Two more speaker recordings are available on the website. Come listen to Ginny and Mark tell their stories. Visit the page DA Speaker Meeting Recordings to listen to the audio recordings.
Category Archives: 12 Step Meeting
Intensity of depression and support at those intensity levels
Depression is a complicated disease that has many potential causes. Depression is also not a static disease – its intensity can change over time. The support that you seek out will differ depending on the intensity of the depression.
A metaphor that I have for depression is a rainstorm. Sometimes it is a light rain darkening your day, other times it can be a raging thunderstorm with lightning crashing down and torrential rain.
When the storm is merely a forecast you have ample time to avoid the storm. Eating well, exercise and occasional talk therapy can be enough for you to avoid the storm. Support via Depressed Anonymous is there for you but the storm is so far away you may not feel the need to pursue recovery.
When the storm is on the horizon – you can see it – your intensity of managing the disease will need to step up as well. Depressed Anonymous can help at this level as well. You are far more likely to seek help at this point.
Imagine you are on the open plains and you can see that the storm is a few miles away and headed toward you – Depressed Anonymous can help here as well. Another resource that may help you at this level is something called a warmline – it is not equipped to handle an intense storm like a hotline but it can definitely help you. Each state in the US has warmline organizations that will field calls for those needing support. To get a listing of warmline call centers in the US go to https://warmline.org and find an entry for your state. I’m sure that many other countries have such warmline organizations I’m just not personally aware of what is available in the many nations of the world. Warmline organizations typically can act as an information clearinghouse where you can can information about other support organizations that can support you in your time of need.
If you are on the outer edges of a storm with light rain organizations like Depressed Anonymous and warmline call centers can help with guiding you out of the outer edges of the storm.
If you are in the center of the storm with lightning crashing around you and torrential rain coming down DA and warmline call centers are not equipped to handle this level of a storm. You are in crisis and need to take drastic measures. Perhaps you need to check yourself into a mental institution and get 24 hour inpatient care. Perhaps you should call a suicide hotline or emergency services number in your area. If you are in imminent risk of taking your life through suicide drastic measures are called for. Take those drastic measures – you are worthy of living and receiving care.
Once you are out of the center of the storm and somewhat stabilized rely again on DA and warmline centers. We are all worthy of healing and loving care. Let us love you until you are able to love yourself. I wish you well wherever you are in the storm of depression.
Yours in recovery, Bill R
New meeting recordings March – May 2023
If you’re looking for new people to listen to please visit Depressed Anonymous Meeting Recordings and hear new recordings from: Hugh, Barb, Pema, Catrina, Janet, and David C. Sorry for the delay in posting them.
Yours in recovery, Bill R
All attempts to do anything “absolutely” are ultimately doomed
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 devastate our spiritual lives, making their point that “attachment” does not have to be to material things to be spiritually destructive.
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 Wholeness”. 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.
Extra DA Conference on Hope Recording
Folks,
I thought that Zoom had lost the recording of Stacy who was our final speaker on 4 March 2023. Zoom didn’t show the recording initially because the chairperson forgot to stop the recording. Apparently on the back end Zoom did some housekeeping – they found the recording and placed it with the other recordings from that day.
Please listen to Stacy’s story – it is amazing and full of hope. You will not be disappointed.
Go to Depressed Anonymous Conference Recordings.
Yours in recovery, Bill R
Second Depressed Anonymous conference recordings
The sessions are finally posted! Please go to Depressed Anonymous Conference Recordings to access the recordings.
Proneness to depression
“It must be repeated again that I consider, injustice, discrimination, material deprivation and painful disappointments as such and as causes of depression and depression-pro ness. What causes depression is the discrepancy between what children–and adults have learned to believe and expect, and the reality they meet. This discrepancy, when uncomprehended, causes chronic lack of self-esteem, or the loss of self-esteem that, writes Birling, has been associated with severe depression. Men and women can bear a remarkable amount of misfortune and grief, as long as they need not see them as a result and proof of their own inferiority.”
Excerpt from Emmy Gut, Productive and Unproductive Depression. Harper, SanFransisco. 1990. p.195. as quoted in THE ANTIDEPRESSANT TABLET (1991) SUMMER VOLUME 2:4. p.3
Helen, gets it! “I have to take responsibility for my own life.”
The following excerpt is from a letter that Helen wrote to the Depressed Anonymous fellowship about her recovery from depression.
Her story is just one of the many stories, relating their recovery from depression, found in the Personal Stories section of Depressed Anonymous Pages 110-152.
“Now that I look back and see the way I was and see now how I am now,
I can’t believe that I ever knew that other person. This person is different altogether. I like this person now very much. I am thankful to the group. They are just wonderful. They are my family. They are my Depressed Anonymous family. I also have my church family. It is a wonderful feeling to know that there is a Higher Power that can take you through these things. At first, I thought, “I doubt that very much” when everyone was talking about the Higher Power and peace in my life. Then it happened to me. Every few days, the world dumps down on you and beats you down. That’s my life. I always think to myself that there is that extra strength that I didn’t have before. I feel that everything is going to be OK with me. I have that peace now myself.”
Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous (1998) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. pp 145-148.
Not everything faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced
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.
When will I see the light of day? Everyday is so dark now
I have asked myself this same question many times in my life. When will I see the light? This question was begging for an answer. I really didn’t expect an immediate answer, something that was miraculously to pop out of the blue. No, I knew that what seemed impossible for me at the time, there must be an answer, somewhere. This was my hope.
I did know of a possible solution. If I was having a bad day, or my life was being lived without a purpose of just plain empty of hope, I’d try and leave the problem behind, by taking a walk, going to a movie, do anything, to keep me from sinking deeper into the quicksand of despair.
I did what I didn’t want to do. I forced myself to go to a 12 Step meeting. I went anyway. It wasn’t all joy and rainbows. I knew in my gut that a “quick fix” wasn’t going to be the answer. I knew that a Higher Power that they talked about wasn’t going to change some furniture around (figuratively speaking) in my mind–the HP was going to knock down my walls of resistance. My mind was in an “under construction” mode. God was doing for me what I could not do for myself. My Higher Power continues tp restore my insane thinking with hope, sanity, and plus a plan for daily living.
At the meeting, I listened to another guy’s story.It sounded like my own. Then, after the meeting, a leader of the group gave me a coin-like token. It was supposed to remind me to live one day at a time. They also gave me a book to read. I still read this book forty years later.
This story is not over. Like today, I want to share how it is now that I have admitted my need for help. I already shared how it was. Now I want to tell you and others, how I have seen hope shine, and how I continue to live in the peace that the God of my understanding has provide for today. And it will happen for you too. That is a promise.
Hugh S.
Want more information about the Depressed Anonymous fellowship, go to Depressedanon.com for more information.