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12 Step Meeting, Choice, Community building, Fellowship, Helpful, Helpful Thinking, Honesty, Mutual Aid, Powerlessness, Serenity, The 12 Steps, Uncategorized

The Real Deal

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One of my favorite TV shows is the Antique Roadshow. Every piece of furniture, painting, pottery, etc., brought to the show, has its own unique history. Each piece is appraised as to its present value by professional art dealers. That is the basis of the show, to help people discover how much that old letter, old painting or anything else that they bring to the show. seeking its worth. They can discover if their painting is an original, the real deal, or just a copy, or even a forgery. It is rare that an original masterpiece is ever discovered. Even so, there are times when a very valuable piece is discovered. People who come to show their articles, know that they can at least find out if they have something of value.

In ancient Rome, there were many sculptors, who sculpted pieces of artistic beauty. At times, when a sculptor’s chisel took too much granite off his work of art, he would cover his mistake with wax. So, if an artist wanted to sell his piece of art, it had to be noted that the piece was sincere, that is, without wax. No covering up mistakes.

So when I say that I am sincere, I am telling you that I am telling the truth. I am telling you that there is no coverup in what I am saying. (sine cera in Latin = without wax). In other words, it’s the real deal.

In our recovery program, Depressed Anonymous, we thrive by being sincere. We learn that it is when we admitted that we were powerless over depression and that our lives had become unmanageable, that we began to thrive and freed ourselves from the prison of depression.

Please come and join us in this Depressed Anonymous Fellowship. It is here where we can share our past mistakes and shortcomings – and our strengths – no more wax jobs – and find peace abd strength with folks just like ourselves.

DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS
Our website at DEPRESSEDANON.COM, will provide you with all necessary information, directing you to our online daily ZOOM meetings. We offer two meetings a day. You are always welcome!

HUGH S., for the DA Fellowship

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Looking at persons as individuals and not as members of a group

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DECISION 9: I WILL IMPROVE MY SKILLS IN DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN REAL AND IMAGINARY ENEMIES.

To distinguish real from imaginary you want to look at persons as individuals and not as a member of a group. To understand that one person’s point of view seriously, even though that point of view might not be your own.
Maybe you thought a person was an enemy, who was not an enemy – then you have to go through a process of reconciliation.

You have a skill – You know how to give – but not to receive.

TOMORROW: DECISION 10.
I WILL LEARN HOW TO RECEIVE GENEROUSLY.

12 Step Meeting, Choice, Community building, Dep-Anon: Family and friends, Fellowship, Helpful, Helpful Thinking, Hope, Mutual Aid, Serenity, Service, Step 01, Step 02, Step 03, The 12 Steps, Uncategorized

I wish my family had a depression support group

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If you are reading this blog today, and are a family member who is depressed and wishes they had a family that understood how the disease of depression has taken over our whole life, then this Dep-Anon 12 Step recovery group is for your family.

Starting this Monday, August 22, at 2PM EDT and 1PM CST our first Dep-Anon meeting will LAUNCH with its own group program of recovery. The Dep-Anon manual will be used for all our meetings, either on ZOOM or at face to face meetings.You can read more about the Dep-Anon manual on our website at depresedanon.com.
JOINING THE MEETING<

To JOIN the meeting, please use MEETING ID: 846 6885 1123 and the password is: serenity (lowercase).
You can also use the link to enter the meeting by emailing us at [email protected]. This link can be used at all recurring meetings.

Over the years i have heard this statement, “I wish my family had a depression support group tp go to,” voiced more times than I can count. Since depression is a family illness, each of us who are or have been depressed, know the importance of a family supporting their depressed significant other. But that is not always the case. Because of a lack of understanding of the illness of depression -the focus of the family is mostly focused on attempting to cure, heal, or change their depressed loved one.

Now, we know, from personal experiences, that the focus needs to be where it belongs–on the person(s) who need to be changed. That would be the family members. Recently, Dep-Anon, a 12 Step recovery program for families and friends of the depressed has been developed. There is nothing new to our approach as we are modeled on the successful Al-Anon program of recovery. Their focus too, is not on their alcoholic family member but is focused on their own need to understand the nature and disease of alcoholism. They learn as families, helping other families, how alcoholism affects not only the alcoholic, but affects the whole family system. It’s a family disease. By putting into use, for their own personal lives, growth and health using the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Dep-Anon, has but one purpose, to help families of the depressed. Here too, the family uses the 12 spiritual principles of Depressed Anonymous–a program geared for family to family support and encouragement. These families gather together, supporting each other, encouraging and sharing their own successes and ways that work for them. They continue to learn about the serious nature of depression. Instead of being critical and frustrated trying to get the depressed to do what we want them to do, for example, trying to get them out of bed, or telling them to get a job, or to “snap out of it.” Family members, many times discover that their methods of helping don’t help, but instead, push the depressed further into isolation.

Dep-Anon can be a key for a family to give the best support that they can to their loved one. This is examen, in a group setting with other family members, learning and discussing with each other what depression is, what it feels like (to the depressed person) and how it effects their total thinking, feeling, and behavior. The Dep-Anon family group will help family learn what depression is and what it is not. We learn how to keep the focus on ourselves, our own self-care, and living in the solution of positive ways to take care of ourselves. Again, we focus on ourselves. In a very real way, it is in taking care of our selves and being provided with a solution focused understanding of what depression is, that we will provide our loved one a positive family environment, where there is respect and which gradually creates harmony and healing among all its members.

What is created here is a symbiotic relationship between the depressed member and the family. What one does positively in helping themselves in recovery (Depressed Anonymous fellowship) will have a positive effect on the other. (families supporting other families).

Remember, Dep-Anon ZOOM meeting Monday at 2PM EDT and 1PM CST.
MEETING ID: 846 6885 1123 Password: serenity (lower case-no Capitals).

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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SAVOR LIFE

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“if (I had my life to live over I would like to make more mistakes next time. I’d relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been on this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances.. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I’d have fewer imaginary ones.

“You see, I’m one of these people who live sensibly and sanely, hour after hour, day after day.. Oh, I’ve had my moments, and if I had it all to do again, I’d have more of them. In fact, I’d try to have nothing else but moments, one after another. Instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I’ve been one of those person who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle and a parachute. If I had it to do again, I would travel lighter than I have.

“If I had my life to live again, I would start barefoot earlier in the Spring and stay that way later in the Fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies.”
By Nadine Strain
[Nadine wrote this at age 85.

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When will it end?

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How often did I ask that question of myself. And the only answer that I could give was "I don't know." That was never a very heartening response. In fact it just made matters worse. I don't know about  you,  but I sure  didn't have a clue about my own situation. Why couldn't someone tell me, like when you get the flu or a cold, "How long will it take to get well." Not even a Doctor.  Nobody could tell me. All I ever heard was their  opinion that if you do this or do that treatment  you should start feeling better. If not, then  something else would be recommended. Most of the time it was  usually those who do this or that  treatment they should l be feeling better in a couple of weeks.

What I was hearing was that it really depended on   many different factors. One size (diagnosis) doesn't fit everyone. Everyone's depression is unique to that individual who is depressed. All depression experiences even though unique still have characteristics  which are  common to all.

In my case, I knew nothing about depression and in fact didn't have a clue that what I was living through was  actually the various symptoms of depression. All I knew was that I needed to  do something with the hope that doing something was better than doing nothing. After all I was unable to get myself out of bed. After my 8 hours at work, I came home and went to bed--waking up during the night, tossing and turning in my bed. That became my daily routine.  I isolated myself. I never felt wanting to call my parents or my friends.  I was locked down in despair. 

My day eventually began with an hour of walking. I felt like Forrest Gump who didn't know where he was going but he knew he wanted to walk. I did know that maybe I could shake off whatever was locking me down, physically, emotionally  thinking all the while that I was hopeless and helpless.
Then it happened. Suddenly, my mind's mental fog evaporated and I could feel a lightness, unlike the feeling of a heavy weight bearing down on my mind, causing a continued fatigue and sadness. Immediately I felt different. Wow! This is the way I felt all the time before my sadness overwhelmed my life., I momentarily became energized and continued my walk. What happened next was predictable. The first thought  that came to mind was "it isn't going to last."  And yes, it doesn't last, but then the next  day and in the next few days my mind completely returned to  its former clarity  and upbeat hopefulness that "it was all 'gonna' be alright." 

Was my new feeling due because I was walking everyday for over a year, that I continued going to work, or talking to my Depressed Anonymous group on a weekly basis the reason for the change? I would say Yes, that had much to do with my life getting back on track. 
The fatigue disappeared, the negative thinking disappeared, and I now was on a new playing field. I now had the tools with which to strengthen myself against negative attacks from my mind and body, I started to exercise on a regular basis, talked to people in the program of recovery, got  a sponsor, read the Depressed Anonymous literature, ate healthy foods and went to regular DA meetings. 

The end of your own depression will end, once you begin to tackle those fears and anxieties that once locked you down into isolation and immobilization. It might not happen today but there is a strong possibility that it can and will happen. It happened for me.

RESOURCE:

(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition(2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville KY. (Personal Stories section relate how others found hope and a plan for leaving behind their depression.)

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This is it!

		

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How often must I learn not to get caught up in the mania of having thoughts  and feelings and flights of grandiosity as I flee  from the depths of my sadness. I will not run from my sadness, but instead, I will focus on the fact that I have to stake out my claim and say, this is it — I am going to get well starting today – right now.  When I am manic I am panicky  and very jittery, but when I am depressed or feel myself slippimg down into the abyss of darkness I run as fast  as I can until I no longer can stop my racing thoughts, nor find an end to the obsession of wanting complete perfection in everything that I do. 





What this means is that I am going to believe that I am about to be released from a terminal illness. My sadness has dogged me throughout my life. I no longer am willing to give in  to it, this Black Dog  of sadness once labeled as “melancholia.”  I have tried all the pills to rid myself from the angst  of my soul until there were no more pills, no more solutions and no more avenues of escape. I could escape the pain from time to time, but not a lifetime of hurtful human experiences.





MEDITATION





God, you call each of us by name. Give us the power to name anything that is blocking us from growing in the wisdom of your will for us  today. Lead us home to your peace.  (Add your own personal thoughts here.)





RESOURCES:





(c) Higher thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step Fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. November 20th.





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





Go to the Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore to order online.