My very first OA meeting demonstrated the Principle of unity. The OA website provided me with info about a local meeting and a contact person’s phone number. When I called, she invited me to a 10 a.m. meeting and also to a book study group that met half an hour before. I thanked her. On May 28, 2017, at 9:25 …

I had a problem with my food and weight, which I’d tried most of my life to solve. With various calorie-controlled ways of eating and exercise regimes, I had periods of what seemed like success, followed by gaining weight, feeling worthless, and being uninterested in physical activity. As time went on, the periods of apparent success became shorter: from months, …

Like many compulsive overeaters, I entered the rooms of OA only to lose weight. I’d tried dozens of weight loss programs and lost weight, only to gain it back plus more. I came for the vanity and stayed for the sanity. I really listened to the Big Book promises when they were read aloud at OA meetings, and I realized …

I remember when I first started coming to OA meetings. I felt like people were looking at me differently, like they knew I was new and ignorant of their “OA ways.” I felt like an outsider. They spoke in a different way and had so much self-awareness. I only knew how to talk about the food, not emotions or the …

I’m abstinent and quite fired up this morning! I’m fired up and a bit frustrated because, at the moment, I seem to be surrounded by fellow members who are struggling with abstinence and sharing excuses for why they can’t be abstinent. I know this program teaches me to focus on my side of the street, which requires a daily cleaning …

OA is for me—and it has been ever since a friend brought me to program in December 1981. People of all shapes and sizes told my story. I found a place where I belong. Despite sometimes feeling like I belong in a subset of OA, due to multiple allergies, afflictions, anxiety, and depression, I belong. I am here because I’m …

My problem with food is that once I develop cravings, it’s impossible for me to moderate my eating. When cravings set in, I only get more and more extreme in my obsession with food. My body has an allergy to sugar, flour, alcohol, and highly processed foods; these trigger the mental illness of my addiction, which in turn makes me …

The seed of OA was planted in this compulsive person’s head in 2002 when I was 19 years old, but I was not yet ready to accept the fact that I was a compulsive overeater. Fast-forward to 2015: at 31 years old, I was at the end of my rope—I’d lost my will to fight for myself and was questioning …

My first exposure to OA was finding a pamphlet at my doctor’s office: Before You Take That First Compulsive Bite, Remember . . . . I read the cautions against the distorted thinking that leads to compulsive eating. I remember recognizing myself in that pamphlet, and I identified completely. I remember reading the Twelve Steps, getting to the Third Step …

I haven’t written for Lifeline in a while, but today life got in my way. At least food didn’t, eh? But it tried to. Yes, even with fifteen years of recovery, the thoughts still sometimes make a plausible case for indulging. The Big Book says, “We are without defense against the first drink” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., p. 24), and …