Category Archives: DA Literature

Depressed Anonymous

HAVING A NEAR-LIFE EXPERIENCE

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THE NEAR-LIFE EXPERIENCE

I was in the middle of working my way out of the fog of my melancholia(depression) when suddenly I felt a lift in my spirit. It felt so strange, this feeling of deliverance. It was the way I was before my disabling sadness imprisoned me. I was always a cheerful and upbeat sort of guy and in the blink of an eye,  I was thinking the pain was over. Not so quick I thought–“this won’t last”. Right on. It didn’t. So, I continued my 5 mile walk through the mall and wondered about this near-life experience that I just had.  It was back to that deadly hollow feeling in my gut  with thoughts that traveled through my brain like cold molasses.

Because I didn’t have a clue what was happening to me physically, mentally and even spiritually, I knew something, whatever that something was had almost completely disabled  me. It was torture to even force myself out of bed. I resented folks who were laughing and having a good time. And this intolerable hollow feeling inside of me continued eating away at me until I thought I would die. I knew I had to keep my job and keep on keeping on. My face became a mask. Inside I was dying. On the outside my persona continued as the nice guy, the upbeat and positive guy. My face turned me into a liar.

Gradually though, my very brief brush with a light feeling, a near-life feeling, became a life once known as a very welcome old friend. The hollowness disappeared. My inside feelings were the same that was on my face.

People talk about having a near- death experience. You know, the light at the end of the tunnel –being in another dimension and then suddenly coming back to the fact that you are not dead–and that you are alive. Most times this experience–this out of body experience makes you appreciate the time that you do have left to live and love others. You now have a full life.

Basically, this is what happened to me when I was so depressed I thought I was losing my mind, everything. I was living life but not on all six cylinders. Now, after coming out of my prison of depression and using the spiritual principles of the Twelve Steps  for my own recovery my life is no longer just a near-life experience-it is a full  life filled with fellowship friends  and  hope.

Are  you wishing for a full life, filled with hope and serenity?  You can have it. As it says in the PROMISES OF DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS, #7 “We now have less concern about self and gain interest in others.”

Read about the full life that is available for you @  DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS, 3RD EDITION (2013) .DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS PUBLICATIONS. LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY.

Depressed Anonymous, Hope, I'll Do It When I Feel Better, Miracle Thinking, Spirituality

“HOPE IS A HARD HABIT TO BREAK”

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Brad Cohen, the main character in the powerfully moving film FRONT OF THE CLASS, makes this  statement about his own efforts to change his life.

The following instructions, HOW DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS WORKS, is read at every Depressed Anonymous meeting.

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

And so at every   Depressed Anonymous meeting the group listens as we hear what it will take to escape from the prison of depression.

Also at every meeting of the fellowship we hear how by using the spiritual tools, our Twelve Steps, we can gradually find the path that will and can lead us out into the light of freedom. We come to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity…”

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SOURCE: (c) I’ll do it when I feel better. (2011) Hugh Smith. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 65.

Choice, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Focus, Purpose

PROMISE #11 OF DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS: INTUITIVELY KNOW HOW TO HANDLE SITUATIONS WHICH USED TO BAFFLE US

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“As my mind began to heal and my thoughts became more lucid it became apparent that something inside me is changing. Depression, when you begin to examine the various symptoms up close, and deal with them, the experience becomes less threatening. Some say that depression is a collection of behaviors that are brought into play to defend us against things that are too  painful  to to face.  Also, depression results when a love object is lost through death or that one feels abandoned. We have become so at one with our lost love, that we mourn the death of part of us. The love object  and ourselves has become one. I believe we use the word codependence today.

At first I was frightened by my various symptoms of depression.  The symptoms proved to be baffling.  I was not able to get out of bed as well as being unable to concentrate or manage a complex thought. I began to worry that I was losing my mind and I often asked myself if I was going to survive.  But now my ability to handle situations in a meaningful way is due to my frequent attendance at meetings, and by making a daily time of prayer and meditation and a feeling that my life has purpose and meaning. The more I am physically active, that is,  going to meetings even when I don’t feel like it. Working in my Depressed Anonymous Workbook, reading my 12 Step literature.

This behavior is where my freedom begins. And yes, I do feel lousy at times but I know that nothing can stand in my way to make choices in my own behalf. Previous  to my involvement with the group I had no idea that my depression was not so powerful as to prevent me from even thinking that I could choose to feel differently.”

SOURCE: (C) I’LL DO IT WHEN I FEEL BETTER. (1986, 2013) 2nd Edition  DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS PUBLICATIONS LOUISVILLE,  KENTUCKY   Pages 50-51.

This Promise really does work. I know from my own personal experience that once I had begun my recovery and began to deal with those things I refused to face that things lightened up. When I was in the pit of my own melancholia I couldn’t even begin to think that there was a way out — I just didn’t consider  that as a possibility. But the more I read–the more I listened to others who had or were presently climbing out of their own pit of melancholia I felt hopeful  that I too could choose to think differently and so feel different.  With time, work and prayer plus having a sponsor I intuitively knew how to handle situations that at one time confused me. Things in my life became clearer and I began to examine those past patterns of behavior and thinking that put me in the pit.  It was by living out the Twelve Steps and practicing these principles in all of my affairs that eventually gave me the freedom of making the choice to either choose to stay depressed or to choose to live life  and find the path to free me from the bonds of my own depression.

Hugh

All Or Nothing Thinking, Depressed Anonymous, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Fellowship, Spiritual Heroes, Step 11, The 12 Steps

A Way Out Of Depression

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” During  acute depression, avoid trying to set your whole life in order all at once.  If you take on assignments so heavy that you are sure to fail in them at the moment, then you are allowing yourself to be tricked by your unconscious. Thus you will continue to make sure of your failure, and when it comes you will have another alibi for still more retreat into depression.

“In short,  the ‘all or nothing’ attitude is a most destructive one. It is best to begin with whatever the irreducible minimums of activity are. Then work for an enlargement of these –day by day- Don’t be disconcerted by setbacks –just start over.”

Source: Bill W., in Letter, 1960.

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CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

Here is my take on the  statement above by Bill W., co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

When I first got involved with the Twelve Steps, I couldn’t wait to read all the steps and get busy reading as much as I could about them. But as I continued to stay in the program and get more involved in the Fellowship I discovered that I could not read ahead and think that now that I have read all the literature about the addiction I was done.  I graduated.  Instead, after thirty years plus, I am still working through these Steps and finding material that I need to look at in my life. The Twelve Steps and the study thereof, alone using the Home Study Kit,  and in the context of a fellowship  group, I have continued my quest to live one day at a time. Step Eleven is one of my constant companions which states that I “sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry it out.”

Our guide, Depressed Anonymous 3rd edition,  written by those of us who were depressed, contains an excellent commentary on Step Eleven (Pages 94-103). The Steps provide you and me with a lifetime of hope and help. The Steps continue to provide me  with a lifeline that is available to me, today, every day and every time.  It works for me!

-Hugh

Focus, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, Hope, Positivity

I WILL LIGHTEN UP TODAY!

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AFFIRMATION

When I take myself less seriously, I find myself less hard on my self, and this in itself, is an expression of my hope..

“Giving up taking things personally makes life much more pleasant. But to give it up can be as hard as giving up certain hopes.” (7)

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

To hope means to expect something to happen that we are wishing for. I know that when I hope, I am going to be in a better state of mind and have a more positive attitude about myself, my future and my world.  I find that most of my hope comes after I throw off my fear of change and take on the ability to risk living, without having to know exactly how the day will finish. I want  to laugh and have humor in my life. Maybe in seeing that my life isn’t  so deadly serious, I can afford to lighten up a bit.

This is  a word that I have placed on a shelf for most of my life as nothing ever seems to work out for me. But I have found this to be true –whenever I find my attitudes changing and starting to shift in positive directions, the more I find that good things begin to happen to me in small ways.”

MEDITATION

We  want to know it is God’s will for us to have hope and see the inconsistencies in life. Nothing is ever meant to be perfect. We are more concerned that we stay and live in God’s will –that’s the place where we want to live today.”

SOURCE: (c)Higher Thoughts for Down Days. Pg. 77

Acceptance, DA Literature, Isolation, The 12 Steps

I GET IT!

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I GET IT!

I didn’t get it at first when I walked through the door and into the fellowship of a Twelve Step meeting. I was there with  a bunch of people that I didn’t know.  Instead of feeling threatened by the fact of being like a stranger in a foreign land I was made to feel welcome. I sat down and listened to what members of the group had to say. When I was asked if I had something I would like to share I said I would pass. That was the first meeting.

But the longer the meeting went the more I began to feel that these people were talking about me and my life.  They were sharing how their lives had fallen apart, how they were despairing of any help.  They said that  just by walking  through the door was an admission, a public admission (public only to this group) that their life was unmanageable and out of their control. They felt helpless and alone. Wow! I thought to myself. I just might be in the right place. No one told me to “snap out of my pain” they just listened and  responded with how their lives were before coming to the Twelve Step meeting and how, after work and time  living out the Steps, how their life was today. I hung on every word as to how their life was today.   By  the members honesty, willingness and openness to come to terms with what they needed to work on, I finally  saw the light. I got it!

There are no magic potions, no magic wands–no, all that is needed to start the process of personal recovery is to believe that, with the group’s help and with the map of the Twelve Steps to follow,we can find our way out of the prison of depression.  Finally, just as a final thought, I still get it!

(Read: Depressed Anonymous (2013) Third edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications)

Belief, Choice, DA Literature, I'll Do It When I Feel Better

ARE YOU GOING IN CIRCLES? THE ADDICT’S CIRCULAR DANCE

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In the work  I’LL DO IT WHEN I FEEL BETTER,  recently published  (2013) by Depressed Anonymous Publications, Chapter Six centers its attention on COMPULSISIONS AND CHOICES; THE ADDICTIVE NATURE OF THE DEPRESSION EXPERIENCE. The following thoughts reflect some of the ideas discussed in  Chapter Six.

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

“We all  know that any addictive/compulsive type of behavior gradually removes you from the regular  activities of persons around you, including family, friends and coworkers, until you are established in the narrow confines of pain and isolation. We are always going to be just a little more isolated the more we try to think our addiction through in the circle of our own thoughts.

This is what I have found out about addictive/compulsions is that they are like that of a dog chasing his tail. It’s a circular dance that can never end. The dog can never catch his tail. The addict can never get enough of what they are chasing, be it one substance or the other. The next physical rush  is the next hit, the next drink, the next porno movie/picture.

Once we have admitted that our lives are powerless and unmanageable we begin to get excited about a vision, a vision of the new person that we might become. We also learn that there are other alternative ways and various choices that we can make in our behalf. It is beginning to sink into our minds that we are truly responsive for our choices and personal decisions. Like others in the program of recovery who broke out of the vise grip of their addictions they slowly learned to make decisions that favored sobriety and serenity”. Pgs. 61 – 62.

DA Literature, Focus, Higher Power, Journaling, Spirituality, Step 02, The 12 Steps

God Is The Rudder Of My Boat. I Am Going To Put My Oars In The Water!

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 AFFIRMATION

I will have the peace I desire as I continue to pray to do God’s will.

“Being in God’s will is the beginning of peace and the beginning of the end of your depression with its hollowness and jitters.” (8)

 CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

Most people don’t understand this who have not been in the program very long. What it means is that I must attempt to work and live this spiritual program. I need to let myself be guided by God’s hand in my life and so become open and ready to fiollow his guidance.

The beginning of wisdom is to hear the voice of God. It is imperative that I take an active role in getting better. I often say that God is the rudder of my boat and I have to put my oars in the water if I am going to get to the shore. I believe that one of the best ways for me to start to feel better is to take each step (Depressed Anonymous, Third Edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications) and try to do what it suggests.  Keeping a journal lets me know what I am feeling for each day. I have come to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity.   I wonder sometimes if this hollow feeling inside myself isn’t more of a longing and hunger for a spiritual food that nothing in my life now can and ever will provide.

MEDITATION

We pray that God will show us the way out of our depression by living and following the program that  has healed other people who have been addicted to a behavior or a substance and which  continued to bring them down instead of up.

SOUIRCE: Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for Twelve Step Fellowship Groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 71.

Depressed Anonymous Workbook, The 12 Steps

“I NEVER KNEW THAT THERE WAS A TWELVE STEP GROUP FOR DEPRESSION”

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What a surprise, for those who search on Google for groups that help people with depression. Just the other day someone mentioned that they came upon our group by accident and were not aware that there was a group focused solely on depression.  There are groups which help all sorts of maladies, including depression, but as far as we know there are not many whose sole focus  centers on depression and who use the suggested spiritual recovery program of the Twelve Steps for  a solution. But, here we are, DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS.

If you would like to learn more about our group please keep on reading the articles/BLOGS which appear on our website menu. It is here that you can find  information about who we are and what we do. Presently, we are trying to help others start their own DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS and if there are no groups in your locale you can use the HOME STUDY PROGRAM which can help you start your own mutual aid group. The HOME STUDY PROGRAM utilizes the DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS MANUAL along with THE DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS WORKBOOK.  It only takes  yourself and one other person to form a group. If you would like more information about our Twelve Step approach to depression please read more about our DA literature  available at the Website store.

Belief, Choice, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Fellowship, Spiritual Heroes, The 12 Steps

Bill W. & Dorothy Rowe & Margie W.

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Three persons who made a big difference in my life and how they each  helped me deal with my own melancholia (depression).

First of all there is Bill W., the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, who by his own witness, presented to us the spiritual program of recovery that we know as the Twelve Steps. Not only have they given me personally  a daily step by step program of recovery to follow but helped me fashion a program of recovery for persons depressed using the same spiritual program of recovery. Bill W., makes available through the Steps to any and all who seek a way out of their attachments to whatever is slowly  destroying their lives.

And then there is Dr. Dorothy Rowe, PH.D., a psychologist who has written many great books on depression and how to live one’s life. In 1985, a member of our newly formed Depressed Anonymous group gave me a copy of her book Depression: The way out of your prison. (1983, 1996) Second Edition. Routledge, London and New York. It was this book that opened my eyes and my mind to beliefs about depression that has accompanied me through my encounters with persons with depression in my own clinical practice, as well as  in the formation of  all the Depressed Anonymous  groups  focused and centered on the Twelve Steps. Not only have she and Bill W., been my mentors in this life long effort of mine, but both have given me keys that not only have released me from my own prison of depression, but persons everywhere have their lives back, plus a belief in a Higher Power,  thanks to these two pioneers.

Then there is Margie W., a charter member of Depressed Anonymous (whose account  appears in Depressed Anonymous in the Personal Stories section of our book). She states  “I can’t really remember for sure how I became involved in Depressed Anonymous. I believe a co-worker told me about a professor at the University of Evansville who had students who were helping people in the psychology field and wanted to know if I would be a volunteer to help start this new self help group. And it was free! What did I have to lose? I had seen Doctors, took their prescribed drugs and still ended up on the same old merry-go-round of ups and downs  and “hangovers” from the drugs. I joined a small group at first. We talked, set weekly goals, took short walks, visited with friends or enjoyed a cup of coffee to relax. We had to do something for ourselves. I had to learn to be good to myself, instead of nurturing  everyone else. I found a good doctor who gave me a lot of good advice about “pampering ” myself more. It hadn’t been easy.  I’ve read self help books, positive thinking books and worked hard on my way of thinking for years. I’m a natural born worrier, so things always seemed worse than they really were.  “(I) feel like I have something to offer the group. Hope is the word. I finally got above the edge of the rut that I could barely peer over for years. I know others  can do it too. Don’t give up. It’s a lot of hard work, but it can be done. I know. I was there.” Depressed Anonymous, (2011)  Third Edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville Kentucky.