Hope Is Contagious!

HOPE IS CONTAGIOUS!

A great benefit of belonging to a fellowship is the power of hope. “If he or she can do it, then so can I.” This is a common belief for those who begin reading a book called Depressed Anonymous. This book, by the way, is written by folks who have felt hopeless and helpless.   The many accounts and personal stories in  the book  fill one with hope and courage.  The pages of this book help  serve as a manual for those of us who want to embark on this personal journey of hope and recovery from depression. Now this book and all of the other books published by DAP are specifically geared to those of us who want to leave the prison of depression and are written by persons who were depressed — and who got better. What is  better than to hear that the program works. Hearing how  other people  use the Twelve Steps and have them always available, is much like tools in your toolbox. The tools  are there to help build a structure for one’s own life  making it an adventure of hope–not a prison from which we felt we could not escape.

In Depression: The way out of your depression. Dr. Dorothy Rowe.1996 (2nd Ed).,  tell us that “Hope can exist only in a state of uncertainty. That certainty means total certainty. That security means to be without hope. The prison of depression is built with the bricks of total certainty.

Certainty. Security. No hope.

To hope means to run the risk of disappointment.

To be insecure means not to be in control.

Stay  in control. Be depressed.

To be uncertain means to be unsure of the future.

Predict the future with certainty. Stay depressed.

Hope can  only exist where there is uncertainty. Absolute certainty means complete hopelessness. If you want to live fully we must have freedom, love and hope.  So life must be an uncertain business. That is what makes it worthwhile.”

So, when we gradually believe that in each life some  rain must fall, and pain can come, we  begin to live life with hope. That’s the way it is. We can gradually believe, like thousands of other pilgrims on this path of recovery, that having a spiritual program such as the Steps, hope is possible, hope is doable and  our lives can take on new meaning and have purpose.

3 thoughts on “Hope Is Contagious!”

  1. I totally agree with the fact that the benefit of belonging to a fellowship is sharing hope. This is incredibly touching because back in my fights with depression, I tried to join as many groups on social media networks as I could to see amazingly strong people with powerful will take on depression and conquer it. We’re all together in this and we’ll all conquer it together.

    You made some excellent points here with life being uncertain. Life must be uncertain, spontaneous, loving, not confusing in nature or completely erratic, but definitely turbulent in nature. If we get used to the same old, waking up at this time, coming here at this time, we get lost in the daily routine and lose who we truly are as individuals.

    Moreover, I’d like to add that societies do not let us know how to cure depression because of their emphasis on medication, antidepressants, drugs, and what not. These only cover up symptoms and do nothing else. Particularly great points on this can also be read on http://www.waystobeatdepression.com, a really comprehensive website that looks over the awful things the pharmaceutical companies have done to us people and how it’s really us against them. Also this site talks about the natural treatments we as people should consider to really improve our quality of life forever.

    1. Hi Boris
      Thanks for your response to my BLOG. I firmly believe that our culture because of so many factors which work against creating community and wholeness we end up as wandering monads or nomads in a land of materialism and individuals all seeking themselves. Because of so many fractures in our cultural makeup –the biggest is a loss of meaning and no thought of something bigger than ourselves operative in the universe. That is where the 12 steps come in and can fill the human soul with hope and a belief in a power greater than ourselves…when there is no other place to run, to hide, to isolate. I read where 1 out of 4 Americans live alone–now, if that isn’t a setup for living a life depressed. Not always, but if life is not meeting all your expectations as you would like, –then all you may be left with is yourself.
      Over a lifetime I continue to see that a belief in some power greater than myself has to be at the center of any addicts life if they are to have a life. I also believe that it is the groups of people like myself that will get me well. I see it all the time in AA and DA,. It takes one to know one!!!! In DA you will never hear someone tell the new member to just “snap out of it.” It don’t work that way. Like a whole body toothache. Well, Boris thank you again and please keep coming back.
      Hugh

    2. I just answered your comment. But, I just lost it as well. I will write again. But thank you for your comments and I hope to respond to them again, with my own take on the subjects that you raised. Hugh

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