“The idea of twenty-four living applies primarily to the emotional life of the individual. Emotionally speaking, we must not live in yesterday, nor in tomorrow.
“But I have never been able to see this means the individual, the group, or A.A., (or Depressed Anonymous group) as a whole should give no thought whatever to how to function tomorrow or even in the more distant future. Faith alone never constructed the house you live in. Faith had to be a blueprint and a lot of work to bring it into reality.
Bill W., in As Bill Sees It. Page284.
The mind is a wonderful organ and more powerful and complex than the greatest computers made. In fact so many of us who live to plan, organize and get things done, it is seemingly impossible to produce anything without a blueprint. We have to have a plan, a business plan if we are business people, a route to take, a personal vision that will make happen what we want to happen. Sometimes one hears that we must just “let go and let God.” I hope that what a person picks up here is not that we just let God run our lives without input from us. That is not what is meant. Like Bill points out above, faith alone never built a house but combined with the energy/work of getting something done, that is where we must be. And so it goes with the Depressed Anonymous mutual aid program of recovery. And this is true of all our 12 Step programs.
In DA we have a myriad of literature offered to members where they can apply the Steps to their daily lives and gradually work their way out of the pit of depression. And if they stick to the plan as outlined in our Manual they will soon discover the truth of the Second Step, which tells us that we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. And of course this takes work, a belief that we too can feel better if we do all that is suggested in the program. I know it is true and so do the thousands of those other folks who have worked the program.
But first we must have a faith that something good can happen to me just as it has happened to all those other people who by following the Twelve Step blueprint, have found themselves in a better place in every way.
If this is your first visit to find out what we are about and who we are we believe that if you give yourself the time and effort to read our literature at our website, plus our newsletters, that you will begin to grasp what is possible for you just as it was for me. You will have a blueprint that will definitely give you all the resources and tools to build a better life–without depression. That is a Promise!
Hugh