarts of oil. I added oil, contacted a mechanic and got the car in the shop. That took care of the problem-at least for now. Now I check the oil level in my engine every time I fill up with gas.

That brings me to my taking stock, an inventory as the Steps suggest that we do. . I began to look at the emotional life that I was leading, filled with shame and a hopelessness and dread that would not go away. I needed to get off the road and call for help. I knew that if I didn’t get help my life was going to continue to spiral downward–into what darkness and depths I was afraid to imagine. I was isolated and helpless.

Later I founded a group called Depressed Anonymous . It is a beacon of hope for me and an oasis of hope. It continually gives me a workable plan for survival. No longer did I stay a victim, but by my using the 12 Steps I discovered that my depression didn’t just come out of the blue but instead that my own shortcomings and denial of the seriousness of my problems were the problems.

Even though we have used a metaphor here, running out of oil and depression, there is so much truth that we can take from this comparison.

I now have a solution for these shorrtcomings that used to keep me off the recovery path. Now I have the guidance and the hope of the Steps. I have been shown how taking charge of my life, being responsible for the way I feel and behave at the same time staying connected with members of the Depressed Anonymous Fellowship. God has answerd my prayers. Members of the group have supported me on the right course. And by my daily reading of Depressed Anonymous literature and the meetings I attend weekly, I have a present life filled with hope…and peace.

If there is a flashing light in your life, know that there are persons out there who will get you back on the road. That is a Promise.

Fellowship, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, The 12 Steps

I can get out of this mess!

June 26, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

AFFIRMATION

I am not going to let my mind drift out of where I want it to go.

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I know from the way that I live out my life, the way I think, act, and believe, my life is far from simple. I have created this monster called depression because of my fears, anger and general feelings of disgust about myself. I do know that it is by admitting that my life has been very complicated, my thinking centered on my unworthiness, that I became depressed. I want to learn how 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.”

COPYRIGHT (C) Higher Thoughts for Down Days:365 daily thoughts and meditations for member of 12 Step fellowship groups. Louisville, KY. June 26th. Page128.

Fellowship, Negativity, The 12 Steps

Magic wands and silver bullets are not available here

May 31, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

AFFIRMATION

“…seeing and talking to other people are amongst the most helpful experiences for depressed people generally.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

What a novel thought: a depressed person talking to another depressed person. When I tell people I am going to a Depressed Anonymous meeting their first response is “Isn’t that depressing?” “Actually,” I respond, “it isn’t.” I know from my experiences in other 12 Step groups how sharing with persons who have the same problems as my own, is always helpful and therapeutic.

“It takes one to know one” as the saying goes. The reason that meetings with the depressed are not depressing is that all of us speak the same language. All of us come with a HOPE that they can find a way out of the isolation and pain. The depressed person is discovering meetings which are hopeful and solution focused. No “poor me” attitudes here. No ” pity party” going on here.

I find the meetings upbeat and focus on the solution. The solutions are found in the 12 Steps; spiritual principles presenting a Step by Step plan for recovery and freedom from sadness and isolation. At the core of these meetings is a belief in a power greater than ourselves, who is restoring us to sanity. This power, for some, is the group meeting and while for others it is a being called God, the God of our understanding.

How Depressed Anonymous Works.

At each Depressed Anonymous meeting the following message is read to the group by a volunteer:

“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 formulas for success. We believe that to get out of the prison of depression takes time and work.

We all have been wounded in different degrees by the experience of depression. We also know that there is a method to regain control over our lives that is practical and workable. It is successful for all those who want to change their lives. Some of us believed that there was no hope and that suicide was the only way out.

In this natural world, one of the first laws is that all growth is gradual – that belief is the bottom line for all of us who are depressed and who want to get better. The more we attend meetings, the more we will learn and see the various ways to escape from depression. We also learn how important it is not to give up on ourselves.”

RESOURCES

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

(c) Believing is seeing:15 ways to leave the prison of depression. Hugh Smith (2016) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. .

Please VISIT THE STORE @THE DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS PUBLICATIONS BOOKSTORE if you would like to order online any of the books listed here.

Fellowship, Step 04

Approval seeking and emotional dependency

May 25, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

I have observed that many depressed persons, including me, are given to approval seeking, some more so than others. It seems fair to call it a kind of emotional dependency. Little children are truly and completely dependent on their parents or whoever is taking care of them. They have no choice and are helpless. They’d better have their parents approval or else.

Some of these children carry this kind of dependency right into adulthood, even to their graves unless they do the hard work of unlearning it. They have become so unsure of themselves, their opinions, thoughts and skills, that they feel an imperative urge to get someone’s approval that they are doing the right thing and that they are still OK.

When we, the former children, reach physical maturity, we find that people soon resent those who become dependent on them. They often become contemptuous of them – leaners, clinging vines, etc. We literally drive them away from us with our constant demand for reassurance, hanging onto them, and begging them to throw us a few crumbs of approval now and them. We become fearful of asserting ourselves at all, for fear of retaliating with outright ridicule, not being given a seat around the campfire, prolonged silent treatment, or stopping cooking for us, etc. How can we avoid this treatment? Please them more, of course? Hardly. That brings us more contempt.

What will become of us? We will spend our lives doing what others want us to do. Not what we want to do. If it gets bad enough, we will have feelings of total worthlessness and self-loathing. Some will reach the point where they would rather die than to continue living with that yoke around their neck.

You can free yourself from this fetter, but it’s really rough depending how badly you are addicted. It will take determination and sustained effort. It’s worth it to finally breath the air of freedom. And you, give it to yourself. Start with a proven self-help program like Depressed Anonymous. Here you will learn how to prize yourself.

I include some words by Lao Tzu, 500 BC, who wrote the TAO TE CHING.

“Care about people’s approval

and you will be their slave.

Must you value what others value

and avoid what they avoid?

How ridiculous!

When you are content to be simple yourself

and don’t compare of compete

everybody will respect you. ”

NOTE : Bob P., author, of Evansville, Indiana, is founding member of Depressed Anonymous and one whose friendship I cherish. (Hugh S.)

Fellowship, Hope, Service, Spirituality, Step 01, The 12 Steps

Stepping out of hopelessness

May 15, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

One of the greatest feelings I experienced in confronting my depression was that I began to have hope. I began to believe what others were saying about the Steps. They were telling me that the plan that they followed everyday of their lives was giving them a positive feeling that they were going to step out of the swamp of sadness and hopelessness. In fact, those who spoke these encouraging words already were manifesting the strength and power of the 12 Steps in their own lives. I was one of these people.

A question that continued to cross my mind during my period of pain and isolation was basically “is life worth living.” Many folks depressed still debate this question in their minds. And far too many have provided us their answer that “life is not worth it.”

This has been my mission over these past years to show by example of other’s recovery (plus my own) that with appropriate faith, work and the spiritual tools, life can be good again. There is a faith, a strong indomitable spirit at the core of every human being, that hope is available to all who seek it.” What you seek, will seek you.” It’s almost akin to the belief in Karma–as you give out so will you receive back–in some way, at some time in your own life experiences. I don’t know how or why, but I do know that it just works out that way.

When I was first introduced to the 12 Steps, I came to my first meeting, willing to learn what I could to recover fully from my addiction. I had to have hope that something would work. It would have to work for me. And members of this 12 Step group presented me stories, facts and situations where persons completely down and out, physically, mentally and spiritually found hope in the confusion and despair of their own hopelessness and became free.

No longer did we feel hopeless of finding a way out of what was killing us. Yes, “we” found a way out. The plan was before us and the group was behind us as we plodded along, each of us supporting the other til we finally completed our Steps. We now share how our stepping into hope continues to be the North star for me these past thirty plus years for my own life.

Is life worth living? For many years now I discovered how a faith, a strong belief in my Higher Power, and a bonded group of men and women have continued to travel the same path as my own.

If you want more information about our group Depressed Anonymous please check out our website at www.depressedanon.com for a full explanation of who we are and what we do. You’ll want to step out with us.

Fellowship, Mindfulness, Purpose, The 12 Steps

Motivation Follows Action!

April 20, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Why do I continue the work of bringing hope to those still suffering? What motivates me to continue to try and help others? What has made the change in my life where now I want to share what I know and what I feel. Basically, I know that the program of recovery works. I no longer feel powerless over my depression. In DA group meetings members speak my language. We see how useless it is to waste time looking back over our shoulder to see if the dark shadow of my own inner fears is going to overtake me. I now have attained small amounts of hope and strength as I go from day to day. I am prepared for those moments of despair that at times overtake me and cause me to feel paralyzed and out of control.

In the first step “we admitted we were powerless over depression and that our lives had become unmanageable.” It is a paradox that it is in the admission of our lives being out of control that we began to take control of our lives.”

It was an interesting fact that in the very beginning of my recovery that I received a very important message… that if I was to get well I had to motivate myself to do something. I had to get in motion. That sounds simple enough doesn’t it? I must stop the isolating of myself and get to work on ways that would gradually lead myself out of despair and hopelessness, and deadly inactivity.

The first thing that I began to do each and everyday was to start walking. I just knew that the inner war that was waged with every step that I took was the message that “walking would not do me any good” would almost completely scuttle my best intentions to complete my walks. The odd thing about it was that, almost without fail, if I could just continue on and walk at least for 15 minutes and ignore the messages “that I was too tired to walk this morning” my body began to get into a rhythm. I would feel content to finish my walks. And ironically, there is not a day that goes by, when I start my walk that I don’t feel the lethergy and resistance to continue my walking. Then as always, after about 10-15 minutes into my walking, I feel a rush, an energy spurt, to continue walking. Other walkers have told me that they have the same experience. It must have something to do with the human body, with all its members working together and harmonically working in sync with each other.

I just add the above note to let others know that your body will repel the healthy attempt to move out of its isolation. It’s the force of one’s motivation powered by action that will in time help us all do one of the more beneficial exercises that our body can undertake, namely to walk.

——————————————

Addiction, Fellowship, Serenity, Step 02, The 12 Steps

I Was On The Verge Of Sanity!

April 14, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Yes, on the verge of sanity is the way I look at it. My life up to a certain point was not really insane –it just felt like it. You might recognize the feeling. You keep doing the same insane things over and over again and expecting different results. How is it that you and I are so good at this, that is, allowing our mind to chase us around in circles never finding a way out .

If you have been in a 12 step program for any length of time, you can see some of what I mean. Just by reading and looking closely at each of the spiritual principles of the 12 Steps you gradually become conscious of the dysfunctional way that you are living out your life.

The insanity begins to show itself for what it is –it is as it were exposed by the voices of the other members of the group. These men and women who have by now are discovering the core issues of their own insane ways of thinking and behaviors. As it states so pointedly in Step Two of the recovery program that we “Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

The members of the Depressed Anonymous group meetings have gradually painted a portrait of what insanity looks like. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. It’s when a member of the group, in detail fashion, shares with us how growing up he was told over and over again how “He would never amount to anything.” And guess what? He believed it! This prediction was fulfilled for everything that he put his hand to in life.

How about this one handed out to me by my teacher when I was in the third grade, namely “you will never be smart like your brother or your uncle ( a bible expert).”

She was right. I began to live with the shame of being inferior, the prediction of this authority figure gradually working its way into my subconscious from that moment on. I still remember feeling the flesh of my face turning red hot just thinking about that moment so many years back. Sharing this with the group and a therapist finally removed the scourge that it became in my life. I must have unconsciously worked against this false belief because later I earned a Master’s Degree and later a Doctoral degree.

Julia calls Depressed Anonymous a miracle. So far, she tells us that

“so far the most grabbing element of Depressed Anonymous has been the parts of the book where the author refers to the depressed person as a saddict, that is, a person attached or addicted even to sad and hopeless thoughts. Boy, did I ever see myself in these sections. Since then, I have learned to control my thought process. Now, very seldom do sad thoughts creep in. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the first time I saw the description of a saddict, a light went on in my head. The actual miracle took place at that moment. And the beauty of the whole thing is that thinking positive thoughts becomes easier and easier, automatic, then ecstatic at times.

But it is not all that easy. I followed the Steps also. I work at them often. For just as sure as your mind is on the automatic positive gear, it can easily slip back to negativism without the proper maintenance , which includes weekly( not just regular) attendance at meetings, and the knowledge and practice of the Twelve Steps as well as for those that need it, medication plus therapy as recommended by your doctor. ” (C) Julia, Depressed Anonymous Personal Stories

Good luck! And if just one other person reaches the point where I am,then there is a hope that life can be different for you as well.”

Note: When I became aware of how to live on the verge of sanity and then start living a live of serenity I began sharing with others about the miracle of Depressed Anonymous. Now that I am feeling sane I just hope that you put this plan. that works, into your daily life.

Submitted by Julia, a member of Depressed Anonymous, writing her Personal Story in the Personal Stories section of Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. KY Page 122.

For more stories please click onto the Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore at our website www. depressedanon.com. You can order online.

DA Literature, Faith, Fellowship, Hope, The 12 Steps

Did I build my own prison of depression?

March 14, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

How could that possibly be? Build my own prison of depression? Impossible. Wait. There might be a possibility if I go back to my childhood and think about some of the things that happened to me growing up.

The following are some of the examples that others (my clients) might have experienced unconsciously or consciously influencing their thinking, feelings and behaviors in their later teens and adult life.

EXAMPLES

*My parents fought all the time and made me scared. (They added a few bricks to the structure of your prison). I would go in my room and hide in the closet. ( The foundation for our prison is being built).

*Because my Dad was a town drunk he would show up at my school and make a fool of himself…I felt shame and anger at these times . (Put a few more bricks on that foundation.).

* I was bullied at school and I just wanted to die. I felt worthless. I felt no one liked me… (Bullies added more bricks to my prison. The walls are getting higher and higher).

*I was told that I was not allowed to get angry. I was not allowed to cry. I was not allowed to tell my parents how much I hated their drinking. No expression of feelings were allowed in my family. I wasn’t able to trust anyone with my feelings.

*Another message that I always got was “You’ll never amount to anything,” or “you’ll never be like your older brother.” (An especially large row of bricks is laid here when a Third grade teacher tells you this in front of the whole class and your face always turns crimson when you think about this shaming event).

*I was given the message that the world beyond my family was dangerous and threatening. ”

*It was at this point that my teenage years were spent behind the walls of a nearly finished prison. I was locked down and there was no way out of my prison. No one gave me a key.

*All these building blocks that produced a prison for myself all came with early life relationships. The messages that I got growing up gradually and effectively locked me down. I was growing up with out hope. All the messages were like building blocks which further imprisoned me.

Now that I am an adult, I have begun to take bricks away, one by one and the structure is being dismantled, one brick at a time. And how did this happen?

It all happened when I became sick and tired of being sick and tired. I needed help. I needed someone, something, other than the alcohol and opioids that I was abusing to turn my life around.

Yes, I built my prison and I was not even aware that each block carried to my structure was imprisoning me. So many of my toxic relationships, growing up, all came with another brick to put into my prison.

Taking the wall down, brick by brick we have to have a plan. We have to find ways to remove the bricks and free ourselves from those deadly feelings of personal worthlessness and feelings that we are unacceptable to ourselves and to others. I know now that I was not to blame for being in a prison and that I had no idea that all those messages given to me when I was growing up, influencing my life so directly, they all were only other people’s opinions of me. These opinions determined my future. They were responsible for building my prison. No child or young person wants to live their life in a prison–especially which is not of their own making. The tragic point here is that their imprisonment is not their fault. For some youngsters and even older adults the tragedy is that they believed what was told them so that their pain is so great they take their own life. They wanted to be free, be happy and have people around them who love them and support them in every way possible. The real problem is that none of us had a choice when we got our parents, teachers and relatives.

I think Bill W., the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous says it best when gives us hope when he wrote the following:

“We must never be blinded by the futile philosophy that we are just the hapless victim of our inheritance, of our life experiences, and of our surroundings – that these are the forces that make our decisions for us. This is not the road to freedom. We have to believe that we can really choose.” (c) As Bill Sees it. A.A. World Services. NY. 1967.

Now the plan that is working for many of us is to discover that when we live out the solution in our lives, that we focus on the solutions for removing those bricks from the walls of our depression, that it wasn’t our doing that the prison was built. We didn’t choose to have the wall built. Who chooses to live in a prison anyway? We didn’t know when we were young that these messages were never true but we believed them. We do not take the blame today for our depression and feeling worthless and unacceptable. We know that blaming others doesn’t do us any good either.

What works for us is a well thought out plan of recovery. We can begin to learn how to prize ourselves and realize and celebrate who we really are and the person whom we desire to become. The 12 Steps will get you there! You will have the tools to rebuild and you will see results. That is a Promise. (See page 109 in Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition where it lays out the PROMISES of the Steps for those who choose to use them).

By using the spiritual principles of the 12 Steps we have begun to choose to dismantle all those negative and hurtful messages from others that were never true in the first place.

If you want to write your own story as how the 12 Steps helped you remove the blocks from your own prison, please let us know by writing to depanon@netpenny.net., as we would love to hear from you.

Also, please read the personal stories of those who have chosen to free themselves from the prison of their own depression in our Big Book:

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

Click onto The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore at our website www.depressedanon.com. Online purchases of our literature is available.

Hope is just a few steps away!