Opening I would like to welcome everyone to The Moodies. The Moodies is a self-help support group for people and family that have depression or bipolar condition. This group does not advocate any specific treatment, medication, therapy or physician. We encourage you to be informed and use the combination of treatment that works best for you. We remind you that information shared is confidential and should be left in this room when you walk out the door of this conference room. We encourage you to give us your name and phone number. (It is not required that you do so.) We also encourage you to share phone numbers with each other because unity gives us strength. We allow only one person to talk at a time and encourage the group to reflect on what another person has said before someone else speaks. To those of you who are new, we hope by sharing, we will help light the walk for you and our illness. Now, I’m going to let everyone introduce themselves and tell what led you to attend this meeting. Again, I, as your group leader, welcome all of you who came tonight. Friends and family meet on the second Thursday at 7:00pm at the Friendship House, 505 19th Avenue, Tuscaloosa, AL. The first hour is educational and the second half hour is share time. | Closing In closing, I would like to say that the opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them. Take what you like and leave the rest. The things you heard were spoken in confidence and should be treated as confidential. Keep them within the walls of this room and the confines of your mind. A few special words to those of you who haven’t been with us long; whatever your problems, there are those among us who have had them too. If you try to keep an open mind, you will find help. You will come to realize that there is no situation too difficult to be bettered and no unhappiness too great to be lessened. We aren’t perfect. The welcome we give you may not show the warmth we have in our hearts for you. After a while, you’ll discover that though you may not like all of us, you’ll love us in a very special way--the same way we already love you. Talk to each other, reason things out with someone else, but let there be no gossip or criticism of one another. Instead, let the understanding, love and peace of the program grow in you one day at a time. Will all who care, join me in the closing Serenity Prayer.
God Grant Me the Serenity to accept things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference. |