Category Archives: The Promises

Acceptance, Affirmations, Belief, Believing Is Seeing, Courage, Ego Deflation, Fellowship, Helpful, Hope, Kindness, Love, Meditation, Pain, Prayer, Purpose, Serenity, Service, Step 01, Step 02, Step 03, Step 11, Suffering, The Promises

“…letting go of all illusion…”

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I am writing this prayer I wrote some five years back now for deeper peace and acceptance, during this challenging time I’m experiencing. Sharing this Hope in case I too can 0ffer Strength for others.
Affectionately, Janet M.

Thank you dear Creator of love and joy in action for the fellowship of your presence. Move me, I pray, for the Stillness of this Love. Why I abide there always gathering in your Strength, Peace and Wellbeing as kindling to feel the fire of your Spirit within. As I walk this path today, should I become disturbed return my heart to you. Purify my motives and direct my attention back into Awareness and Unity with your Spirit, which is the hand of Peace. Help me to offer kindness for the many Seeds of Blessings which feed my growing into Trueness of Being. Help me to understand your Passion in laughter, tears, joy and pain, knowing all of your Provision and how Precious that gift is that lies within the Earth of us all. Thank you for my children, family and friends. Bless ua your light, nurturing our hearts and strengthen our vision and relationships. May a seeming separateness burn up into the flames of letting go of all illusions while Liberating the Soul and setting Freedoms flight to soar and all resistance fall away. Gather us together, this day in Body, Mind and Spirit manifesting your Love. Amen.

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12 Step Meeting, Attachment, Fellowship, Helpful Thinking, Higher Power, Spirituality, Step 03, The 12 Steps, The Promises

“…like all attempts t o do anything “absolutely” are ultimately doomed.”

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The Three Layers of Attachment

“…theologian Mary Reuther and the spiritual director Richard Rohr, echo Pascal’s triple abyss in their analysis of the attachments that undermine our “spirituality.” Both Rohr and Reuther emphasize the psychological and emotional attachments that can devestate our spiritual lives, making their point that “attachment” does not have to be to material things to be spiritually destuctive.

Reuther suggests three layers of attachment that need to be peeled back sequentially, like an onion. First, we need to become detached from material gain, second from self-importance, and third from the urge to dominate others. Only through this process of stripping away these attachments, she writes, can we lay claim to spiritual progress.

Rohr uses a language more familiar to those steeped in twelve Step spirituality. In an article on A.A.’s Third Step he counsels that spirituality involves the “letting go” of three needs, the need to be in control, the need to be effective, and the need to be right. For Alcoholics( as well as the depressed) in early sobriety, the last point may be the most important, for attachment from the need to be right, surrender of the “demand to have the last word.”

“…release flows from the understanding that all absolute attempts to control our own destiny–like all attempts to do anything “absolutely” are ultimately doomed, for inevitably we will come up against something we cannot control. The attempt to control the future and the demand to be in charge of everything in our lives, sentences us to a daily existence obsessed with life numbing worry.”

This article, excerpted from the “Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Journey to Wholemess”. Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham. Bantam Books.1994. NY. Page 172-173.

Published by THE ANTIDEPRESSANT TABLET. Volume 10 Issues 3 & 4 SUMMER/FALL 1999.

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12 Step Meeting, Affirmations, Choice, Community building, Courage, Depressed Anonymous, Faith, Focus, Prayer, Service, The 12 Steps, The Promises

Not everything faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced

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I have found this statement, by James Baldwin to be as true as day is long. I also know from my own experiences. When fear comes upon us like a dark cloud, we are tempted to run. When an obstacle prevents us from reaching a goal, we stop. But when we make that decision to face the problem, good things start to happen.

Today, I am going to choose to face the problem-whatever that might be. I am choosing to use the 12 Steps of Depressed Anonymous to make this happen.

Hugh S.

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Choice, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Gratitude, Helpful Thinking, Mutual Aid, The 12 Steps, The Promises

The rear view mirror as a metaphor for our recovery path

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How many times does it happen that we make a review of our personal recovery progress within our Depressed Anonymous fellowship? In a sense, it is like looking backward in our rear view mirror, taking a closer look at our recovery path,an inventory,if you will, of our positive and negative areas of our life. All with the belief, that our willingness, honesty and openness to that power greater than ourselves to change for the better, we make the choices to change, and live with serenity.

My memories of that first time that I walked through the door of recovery, is still fresh in my mind. This was the beginning of the journey of hope for myself and for all of us. Now, many years later, or maybe just a few months later , it is in looking back, that we can see that our lives have been changing, for the better, Sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly. We now live in hope, one day at a time.

We can see the way it was, and the way it is now, the difference between night and day. We are living in the light of hope, and with work, prayer and a loving fellowship that continues to embrace and fortify us for the journey ahead, we are grateful.

A member of another fellowship share, how “it was hard or impossible to recognize or appreciate the slow going of his recovery to see his his progress, until long after they took place. Looking back, THROUGH HIS REAR VIEW MIRROR he celebrates all the important and astounding things that HAVE happened to him in recovery.”
Please continue to move forward and then take a look now and then and give thanks and be grateful for where you are standing today.

Hugh, for the fellowship

A paraphrased quote From the Grapevine Daily Quote.Fort Worth Texas, November 2006, Where’s the miracle?, Step by Step. Submitted by Robin R.

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12 Step Meeting, Acceptance, Belief, Choice, Courage, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Focus, Helpful, Hope, Step 01, Step 02, Step 03, The Promises

I will try to improve my understanding of my behavior

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LEAVING LONELINESS BEHIND: 12 DECSIONS

“DECISION 7: I WILL TRY TO IMPROVE MY UNDERSTANDING OF MY BEHAVIOR.”

All actions have consequences. and they are usually different from what we expect.

In a situation where we want our cake and eat it too, we always try to have both, but we learn that in trying to get both, we lose both.

If you are to improve your skills in understanding people, in order to rid your loneliness, working out the consequences OF what you and others do, is extremely important.

You really have to develop more flexible ways in dealing with the consequences when the consequence is anger.”

TOMORROW DECISION 8: I WILL BE MORE ACCEPTING OF OTHER PEOPLES ANGER AND NOT TAKE It PERSONALLY.”

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12 Step Meeting, Community building, Dep-Anon: Family and friends, Depressed Anonymous, Faith, Fellowship, Helpful, Mutual Aid, Positivity, Service, Step 12, Supportive Actions, The 12 Steps, The Promises

Dep-Anon, a 12 Step, online ZOOM meeting, for family and friends of the depressed is now available.

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A new book, DEP-ANON: A 12 step recovery program for families and Friends of the depressed (2021) is now available. This new book also serves as a manual, used at all meetings, providing family members and friends of the depressed, important information related to the crippling and isolating nature of the depression experience. It also provides family with practical ways for coming together as a strong support group, much like the 12 Step Al-Anon groups, enabling family members to start focusing on them selves –on their own recovery — and not on their depressed significant other. We need to change ourselves first. Trying to change someone else is usually futile.
Dep-Anon will have a positive symbiotic relationship with the depressed family member’s own recovery program, Depressed Anonymous. Not only will the family group become more alert to their own needs and issues, but will be helped spiritually, physically and emotionally as they work together, using the 12 steps. These twelve spiritual principles, mutually strengthen each other as they share their own their own experiences, hope and strengths.

ZOOM MEETING INFORMATION
Note : Please contact us with the zoom Meeting ID:846 6885 1123
password: serenity

>>>>>>>> MONDAY August 22 2PM EST <<<<<<<<<<<

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12 Step Meeting, Choice, Community building, Helpful Thinking, Hope, Mutual Aid, Positivity, Purpose, Service, Supportive Actions, The 12 Steps, The Promises, Uncategorized

There is a time for holding on and a time for letting go.

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There are times when we are barely holding on and times when we have to let go.
The United States is in the beginning of weather changes that have never before been seen by most of us in this country. There are the wildfires that are burning out of control in the Western regions of the country, and flooding that most people have never experienced in their lifetimes. Just recently, in my on State of Kentucky, thirty-eight people lost their lives in an early morning flooding which affected sixteen counties in Eastern Kentucky. The extent and magnitude of this flooding was so huge that older Kentuckians had never witnessed such devastation. Previous to that, Kentucky was blasted by a Tornado 12 miles wide and 200 miles in length. It sped through Kentucky 150 miles an hour. Whole communities were wiped out. Again, another example of the powerful changes in our weather.
Sea levels rising, as ice caps continue melting in both poles. The whole planet and its’ people ( including you and me) are holding on for things to come. Some of us, more than we know, are holding on to their lives. So many losses, so much of what we have valued are gone. With all of that we are still going through the pandemic. We are holding on.
We are finding that the grief and destruction that is ours, as family, community, nation, is beginning to turn our world upide dwon as we know it.
In a positive way, some of us are holding on to what has given us hope with a sense of security. By this I mean, that when we become afraid, depressd and isolated we can still spiral out of the bad mood over all our losses and enter into a new mood of hope and serenity. And how does this happen? For those of us who are depressed, we discovered a program of recovery that works.This is a 12 Step program of rcovery called Depressed Anonymous. It is a program where persons with the same faith and practice of the Steps, come together in a fellowship and mutually support each other, in ours times of loss. We hold onto the promises of DA,where we learn what happens to those of us when we place our trust in a God of our understanding. We not only begin to hold onto the belief that we will get better, we also begin to discover and root out those personality defects which keep us imprisoned and isolated. We felt there is no help in sight. Not true. Members of our recovering fellowship show us how by putting into effect the spiritual principles of the Twelve Steps how our lives begin to change for the better.
It is in the “letting go” of the areas of our lives that made life feel hopeless and ourselves worthless. We soon found that the negative ways that we talked to ourselves were counterproductive. Once we began to affirm the good in ourselves, we were able to find ways that gave us new hope.

We came to believe that there was a God of love on our side, who manifested its power, daily working out in our mind and body, the belief that we too are able to find peace and help as we continue to live with meaning and purpose for our life.
Hold onto the belief that the God of your understanding will bring you peace and a new way of living. This new way of living will give you resources, plus a beloved community, supporting each of you on your journey of hope.

Please go to our website at Depressedanon.com and find out more of who we are and what we believe. You will be happy that you did.

With a gratitude,

Hugh S.

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12 Step Meeting, Addiction, Choice, Compulsion, Ego Deflation, Fellowship, Helpful, Honesty, Meditation, Mindfulness, Mutual Aid, Pain, Step 01, Step 02, Step 03, The Promises

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

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1. I walk down the street
There is a Deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost..I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

2. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend that I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe that I am in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still a long time to get out.

3. I walk down the same street.
There is a hole in the sidewalk.
I see it there.
I still fall in…it’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

4. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

5. I walk down another street.

NOTE
This poem appeared in The Antidepressant Tablet.Volume 2.4. Winter, 1991 Edition, P.3
Portia Nelson, 2001 This poem is copyrighted. Please credit the author.

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All Or Nothing Thinking, Anxiety, Choice, Helpful Thinking, Hope, Mindfulness, Purpose, The Promises

Life is unpredictable

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Life is unpredictable. Every living organism operates with a certain amount of unpredictability and uncertainty. The uncertainty of life creates in us a desire for predictability. If we do not believe in the possibility of change, we would all be hopelessly lost and forever bored. Hope would be lost. Potential for a better life would never exist. When there is hope, change is possible. The experience of depression is much the same. Depression is so predictable and unchanging that we lose hope for the pain of our isolation ever coming to an end.

–Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. From the Introduction, Page 20.

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Acceptance, Belief, Choice, Community building, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Higher Power, Hope, Isolation, Mutual Aid, Prayer, Purpose, Service, The 12 Steps, The Promises

Freedom talks. We listen!

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To attend a 12 step meeting is to hear freedom talk. Freedom has many voices for the many, those who are willing to listen.

It is the nature of this fellowship, the 12 Step group of Depressed Anonymous and other 12 Step programs of recovery, that when attending meetings I hear members share their victories over depression, with accounts of personal struggles, and gradually freeing themselves from the bondage of depression.

In the Promises of Recovery in Depressed Anonymous,
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly They will always materialize if we work for them.
Depressed Anonymous © Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY

Even though, personal freedom from the tight grip of depression doesn’t happen overnight–it does eventually happen. I am now speaking from my own experience. And since we all have different experiences with the 12 Steps, the results are the same. A lightness of mood, a spirited energy comes into our minds, hearts and body. We begin to thrive.

My own freedom was the result of a simple belief, that a Power greater than myself could release me from my prison of depression. I learned that if we wanted to get out of the hole of depression, we needed to stop digging. That made sense to me. In our fellowship, where freedom speaks, that by listening to the stories of others in the group, and others listening to my story, gave me the incentive to keep coming back to the meetings. I found I am now living with a new hope, without old fears, anxieties, crippling my motivation to grow and thrive.

Now, I speak about my freedom from the past, no longer dwelling on old negative compulsions which once defeated me.
Today, and with each new day, I listen to the loving spirit inside of me, operating within my group, and to all those who speak of their life within a loving community, Depressed Anonymous. Will you join us today?

There is a daily DA online International VIRTUAL ZOOM meeting and to find how to get there, please click onto the HOMEPAGE MENU, MEETINGS and you will be linked to the Journeys of Hope online meeting. Hope to see you at a meeting!

Thank you,
for the fellowship.
Hugh S.

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