All posts by Hugh Smith

12 Step Meeting, Acceptance, Courage, Fellowship, Hope, Mutual Aid, Positivity, Purpose, Spirituality, Step 01, Step 02, Step 03

Depression is a process addiction

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Depression is a process addiction, just as alcoholism is a substance addiction.

A process addiction is when a person is addicted to a particular behavior. When we speak about one addiction, like the process addiction of depression, we can include them all. We are learning that the Twelve Step program of recovery can be used to overcome negative thinking and compulsive/addictive behavior for the person who sincerely wants to get emotionally, physically and spiritually healthy.

Our Depressed Anonymous fellowship is based on a hope that no matter how bad we feel, no matter how isolated we are, or how painful we feel, we do recover.

We discover that all our negative thinking, feeling and behaviors will no longer keep us captive, isolated and in the prison of our depression. We gradually begin to change the way we think and feel, learning how to motivate ourselves, using the Spiritual principles of the Twelve Steps, and begin to get active in our own recovery. Motivation follows action!

The main positive effect of making the Steps an integral part of our daily Lives is that people can come together and find the support of their Depressed Anonymous fellowship. They in turn will find the emotional nurturing acceptance of their group and learn the social skills that can help them gradually enter life again; with hope and a heightened spirit. Once people realize that they are not alone and that they hope that they too will feel better. The beauty of a self-help group is that a person feels acceptance from the group. No one is there to tell them to “snap out of it” or that depression is all in your mind.

Finally, we see our closed system of depression, with its negative addictive thinking, feelings of despair, coupled with those behaviors which keep us afraid and anxious, gradually are being dismantled. We discover that we have choices. We don’t have to stay isolated. Our positive thinking begins to show us a way out of a system that has had us bullied into submission. Our minds are now processing hope and possibilities for a new life of freedom.

Hugh S., for the fellowship

Higher Thoughts for Down Days

Belief in myself

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Depression is something that is so overwhelming. For myself it is like crawling from beneath the earth and facing the light, with fear
that no one would understand how I truly feel.

When in depression, isolation would follow, being my only friend, but actually it was my own worst enemy. I should have been opening up to someone, instead I shut myself off from the world.

Through therapy and a belief in myself and encouragement, facing the days didn’t seem so difficult.

Working on my Twelve Steps of Depressed Anonymous, and reading “Higher Thoughts for Down Days” gave me reassurance that we are not alone.

I now appreciate what I do have when I work through the program.
– Reatha, Canada

DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Helpful Thinking, Step 01

Who am I? What do I want? Who is my God?

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As we dig  deeper into the  benefits of the Inventory, we want to get started with asking ourselves some  basic questions,

Who am I? What do I want ? Who is my God?

I  recommend  that you spend some time reflecting upon these questions as we continue our discussion of seeking more information on who we are  as a person.  This self-disclosure   process can provide us with  valuable insights as to those areas of our lives which have been responsible for the way  we are today. This includes an examination of the way we think, feel and  live out our daily lives.

In the early days of my own recovery, I  began to put together a workbook where I used  the three questions listed above and  focused on each of the Twelve Steps.   With each step, I listed a number of  questions which I felt would help  me discover  the areas in my life which I had never really examined  in any detail.  An important issue here is that when I was depressed  I didn’t have a clue as to what was happening to me.  I felt like my mind and body were spiraling down a slippery slope.

My first  reaction to this sudden fear was to create even more fear as my mind swirled around,  attempting  to  stop whatever it was that suddenly and without warning, had me locked in  a mental turmoil.  As I was oblivious to the fact that I had unconsciously and  gradually beat myself up over the previous months , creating guilt and shame,   resulting   that I became physically and emotionally immobilized.  Eventually , I discovered that this was called depression.

Back to our inventory. Only with the help of the newly formed Depressed Anonymous group,  a fellowship that was using the Twelve   Steps for their recovery.   It was when  I admitted that I was powerless over my depression, that the real work had  its beginning.

If you want to examine your  own life, with a personal  thumb print of your strengths and weakness,  then today is a good day to get started.

As an exercise in recovery,  write down your own responses to the three  questions listed in the   title of today’s blog .  Take your time, this is a marathon, not a sprint.  Again , we  are  taking  time out to find out who we are…not who people said we were.  It will not surprise you that what others said you were   in your early life, favorable or not,  stays with you into your teen years,  adult  life.

As we move along in our recovery, answering the questions in the workbook, gradually our examined life will provide you with information that you may  never have thought about.

So,  next time I meet with you  at our  blog, I hope you will have made a start in discovering something about yourself.  The inventory is about making progress–not being perfect.

The Depressed  Anonymous Workbook.  (Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville , Ky.

If  you have questions please let me know. My email address is: [email protected]

Hope

The unexamined life

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“The unexamined life may not be  worth living, but the unlived life is sure not worth living.”

As the publisher of books,  the taking of inventory of my product , is critical  for the success of my business.   When I got started in my  production of books I wasn’t  sure  of how  many books I would need for immediate sale on the market.  I decided x number of books would  be needed for immediate sale and would purchase more from the printer as needed.

I knew that as an order came in for the purchase of our books, I could get them to the customer in one week. The turn-around was quick. As more books were  sold, and my inventory became depleted, I had to rush to get more books printed (the turn-around  from the printer  was two weeks or more , and our shipping to the customer turned out to be three to four weeks). For us, that was unacceptable.  We made sure from that experience, to always have  an inventory available  to meet the growing demands for our books.

In our recovery program, Depressed Anonymous, in the Fourth Step, we  are asked to make an inventory. This inventory will help us meet the daily  demands of  our lives  as we begin to  examine  those  negative thoughts,  feelings,  with their crippling  behaviors, which have kept us imprisoned in  that  loop of helplessness and  hopelessness, spiraling us downward into the  pit  where we lost all hope,

In our ongoing posts on Step Four, we  will continue to examine Step F our, which states that  we have “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”   

In the next days we will post reflections on our  own inventory and how our examinations will lead us to a life filled with hope.

Please join with me as we travel this road together.

Hugh., for the fellowship