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The canary in the coal mine

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Years past miners took a canary with them when they went deep into the earth to dig out coal. The canary went along with the miners as a  carbon monoxide gas detector — a lethal gas. When the canary quit singing, the miners knew that the canary smelled gas  and it was time to make a quick exit.

For me, there are also certain things that warn me of dangers ahead that might  cause me to isolate, shame myself plus roll around negative thoughts in my mind which I know would gradually lead me down the path to total immobility. Now that I know the triggers which got me depressed before I can take the  necessary precautions and get busy talking to a fellow Depressed Anonymous member (sponsor), go to a meeting, do the Home Study program,  get back to exercising on a  regular basis, stay away from junk food and continue my daily living one day at a time. What are the triggers that might throw you back into the prison and immobility of depression?

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

Acceptance, Belief, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Fellowship, Hope, The 12 Steps

The solution-focused journey out of depression.

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Solution-focused is not only a description of a particular type of therapy but is likewise an apt description of the work that is done when one becomes  a member of the Depressed Anonymous fellowship. The Twelve Steps of Depressed Anonymous present to those still “suffering from depression” positive solutions for the overcoming of their own feelings of worthlessness and despair.

By using the Steps you can begin to take the journey that will change your life, your feelings  and your relationship with the world inside yourself as well as the world in which you live.

Step Twelve  tells us that  “Having had  a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to the depressed,  and to practice these principles in all of our affairs.”

And, that is why we do what we do. Now that we have admitted we had a problem, turned our life over to something bigger than ourselves,  cleared away the rubbish of lives that kept  us imprisoned  (fears, guilt, isolation), we gained a freedom to live everyday in the solution of hope and serenity.

Try the solution! See if our program will work for you. It’s already restored thousands of lives and families.

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VISIT the STORE and check out the HOME STUDY PROGRAM, and order it today.    The solution-focused program consists of The DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS WORKBOOK,(2001), and  DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS, 3rd edition. (2011).Both books  and all our literature is written by those of us who have been depressed and who  now live a daily life of hope.

All we have to lose is our misery!

Fellowship, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, Honesty

The truth will set us free!

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I will tell as much truth about myself as I am humanly capable today.

AFFFIRMATION

“Only God  can fully know what absolute honesty is.  Therefore, each of us has to conceive  what this great ideal may be to the best of our ability.”

“Fallible as we all are, and will be in this life, it would be presumptuous  that we could ever really achieve absolute honesty.  The best we can do is strive for a better quality of honesty.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I admit that I am depressed. This honesty about  the way I feel creates in me a real hope that by my being honest, I can admit other things about myself. My spiritual well being rides on how honest I am.  It is this inner  truth about myself that I want to share with others. I gain freedom the more I share who I am with other’s like me.

It is in talking about my attachments to depression that sets me free from my fear of getting more depressed. Indeed, the truth will set us free and enlighten us as to how our attachments to behavior such as depression and sadness have imprisoned us.

I have to be honest with myself if I am to be released from my prison of depression. In  my heart, I really don’t believe all the nonsense that I keep pumping into my head about how bad I am and how hopeless everything is. In reality, I know things might be bad but never hopeless. I have just to look around me and see hope blooming, budding and growing.

MEDITATION

“He satisfied the longing soul and filled the hungry soul with good things.”  Psalm 107. 9

SOURCE: Higher thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for 12 Step fellowships. (1999) Depressed  Anonymous Publications. Louisville. October 1. Page 197.

Addiction, Belief, Fellowship

6 ways to help you through depression

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1) Don’t bottle things up: if you’ve recently had some bad news, or a  major upset in your life, try to tell people close to you about it and how it feels.  It helps re-live the painful experience several times, to have a good cry, and talk things through. This is part of the mind’s natural healing mechanism.

2)  Do something: get out of doors for some exercise, if even for only a long walk. This will enable you to keep physically fit, and you may sleep better…This will help you take your mind off those painful feelings which only make you  more depressed when allowed to sweep over you.

3) Eat a good balanced diet: even though you may not feel like eating. Fresh fruits and vegetables are especially recommended. People with severe depression can lose weight and run low in vitamins, which only makes matters worse.

4) Resist the temptation to drown your sorrows. Alcohol, actually depresses mood, so while it may give you immediate relief, this is very temporary and you may end up more depressed that ever.

5) Don’t get into a state of not sleeping. Listening to the radio or watching TV (it’s on all night now!) while you’re resting your body will still help, even if you are not actually asleep, and you may find that you drop off because you’re no longer worrying about not doing so!

6) Remind yourself that you are suffering from depression –something which many other people have gone through — and that you will eventually come out of it, as they did, even though it does not feel like it at the time. Depression can even be a useful experience, in that some people emerge stronger and better able to cope than before.  Situations and relationships may be seen more clearly, and you may now have the strength and the  wisdom to make important decisions and changes in your life which you were unable to do before.”

Source:  Depression: P.9. Pamphlet published as a service to the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

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I find these 6 ways as very helpful for anyone making a choice to change their behavior, the way they  feel and the way they think. With a fellowship of like minded persons, such as Depressed Anonymous,  there is a greater capacity to make better choices as well as to learn ways to gradually move out of the bondage of depression.

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

  The Depressed Anonymous Workbook (2001) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

Isolation, Negativity

Walling off negative feelings

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“In examining our purpose one of the things that stands out is our emphasis on feelings. We stress feelings for several reasons… First of all, our behavior in the past has been so opposed to our value system that considerable feelings of remorse and self loathing have been built up. It appears that we have accumulated a pool of negative feelings and walled them off with a variety of masks or defenses that prevent this discovery…” Source: Group Psychotherapy with Addicted Populations. Flores, Phillip J. The Haworth Press.

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I know all about “walling off” my negative feelings.  I purposely disconnected myself from negative feelings. To even think about negative events in my life, and much less to even talk about them with others, were  the bars that created my own personal prison. It was only when I admitted my own powerlessness with a life spiraling down out of control, because of shame, guilt and isolation, that I had to do something, anything,  to free myself from the bondage of depression. And that is where my story begins and that is where I began to get my life back.  When I admitted to myself and then to that group of persons who faced the same problem as myself,  that the bars of my prison were gradually removed.

Could it be that we have spent so much time on getting rid of these oppressive feelings of shame and despair that, as Thomas Moore states so wisely in his work, Care of the Soul in  Everyday life, that “depression  may be as important a channel for valuable “negative” feelings, as  expressions of affection are for the emotions of love.”

Finally the truth comes out. Even though medications prescribed for depression may help some of us get  back on the  playing field of life, getting in touch with these dark feelings of melancholy which have us down for the count, it is by feeling them and talking about  them that get us back to life. Why is it that we are so ready to get rid of something which with time and work can reveal to me a better path where i will discover a purpose and meaning  for my life.

If you want to discover how others like myself made this journey through the darkness and bitterness of their lives and came out more fully human, with negative feelings  and all, then please read  the PERSONAL STORIES of those like myself who using  the 12 Steps of recovery found the passage to freedom.

SOURCES:

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

I’ll do it when I feel Better(2014)  Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

Believing is seeing: 15 ways to leave the prison of depression. (2015) Depressed Anonymous Publications.   Louisville.

Please Visit the Store for more literature dealing with Depression and the 12 steps.

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An addiction exists when…

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“Peale says that an addiction  exists when someone’s attachment  to a person or a sensation lessens his appreciation to deal with other things in his environment or in himself. The person  becomes increasingly dependent on that attachment as his only source of gratification. ” Source: Looking for love in all the wrong places: Overcoming romantic and sexual addictions. Jed Diamond. G. P.  Putnam’s Sons. NY

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When I was depressed all I could think about was the fact that I felt I was going crazy. I could think of nothing else other than the misery of my pain and the isolation of my self from everything around me. My feelings of depression were truly inescapable and my dependence on the negativity of my life and feelings kept me imprisoned and isolated.  And the one way that dealt a blow  to my circular thinking of doom and gloom was to force myself to get my body moving with the result that my mind gradually and slowly followed suit. It was like I was defrosting the frozen  windshield of my mind so that I could establish a way to see where I needed to go.

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

12 Step Meeting, Addiction, Belief, Fellowship, Focus, Spiritual Heroes, The 12 Steps

Is depression an addiction?

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At the weekly Depressed Anonymous meetings there stirs a glimmer of hope for the saddict  as he/she begins to encounter others like themselves at group meetings.  It is a bigger payoff for the saddict  to gradually believe that  the recovering members  of the Depressed Anonymous group are holding out a hope that can be theirs if only they would depend on the serenity of the members of the group rather than depend on the long time comfort of their addiction.

“Whether it is therapy or not, addicts improve when their relationships to work, family, and other aspects of their environment improve. Addicts  have come to count on the regular reward they get from their addictive involvement.  They can give up these rewards when they believe they will find superior gratifications from other activities such as  the DA meetings  in the regular fiber of their lives. Therapy helps this process by focusing on external rewards and assisting addicts in conceptualizing these rewards and obtaining them. What any rewards therapy itself produces must be regarded as intermediate and time limited, as a passage to the stable, environmental rewards that are necessary to create  a non addictive equilibrium in people’s lives. Only when such everyday but potent  reinforcements are firmly in place is an addiction cured. ”  Source: The Meaning of Addiction: Experience and its interpretation. Stanton Peale. Lexington Books. Lexington,  MA, 1988. p,55.

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SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. (2011) Louisville. Appendix  Is depression an addiction?

Addiction, Step 12, The 12 Steps

I Am More Than My Addiction!

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“…Because addicted individuals generally  possess such strong feelings of shame, embarrassment and self-loathing, it is extremely curative when they learn that they can be viewed by others in a positive manner.

…Shame, a more profound feeling all alcoholics and addicts (saddicts)  struggle with implies “I feel bad because of what I am.”  Addiction from this view implies that group therapy must enhance the self understanding and the acceptance that one is worthwhile despite their strong feelings of self loathing and self-hatred.  (The Depressed Anonymous Fellowship Group. ED)   ….before a person can  be healed, they have to know they can heal another. …It is this opportunity to learn that one has the ability to help another in being a healer which supports the use of  group psychotherapy. In  fact, this is the very same principle which AA  (DA) applies within the Twelfth Step of its Twelve Step program for recovery. The alcoholic and the addict (saddict)  maintains their own sobriety by helping another alcoholic get sober.” Source excerpts: Group Psychotherapy with Addicted Populations.  , (1988)  Flores, Phillip J., The Haworth Press. NY

Likewise, the person depressed has a better chance of  overcoming depression when they hear someone else,  with the same situation, feeling better and overcoming their depression.

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

Fellowship, Focus, Hope, Purpose, The 12 Steps

What gives purpose to my life today?

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To  properly answer that question is to look deep inside of myself and reflect upon what brought me to where I am today. I want to take time this day to reflect on what issues are still mine today that were part of my life, let’s say, some  thirty years ago.  What happened those many years ago that has turned me into an evangelist for hope and serenity today? I know what it is that has motivated me to be who I am today. We all know that the past is the prelude to the future.

Reconstruction, revamping and recovery are a daily part of my life today. I am  continually making contact with the God of my understanding and asking guidance and direction.  When I am not completely able to make that decision which will better my relationship with my God and others,  I take a deep breath and wait. What am I waiting for you might ask. I am waiting for a prompt, a hunch, a possible direction that might lead me further  down the path for my own recovery plus   to be  a source of help for those “still suffering” from depression. If you know something works, you normally keep doing it. You see and feel the benefits of the direction your life is  taking. You begin to feel peace (integrity) and hope as you follow the roadmap which lays out for you   a step by step journey producing sobriety, sanity and serenity. We are all a “work in progress” as the saying goes. We all feel this inner urge to move ahead  after being immobilized so long by fear, shame and physically immobilized. I speak for myself here.

My new and improved reconstruction process is ongoing. My revamping has been painful at times. I admit that. Change is never easy, especially when it has to do with personal beliefs and attitudes that we always have held  about ourselves. But after using my program of recovery of the Twelve Steps, and clarifying my thinking about who I am and who I need to become,  a completely new vista for living   opened up to  me  that  multitude of possibilities  of which  I never could have imagined.

What gives purpose to my life today? My life has purpose today because I felt a need to share a simple program of reconstruction, recovery for anyone suffering from something over  which they felt they had no control. Telling my story and sharing my belief of hope to those who lost all hope and who believed life had to always be lived in misery and despair gives great meaning to my life. We put hope where once there was no hope; help where there was no help.

Here I am, today, continuing to keeping hope in my own  heart as I continue to give hope to your heart. Now if that doesn’t give meaning/purpose to one’s life I don’t know what could. What are your thoughts on this?

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

The Depressed Anonymous Workbook (2002) DAP. Louisville.

Depressed Once-Not Twice (2000) : A spiritual autobiography of the journey out of depression. DAP,. Louisville.

Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations. Louisville

NOTE: Please Visit the Store for more literature.

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Regrets and excessive guilt: what is the difference?

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“A friend in the Program taught me to look at excessive guilt in an entirely new way, suggesting that guilt was nothing but a sort of reverse pride. A decent regret for what has happened is fine, he said.  But guilt, no. I’ve since learned that condemning ourselves for mistakes we’ve made is just as bad as condemning others for theirs. We’re not really equipped to make judgments, not even of ourselves. Do I still sometimes “beat myself to death” when I appear to be failing.”

Today I pray  that I may be wary of keeping my guilty role alive long after I should have left it behind. May I know the difference between regret and guilt. May I recognize that long-term guilt may infer an exaggerated idea of my own importance, as well as present self-righteousness. May God alone be my judge.”

SOURCE: Copyright(c)  A Day at a time. (1994)  Hazeldon

We believe that what we think, what we say, and what we do impact our depression. We believe that depression can be managed by applying the principles of the 12 Steps. All are welcome!