Category Archives: 12 Step Meeting

12 Step Meeting, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, The 12 Steps

Our hunches are more right than wrong.

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We think about the 24 hours ahead when we wake up, and attempt to live the day in honesty and peace. We ask God to  ward off thoughts of self-seeking, dishonesty and false motives.  As Alcoholics  Anonymous says,  with the indecision about something, we then ask God for inspiration and we let go of struggling for an answer. Alcoholics Anonymous says that you will be surprised at how the right answers will come after we have practiced this way of living. It also comes to pass that our hunches are more right than wrong. We also pause throughout the day when we are fearful, puzzled or anxious. We pray  to the Higher Power for which direction to take. I like this suggestion the best when Alcoholics Anonymous says : We constantly remind ourselves that we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day “‘Thy will be dome,’ ”  We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. We become more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.  By coming to the meetings and admitting our addictions, we finally get in touch with those emotions that have all but shut down from an early time in our lives, when to feel hurt too much.  We now have  the chance  to let these feelings get displayed and expressed in the supportive and trusting environment of our newly chosen  family of the Depressed Anonymous group.”

SOURCE:   Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky.  Page 101/Step 11.

NOTE: Even though most of us who join the Depressed Anonymous group, do not suffer from alcohol addiction,  Depressed Anonymous is  modeled after the 12  spiritual principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. We have based our  program of recovery on  the 12 steps of recovery and using them on a daily basis. The 12 Steps are now universally used as the basis for a myriad of recovery tools  for those who are trying to free themselves from addictive behaviors and attachments.

 

VISIT THE STORE at the DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS PUBLICATIONS  BOOKSTORE. at www.depressedanon.com. One can order online.

12 Step Meeting, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Depressed Anonymous Workbook

I want to start a Depressed Anonymous group in my community? How do I do that?

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This month (12/2018) we have had four requests to start a Depressed Anonymous group in their particular locations. Three were requests from individuals living in the US and one was from a person from Canada.

Our first inclination would to advise them to go to our Newsletter Archives at our Home Page Menu and read the issues from #1- through and including the Newsletter for 2018. Each of the Newsletters has a section about our program of recovery as well as other important information about overcoming depression. Each is titled “How to Start A Depressed Anonymous group.”

Since all of our Groups worldwide use the Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition Manual, it serves as an excellent guide for each of the newly formed Depressed Anonymous group membership and part of their ongoing program of recovery. There is a chapter in this Manual for the Leader of the Group with an example suggested for leading a Depressed Anonymous Group. Also, included in the Manual is a chapter on How to Start a group.

Like most 12 Step programs of recovery they each have their own way of conducting meetings. The 12 Steps and the 12 Traditions of Depressed Anonymous are read at every meeting. Also included in every meeting is the reading of The Statement of Concerns plus How Depressed Anonymous Works.

Most 12 Step groups also have their own “Big Book” which is what the Alcoholics Anonymous program is referred to. In a sense, this is the bible for the fellowship and most members know it by heart chapter and verse. If you want to start a Depressed Anonymous group in your community it is a given that you will want to have a copy of this important book, authored by the early members of the fellowship. In fact, we think it essential to have copies of this book available at each and all meetings. If you are going to be a founder of a local DA group we hope you read this book before you set up your own group meeting. After 30 years working with Depressed Anonymous and helping to set up groups around the world, we have found ourselves continually reflecting on various passages which guide us in our own daily recovery.

You can order Depressed Anonymous Online plus other books written by those of us who WERE depressed. The sale of books provides us with revenue to share hope with others who are in need our support. Please click onto The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore at depressedanon.com for more information.

We want to hear from you and are looking forward to another group meeting the needs of those “Still suffering from depression.”

Please email us at [email protected]. Locate us at www.depressedanon.com.

12 Step Meeting, Kindness, Mindfulness

Today I am going to be active in my own recovery.

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“I believe that our involvement with people like ourselves in the group (Depressed Anonymous) can gradually broaden our perspective in the area of hope. We have to utilize new found tools that help us live with hope as well as enable us to learn that we have to be active in our own recovery. ”

Copyright(c) I’ll do it when I feel better. 2nd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY

A person who wants to get active in their own recovery would do well to go to the Main Menu at depressedanon.com ( here) and check out the drop down menu at TOOLS OF RECOVERY. It is here that one can find many recommended ways and activities to begin the journey to freedom out of the prison of depression.

If not today, then when?

PS For more Information about Depression and the 12 Step program of Recovery go to DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS PUBLICATIONS BOOKSTORE @ DEPRESSEDANON.COM

12 Step Meeting, Fellowship, Isolation

What is the power of Depressed Anonymous?

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“What is the power of Depressed Anonymous? Well, let me first say that when I started attending Depressed Anonymous meetings, I went for a couple of months and then stopped. I stopped going because my depression was so bad that I didn’t want to leave my apartment. I didn’t want to be around or talk to anyone. I just didn’t want to do anything except crawl in a hole somewhere and isolate myself from everything. Then after about six weeks of isolation, I called the residential treatment facility where I had been a client to see if I had received any mail there and one of the members of the Depressed Anonymous group where I attended answered the phone. I spent a few minutes talking to her and there was something in her voice that told me that for some reason, it was important for me to be at the meeting.  I attended  the next Depressed Anonymous meeting. After the meeting I suddenly realized the importance and power of Depressed Anonymous.

So what is the power of Depressed Anonymous? For me, it’s just like attending that first meeting. I was a little scared and apprehensive at first, but then I found the Depressed Anonymous meeting was a place to go where there were other depressed people just like me. They could relate to and understand what I was going through. They didn’t judge me or think of me as crazy. I was accepted.”

–Ray

Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (1998, 2008, 2011). Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky .

12 Step Meeting, Belief, Counseling, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Focus, Hope, Journaling, Serenity, Step 03, The 12 Steps

Faith Appears To Be Good For One’s Health

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Joyce  was a client of mine a few years back. She was in her early sixties and just recuperating from   a successful  open heart surgery. She also was very  depressed.  That’s where I come in. I was asked by my clinical supervisor  if I would spend some time with her and see  how I might be of help to her.  I agreed to do what I could do.

In the midst of counseling and listening to Joyce’s  story, I discovered her  strong faith,  which included her personal faith in God which gave her the belief that she was going to get through whatever  that had her  in lockdown.

She wasn’t aware of our Depressed Anonymous group and so I shared my story with her and the fact that I too  was once depressed. I told her how I became a  believer in the spirituality of the Twelve Steps and how my belief in God  delivered me from my symptoms of depression. Now don’t get me wrong -my own story is that it took me over a year to finally  get free of this noose around my neck.  Also, because of my faith in a program and the  recovered  people who lived it out in their daily lives,  I started on the road to recovery.

My faith told me if I would follow some of the simple steps outlined in this recovery program I would get better. My faith got me off of my seat,  out of bed and out my door to begin walking.  I believed  walking might be the key that unlocked my prison of depression. I read  that some Doctors in England were writing out   prescriptions for exercise for their depressed patients. I figured that it worked for them and so why wouldn’t exercise work for me.  After a year of walking everyday I finally walked out of the mental fog, lost the jitters and became free of depression. My faith in a Higher Power and my getting my body moving on a daily basis produced the healing effect that I had hoped for.

Back to Joyce. She and I had ten sessions together and I suggested to her that she start to think about the things that she did before her depression. What provided the satisfaction  and those pleasant events previously in her life. She talked about how she at one time was a cartoonist as well as a lover of writing poetry. So, that is what I suggested — that she involve herself with these pleasant activities again.  She said that she believed that she could do it–even though her mind and body rebelled at moving out of her comfort zone of doing absolutely nothing. The main defense for doing nothing is the oft repeated mantra from all of us when  we are depressed which  is “I’ll do it when I feel better.”

With each new session she would share with me a cartoon or a poem which she had created the previous  week. As she continued doing what she liked, I  noticed more energy in her voice as she shared her feelings about her new  creations.  All the while, she was compliant with her own physical recovery from heart surgery. Her pleasant moods  gave her a feeling of being in control of her life and her future.  She came to believe that a power greater than herself would restore not only her sanity but her health as well. Her faith was renewed in the God of her understanding while restoring  her belief that her  health was going to get better. Not only did  she have a plan to follow but she made the spiritual principles of the Twelve Steps her way out of depression. She continues to follow this map to this very day.

The following quote is from a work  titled,  The Secret Strength of Depression written by Frederic Flach, M.D., K.H.S.

“Faith appears to be good for one’s overall health. Cardiovascular illnesses are more frequently seen in depressed individuals, in patients with coronary ischemia, depression worsens the outcome, possibly due to alterations in platelet function and changes in autonomic tone. Depression is also associated with a higher mortality rate following acute myocardial infarction; for those patients who survive, the recovery process is often a more complicated  one. Studies suggest that the recovery rate from medical and surgical procedures, from the repair of hip  fractures to coronary bypass surgery, is faster among believers. Moreover, patients undergoing such treatment appear less likely to have serious complications or die.” Page 239.

SOURCES:  Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications.  Louisville. Ky.

Copyright(c)  I’ll do it when I feel better. 2nd  Edition 1986,  2013.  Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. KY.

Copyright)(c)  Believing is seeing:15 Ways to leave the prison of depression. (2017)  Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky.

12 Step Meeting, DA Literature, Fellowship

The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk got it right!!

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“It’s an addiction if you find yourself continually bashing yourself for past mistakes and /or failures.  It is this constant rumination that puts us in the negative spiral which leads to more isolation, withdrawal and psychic pain. The familiar feeling of sadness and the continual inner hollowness that make our life so miserable becomes our security.”

But, where do we go from here?  I myself  got caught up in the spiraling downward descent into the darkness and hell of depression. I felt  trapped and helpless.

My spiraling upward came when I felt the hope in the  stories of those like myself, who no longer felt hopeless and helpless.  I became proactive in my own recovery and survival. Some had already attempted to commit suicide.  Once I discovered others just like myself, I was  fascinated by the fact that others were really telling my story as well. There were differences in some of the details, but basically  their stories rang true with my own. It was from that moment on that I was hooked.

Was the group my own Higher Power? Who was the God  that was greater than myself?   How did I contact this Power?  It was listening to others that I came to believe that there is someone, somebody that I could believe in, to free  me  from my prison of  depression.

It was just like the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina who believed that humans could fly.  They had their ups and downs, (no pun intended) but their faith in what they were doing got them in the air and off the ground.

The way to get up and get moving toward recovery is to get moving and start working the Steps, one by one.  You too will begin to live in hope one day at a time.   You will now have a flight plan that will take you where you want to go.

Hugh

The second Step of the Twelve Steps  promotes the belief  that we “came to believe that a  Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd ed. ,Depressed Anonymous Publications, Louisville. KY. Page 40.

For more information on the Steps and Depression click onto the Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore for your own flight plan!  It’s a journey you will never regret.

 

12 Step Meeting

We shall look for progress, not perfection.

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In the Depressed Anonymous Manual, 3rd edition it says

“ Responsibility is the name of the game of recovery and it is here that we need to focus our attention.  As we get into a discussion with other people who are depressed-much like ourselves, we see that they talk about feeling better while at the same time acting on their own behalf. These people who are doing better are also talking about taking charge of their lives and doing things for themselves instead of constantly trying to please others.”

12 Step Meeting, Love

It takes hard work and faith to free oneself from depression.

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MY AFFIRMATION FOR TODAY

I believe that with time and work I can feel better about myself.

“But don’t expect that one psychologist can tell you just what the trick is to get out of being depressed. There  is no trick, just hard work.” Dorothy Rowe. The way out of your prison. 2nd ed. (1983, 1996). Routledge. London.

The first three Steps of the Twelve  Steps are about faith and the remaining nine Steps are about action. One has to have faith that there is truly something bigger in this world than  one’s own depression and one’s perspective. I formerly used to believe  that I was stuck forever in these moods where I just didn’t want to live anymore. I was sick and tired of being sick  and tired with the feelings of despair. But now my program is a spiritual one and the spiritual way is the way out of my depression.

If I truly want to be free of my fears and anxieties, I will have to have faith that the God of my understanding is not going to  let me down.

My energies and commitment used to be directed toward finding ways to live always with the predictable and secure feelings that my sadness provided. I am working another program, one which will help me find a way to live a lifer filled with serenity and hope.

MEDITATION

God, help us know your will so that we may start today filled with hope. (Personal comments).

SOURCE: (c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of Twelve Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

12 Step Meeting, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Journaling, Purpose

I accept and value myself today!

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“Every decision that we make alters the world of meaning which we have created. Deciding to eat Wheat Puffs instead of Corn Flakes  for breakfast may not be a major change, but abandoning  thinking  ‘ I am bad and unacceptable’ and replacing it with ‘I accept and value myself’ is.  Every decision you have made since you decided that you were bad and valueless was based on that decision. Now, all these conclusions need reviewing and changing. ” Dorothy Rowe, Breaking the Bonds. Fontana. 1991.

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

Making  a decision is the first step in getting free and being liberated from my depression. From this step follows the  many other steps that are to be taken that will allow me to begin to see how the thoughts I think,  definitely affect the way I feel. My next step is to review the different ways in which I can value myself.  My first new response to my own negative thinking about myself is to believe that today I will  begin my exit from the prison of  my own negativity and pessimism.

My struggle to wrest myself free from depression means that I am to make some initial steps in my own health. I want to believe that it is the fact  that I want to value myself and my life that I will no longer allow myself to wallow in self-pity, but decide to start to make an effort to take mastery again over the way I feel and think.

MINDFULLNESS/SELF REFELCTION

We will let go of our ignorance about how this universe is operated. I let the God of my understanding take charge. I continue to dip my oars into the water of life and risk letting   God be the rudder master.

I want to make a plan today, to decide how I can do one thing differently so that I might value who I am as a human being. I will write down how I will dip  my oars in the water in the next 24 hours and change what I need to change. 

(Check out The Depressed Anonymous Workbook at   THE DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS PUBLICATIONS  BOOKSTORE for that excellent tool for self reflection and personal recovery.)

 

12 Step Meeting, DA Literature, Fellowship, Higher Thoughts for Down Days

“I have found that the Depressed Anonymous fellowship is a good place to share my story!”

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AFFIRMATION

I am involved in something bigger than myself and this is providing me with a sense of mission for all those persons who are suffering from sadness.

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I know that there are many like me out there in this ever changing world. My message of hope is always available to those who will listen to my message. I know that there is hope because I have more hope when I realize that there is something that I can do in order to help myself. I know that by experiencing my God in such a special and life giving way, my life will straighten out in time and with the help of God.

The more I use the Twelve Step program of recovery, the more I am able to take care of myself and keep the focus of my growth on myself. I am no longer blaming someone else for my depression. Nobody has the power to depress me. I might get a feeling of sadness when around certain people but they don’t depress me. It’s the way I look at the world, people or situations that I depress myself. I am confiding my thoughts about my recovery to those new friends that I am making in the program.

MEDITATION

God makes himself available to anyone who make themselves available to God. So God, we believe you are right here with us in our deepest moments of despair. We will see the light with your help. (Personal comments).

SOURCES: Copyright(c) Higher thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of Twelve Step fellowship groups. Hugh Smith (1999, 2018) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.KY . Page 120.

Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (1998, 2011, 2014) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. KY.