Category Archives: Choice

Choice

Made a decision

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I made a decision years ago, albeit an unconscious one, that the horrible negative thoughts and painful feelings which afflicted me on an ongoing basis  would never change. I am referring to my inability to climb out of bed a morning, the jittery  deadly hollowness that filled my stomach, plus the anxiety of waiting for the “other shoe to drop” which I believed would bring  on some  catastrophic event  to make matters worse in my life.

But, here is  the kicker, I discovered Depressed Anonymous, at the point of personal despair, and found hope in a fellowship of men and women who likewise had made a decision to give up–some even attempting suicide.  But by the grace of God, my surrender to this power greater than myself, brought me into a way out of depression and one that has lasted these many years. I now follow the program of the Twelve Steps where I believe their Promises that if I am serious about following this path, my life will gradually get better and peace will be restored to one’s life. And guess what, that is exactly what happened to me. The same can happen to you as well.

“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.” Step Three of Depressed Anonymous.

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

Choice, Focus, Higher Thoughts for Down Days

Living in the security of my hope

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I am choosing to live in the security of my hope rather than in the fear of life’s possible pain.

“…Haven’t our sadness and thoughts of unworthiness been our last refuge from having to face ourselves, take charge and accept responsibility for our own lives? For many, just knowing that that they might have a choice and be able to choose to feel differently can be a startling revelation.  I can choose to be happy or I can choose to stay feeling miserable.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

Life is one that provides me with many areas of choice. I can choose to live with the uncertainty of hope or I can stay mired in the despair of having to always have everything predictable. The latter is the hell of my depression.

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

12 Step Meeting, Choice, Fellowship

The price of recovery

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Many times in my past I would ask myself if I could possibly live without my addiction? I always said “yes”, I could–but not just yet. How often I repeated that phrase to myself over the years. Or I’d tell myself “I’ll do it when I feel better.” That was another favorite mantra of mine. Have you ever said those same words to yourself? It’s like if I just keep pushing it off maybe the problem will go away. But, we know that is not how it works. If you are presently reading this and in recovery you know how this recovery really works.

For me, it was told to me that really what recovery is all about is to accept the pain of withdrawal  for the short term or to choose to continually  abuse yourself for the long term. When I have a toothache I can see a dentist and have the tooth and the associated pain   neutralized or I can continue with the pain till it is unbearable and then I  must do something radical and drastic–like pulling the tooth.

I began this whole painful process of recovery with an admission. I admitted that my life was unmanageable and that my life was out of control. That was the first step. And then having admitted that, I  listened to other members of a 12 Step fellowship group and I learned how the  program worked for them.  In fact it worked so well that many of them have not fallen back into any of their old past addictive behaviors. But as you and I know, there is a price to be paid for this new way of living. We first had to admit that we had a problem. We needed help.  And we needed it now. We had hit bottom. We then came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to a life of sanity. Making a decision to turn my life over to a Power greater than myself really got the ball rolling. I now knew that there is a God, of my understanding–and  I wasn’t God. When drinking and drugging we had the feeling that we  could do anything–that we were immortal and God’s gift to humankind.

This is where we had to face all this garbage that was ours and we had carried around for years–we needed to take an inventory of where we had screwed up. This is   painful to have to look in the mirror and see that person who made our life so miserable. No blaming anyone else. As Pogo, the comic character tells us, “we looked for the enemy and it was us.” You don’t have to look very far do you?  We might also look in the mirror and ask, “mirror , mirror who is the craziest of us all?” I think you get it. Without a doubt it is necessary if we want to stand tall and face life past and present with hope. and a sense of peace. There is pain, lots of it –but let me tell you, there is a great sense of relief that we no longer have to live in the shadow of life but now live in the light and the good humor of freedom.   The shackles of bondage are thrown off. I am a person who is free now and able to tell my own story at a fellowship meeting  just like when I walked through the 12 Step fellowship doors and found what I really was looking for: freedom from the pain of my depression and addictions. Look for a freedom group in your area.

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

(c) The Depressed Anonymous Workbook. (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

NOTE: These two books comprise The Home Study Kit. See VISIT THE STORE.

Choice, Hope, Negativity, Step 01, Step 04, The 12 Steps

I’ve had it living with feeling out of control

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If you really want to leave behind your painful sadness, the daily fears, and the feelings of worthlessness, then begin now to admit the unmanageability   of your depression. You have had it with feeling out of control.

That’s the way it is with depression –over the years you get comfortable with feeling miserable which doesn’t mean that you like it, but that you’re just too afraid to risk something different. When you want to change and leave your depression behind, the choice that you want to make is immediately dashed to the ground because you just feel that there is no hope for you. “I can’t pull myself up by my bootstraps and start to feel better,” you tell yourself. Most of the time, we tell ourselves that we’ll do it when we feel better. Folks, let me tell you something – you’ll never feel better until you begin by physically get moving. We all know that we feel better only when we get in gear and get busy – distracting ourselves from those ever present miserable thoughts whispering how bad we are  and how hopeless life seems to be.”

____________________HELP IS ON THE WAY! ___________________________

SOURCE:         Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 32.

12 Step Meeting, Choice, Depressed Anonymous, Focus, Higher Power, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, Mindfulness, Mutual Aid

I believe that misery is an option

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“If surrender of our wills to the ‘care of God’ is of the essence of the spiritual life, for anyone who truly desires to free themselves from a chronic and compulsive behavior such as depression, then the Twelve Steps can be your stepping stones to the path of a hope filled life.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I used to hear the word “surrender” as it made me feel like I was in the hands and under the total domination of another.  It was like I had no control whatsoever as to what I was to do or what I was to be. I was blind to the fact that in reality I had already surrendered my life to my sadness so that whenever I wanted to hide, or isolate myself, I just saddened myself and  so didn’t have to feel anything. I am surrendering to the God of my understanding;  slowly my life is filling with light and hope and this is what I really want for myself. I am finding that the ‘care of God’ is much better than anything I could ever  wished for.  My life is one filled with hope rather than being hopeless.

The spiritual life for me is filled with the excitement of knowing that  this God of mine, as I understand him, is  today wanting to lead me further into the light of his healing power. My spiritual life is filled  now with a close and personal relationship with a God who loves and guides me on a minute-to-minute basis.

MEDITATION

We are going to get as close to God today as we choose to get.

SOURCE:  Copyright (c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups.  Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 257-258. December 29.

Belief, Choice, Fellowship, Hope

For the first time in 14 years I have hope…

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”  I had always known that  I was hard on myself. I reamed myself every time something bad happened. “Why can’t I find someone to love me?” “Why isn’t God looking after me?”   But for some reason, when I realized that I was doing this to myself, it made me realize that maybe all that I  would have to do is to stop doing it.   All of a sudden it made sense.

If I tell myself negative thoughts, I feel negative. If I tell myself nothing, I feel nothing.  So if I tell myself positive thoughts, eventually I’ll have to feel positive.

Of course I’m still testing it out, but I feel better and for the first time in 14  years I have hope, It’s not that hard to find something positive about myself or my life now. So I remind  myself of something positive every day and that’s what I am going to do until I don’t have to remind myself anymore because I’ll know.”

______________________________________________________________

To read more by this member of Depressed Anonymous see #9, A VICTIM IN MY OWN MIND in the Personal Stories contained in Depressed Anonymous, pages 120-121.

Also, it’s good to remember as pointed out in the 1st Statement of Belief in Believing is Seeing,  that “I accept and believe that however  hopeless everything appears right now, I will make a decision to recover from depression.  I am not helpless.  I will make a choice  to get better.”

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

 (c)Believing is seeing: 15  ways to leave the prison of depression. (2014) Depressed Anonymous Publications.

Louisville.

Information for additional literature on Depression and the 12 Steps of recovery is available at   VISIT THE STORE. (See Menu)

Belief, Choice, Fellowship, Focus, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, Hope

I am choosing to live in the security of my hope rather than in the fear of life’s possible pain

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“…Haven’t our sadness and thoughts of unworthiness been our last refuge from having to face ourselves, take charge and accept responsibility for our own lives? For many, just knowing that they might have a choice and be able to choose to feel differently can be a startling revelation. I can choose to be happy or I can choose to stay feeling miserable.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

Life is one that provides me with many areas of choice. I can choose to live with the uncertainty of  hope or I can stay mired in the despair of having to always have everything predictable.  The latter is the hell of my depression.

MEDITATION

We choose to place our trust in you, our God, and to believe that all we can ever have is to be provided with your love and protection in our daily struggles to free ourselves from this continued depression.

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

Choice, Fellowship, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, The 12 Steps

The little part in me that says I am OK, is the part that I am going to concentrate on today.

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AFFIRMATION

“Now that small voice, that little part of you that wants to  have light and some hope is getting up  the courage to ask more for itself.” (8)

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I am finding that the more I seek out a solution to my depression and begin to look for signs of sadness lifting, the more my focus stretches from despair to hope. I am making the courageous move to speak kinder thoughts to myself and gradually replace those harmful negative thoughts  to newer and more hopeful thoughts.

The only voice that I want to listen to today is the voice that says that the mistakes of yesterday or the various views I held about  myself in the past do not matter. The voice that I am going to listen to today says that I can make a choice to feel better right now.

MEDITATION

God, help us to take what we can that’s positive about ourselves and leave behind the awful negatives that always seemed to take center stage in our mind.”

SOURCE: Copyright (c) Higher Thoughts for down days:365 daily thoughts and meditations for 12 Step fellowship groups.(1999). Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

Acceptance, Choice, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship

Choice, not chance, determines destiny

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“We must never be blinded by the futile philosophy that we are just the hapless victims of our inheritance, of our life experiences, and of our surroundings  — that these are the sole forces that make our decisions for us. This is not the road to freedom. We have to believe that we can freely choose.”  Source: As Bill sees it.

If we leave to chance what happens to us, we soon discover we are like the ship without a rudder. We  can continue to go in circles and get caught up in the deadly  downward spiral of helplessness or we can make a decision to choose, finding  a way out of our despair.  We discover that we can choose–we can admit that what we have been doing is not working. The staying in bed with the sheets pulled up over our head; the continued beating up of ourselves with the “what if’s, the “I should have done this or that,” and all the other negative self-talk that has me immobilized.

When I made the decision, when I chose to do something about my desperation, I found a group of people just like myself. We all chose that group because we had lost all hope. The group gave me hope. I too could get better. And we had to face the fact that if we didn’t deal with our depression now and make  the choice to feel differently, we would continue to go down that slippery slope that would lead us to who knows where.

Today, take a look at the Twelve Steps (see site menu) , go down the list, one step after another and see how this climbing out of the pit of despair works. And then, if you have a copy of Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition, you can read the real life stories of persons like you and me who made a choice to live — made the choice to use the same program of recovery that has freed a world of  people from their prisons of depression. Don’t take a chance–make a choice –save your life. Choose freedom!

Belief, Choice, Fellowship, Focus, Higher Power

I CAN FEEL A CHANGE INSIDE OF ME…

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AFFIRMATION

“I am going to handle what has taken a lifetime to develop one day at a time.

“When we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the Spirit of the Universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God.  Our ideas did not work. But the  God idea did.” (1)

  CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I always doubted the power of God until I started to see and read about other people working their Twelve Step program and getting on to meetings. I also believe that there is surely hope for me as I hear about other depressed persons who are in the fellowship with each other and have a genuine desire to stop  sadding  themselves.  This is all that is needed, a desire to stop sadding  oneself.  I can feel a change inside of me as I begin to rely more on this God who loves me and cares  how I feel. This program of hope works if you work the program.

This is the word that gives hope.  It is a simple reliance, day  by day, hour by  hour, that I will find the serenity, the simplicity of a life lived without the anxiety, hollowness, jitteriness of my depression. It is in  my admission of such that begins me on the road to recovery and hope.

MEDITATION

We trust in our God. We rely on you as we turn as often as we can to be present in your  Presence.  We want to pray unceasingly and learn from you  how to love ourselves.

SOURCE: Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of Twelve Step fellowship  groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 150. July 27.