When I attended my first OA beginner’s meeting three-and-a-half years ago, I brought a concept of God that I’d cobbled together from childhood. And, coming from a family of atheists, I’d felt an unspoken need to keep my spiritual beliefs a secret. Standing in a circle, holding hands, and saying the Serenity Prayer at that first meeting was terrifying. It …

After almost ten years in OA and a physical abstinence of my own definition, I struggled with the fact that I was still stuck in obsession and compulsion around food. I had a way of eating that was more or less nutritionally balanced, but I still obsessed about knowing exactly what I was going to eat. I was alternating between …

Sometimes, I have resentment about being in this program. I say the Serenity Prayer daily, follow a food plan, and try to give myself ten minutes each day to pray or meditate. I go to a strength and flexibility class three times a week and walk three to five times weekly. I read the literature, listen to podcasts, go to …

I certainly was selfish. I wasn’t present to do things with my friends and family, preferring instead to isolate with my best “frenemy”: food. I spent my whole life refusing to accept I was powerless to control my compulsion to overeat, and I’d eat anything I could get my hands on—a lot. I was able to lose lots of weight, …

My understanding is that a spiritual awakening is a radical internal rearrangement of attitudes, priorities, desires, and beliefs. The effect is I’ve now become able to do, think, feel, and say things that I could not before— no matter how hard I tried, how sincerely I wanted to, or how dire any consequences. I came into OA in my early …

I first set foot in an OA meeting eleven years ago, but until lately, I had been unable to attain long-term recovery. Why? I couldn’t find a Power greater than myself. Lack of a Higher Power kept me sick much longer than necessary. I made desperate attempts, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t bring myself to believe anything outside myself …

When I became an adult, I realized my father had suffered from a disease similar to my disease of compulsive overeating. His was “compulsive hoarding disorder.” Over the years, I’ve developed a much more compassionate view of his bizarre behavior, and I credit my participation in OA for this realization . . . and for my ability to forgive him. My …

I’ve long felt that, for compulsive eaters, one of our worst fears is simply being hungry and having to sit still and do nothing about it. The association between physical hunger and existential void triggers the sense of hopelessness that preceded so many of my forays into the deadly rituals from which I now abstain. Its black-sheep brother, the craving, …

While doing some writing about the “vital spiritual experience” described in the Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th. ed., p. 27), I had a brand-new thought. I identified with the person being described: someone wanting very much to be free of the addiction that was making his life impossible, puzzled and despairing over why he couldn’t stop. For myself, I’d given …

I had never led a retreat by myself and worried I’d come off as unprepared and not able to give anything to the group. I worried that I’d get lost, miss the ferry, get carjacked, or hit a moose. I was crossing into Canada—aren’t moose everywhere? I was at a retreat two years before where a woman in the audience …