Birthday at Home

Recently, I had the privilege of celebrating both my twentieth OA birthday and the twentieth birthday of my OA home group. I met OA for the first time at this group’s very first meeting.

For this event, we asked our intergroup to invite other OA groups to join and celebrate our journey toward recovery. We had more than double our usual number of participants at that meeting: sixteen people from all over the country. What a feeling of unity, support, and fellowship!

I was asked to speak about my years in OA. I spoke of being blessed with finding OA at age 50, releasing 30 kilograms (66 lbs) of body weight, and letting go of the heavy burden of much guilt and shame. Now I have found a new way of looking at my relationship with food, a daily treatment for my disease, and a support system that is invaluable to my mental and physical health. I have learned to stay in fit spiritual condition by praying, talking to HP many times during any given day, and listening for his answers. I express gratitude and my need for clarity, and give over my character defects in order to flip them into positive traits which allow me to be helpful to others. Then I listen for guidance, intuition, or the helpful words of friends sent to assist me. I have learned how to ask for help.

Through OA service I have become more of a giver—I am less self-centered, more a person who values my worth as a contributing member of society. Being a speaker for my OA birthday helped accentuate this.

I feel connected to so many people who understand me at a gut level. When I am away from home, the wonderful feeling of identity and warmth in the greeting “Welcome to OA—welcome home!” touches my heart whenever I read it in a Lifeline article or hear it in a voice message from an OA service office in a foreign city.

I am at home in OA. And I have so much gratitude for all I have been so generously given.

— Reva, Israel

For Discussion and Journaling
In Birthday at Home, the writer, for her twentieth OA birthday, gave service as a speaker for her home meeting. Imagine you are a speaker for your twentieth OA birthday (or your next OA birthday if your twentieth has already passed). What experience, strength, and hope do you wish to be able to share? Ask around! Talk to long-timers and then use that inspiration to write what you’d like to be able to say on your twentieth OA birthday.