I have depression too and I have been getting help with that for about a year and half but I used to hide my drinking so let's just say all the help I was getting really wasn't working too well. Alcohol and depression don't mix well I have found.
I am working the 12 steps now. I still have those days where nothing I do feels anything but numb. I do them anyway. And I don't pay much attention to opinions that may differ from what my heart knows to be true for me. I believe that unless you have experienced a full blown medical depression you really don't know what it feels like.
The best way I can describe it to people who haven't lived it is that everyone knows what it feels like to fall in a black hole but depression feels like you are the black hole. There is no escaping yourself.
So with that, folks can have opinions on what my experience should be with medication or no medication and working the steps but I just say "well that's an interesting way of looking at it". I don't understand how anyone can tell anyone what their experience with their higher power should or should not be. Honestly, I haven't had anyone treat me with anything less than respectful so it hasn't been any problem.
Sometimes the steps feel just like when my therapist says going to the gym helps depression. Yes, we all know that in theory. Let's just start with getting out of bed and taking a shower shall we??
The steps aren't going anywhere. I can do what I can on them right now and always revisit them on another day. I think it just helps me to keep working on them and me. I don't think they are something I am just going to do once. I think it's doing them for the rest of my life. They sound like a good way to live in my opinion.
I wouldn't wish depression on my worst enemy if I had one...sending xoxo to all of you who suffer from it. Don't give up.