Perhaps you wish that there was a face to face Depressed Anonymous meeting where you live. There is a solution to that – start one! Here are some pointers that I can share from my experience starting a face to face meeting in my area.

1. Find another person willing to commit to start a meeting with you
   Of course you could start the meeting on your own it is helpful to share the load with others.
2. You and others make a time commitment to run the meeting
   I would suggest that make a commitment to yourselves that for a period of time (3-6 months) that even if no one shows up you will run the meeting. This meeting is starting through the force of your and your partners will. You’re not committing forever but rather for that time period. As that time period comes to an end hold a group conscience meeting with the group to determine its future.
3. Find a place and time to host your meeting
   It could be a church basement, a recovery center, or any place you can secure a room at low or no cost. I recommend that you have a recurring day and time for your meeting so that people can expect you to be there. A meeting that doesn’t have a set time and place is very difficult to build support over time.Try to find a place with a very low cost as you will need to front the money to pay for the first month/week. Some recovery centers price on a sliding scale – the recovery center by me wanted 50% of your 7th tradition contributions. The benefit of this approach is that there is no up front expenses and while your membership is small in the beginning the cost of the room will also be small.
4. Schedule a launch date/time
   Pretty self explanatory.
5. Do public outreach
   Announce the meeting at other 12 Step meetings. Although technically you will be violating that other fellowship’s traditions mention that death by suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US and many people with addictions are also depressed.
   
   I collected all the mental health provider addresses from the web portal for my health insurance. You will be sending them a physical letter (the email address will not be posted on the web portal). Initially when I performed that search I found over 200 entries – that amount of postage was more than I was willing to front. I looked at the data and decided that I would only send a letter to those addresses with two or more mental health providers and that list was approximately 45 – a much more bearable financial burden.
   
   Get the postal addresses of the rehab centers in your community and send letters to them as well.
   
   Get the addresses of your local county mental health offices and send letters there as well.
   
   Find community centers and businesses with physical bulletin boards that would be willing to post your flyer announcing your meeting.
6. Decide on a format for your meeting
   Are you going to be a meeting where you read from Depressed Anonymous literature? Or is the meeting going to be a topic discussion meeting? If it is going to be a literature meeting you will need to have at least one copy of the literature you will be using (textbook, workbook, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, other).
   
   As your group collects 7th Tradition donations you may want to buy additional copies so that multiple attendees could read.
   
   Write a first draft of the chairperson script which at the least should start with a moment of silence or a short prayer, reading the 12 Steps of Depressed Anonymous, then describing the format of the meeting.
7. Have and run the first meeting
   Read your chairperson script. Run the meeting. The meeting doesn’t need to be perfect.
8. As your commitment time draws to a close hold a group conscience discussion
   As stated in number 2 above you (and partners) decided to run the meeting regardless of support. As that time comes to an end you must be ready to turn the fate of the meeting over to the group. Should the group continue? Who can volunteer to lead meetings? Does the format of the meeting work for the group?

That’s the guide as a nutshell. Don’t take the guide as the only way to do it – it is merely one way that happened to work for me. If it doesn’t fit your needs tailor it to your needs.

Yours in recovery, Bill R