Home Fellowship Powerful Surprise

Powerful Surprise

4 min read
0

About 1,200 OA members from around the world met in early September to celebrate recovery with four days of festivities in Boston. Several folks from Alaska USA made the trip, and what a wonderful experience it was! There were seventy-two workshops, skits (with a revolutionary theme), and keynote speakers. Hospitality and fellowship abounded.

It was sometimes hard to decide what to do next: attend one of the hourly OA meetings, go to a workshop on abstinence, visit a special focus meeting (anorexia/bulimia, men’s issues, LGBTQ), or investigate the bookstore, where the new Twelve Step Workshop and Study Guide quickly sold out and a new book of stories, Taste of Lifeline, was available. In the hallways and lounges, OA members were meeting and making friends and exchanging contact information. As a fundraiser, baskets were raffled off, and two Alaskans were winners!

The hotel was right downtown, across the street from a very popular salad bar. Between sessions, and before and after Convention, we rode boats right into the Charles River, walked the Freedom Trail, and visited art museums and historical sites. I was able to visit a former sponsee who lived nearby and also caught up with another Alaskan who had moved south some years ago.

For me, Convention was a badly needed “shot in the arm,” and the workshops on body image and relationships and conceptions of a Higher Power were very powerful. I was able to room with my sponsor from out-of-state, and it was a luxury to do my Tenth Step in person!

Surprisingly, one of the most powerful parts of Convention was the dance. Three hours of dancing without shame, without concern about how we looked out there on the dance floor. Even people who have physical changes as a result of our disease—just hundreds of people thrilled to be alive and able to enjoy music.

It’s the most amazing feeling to say “I put my hand in yours . . .” and be standing in a circle of over a thousand people saying the same thing. My sponsor and I agreed we will meet again at Convention (HP willing) in Orlando, Florida USA in August 2020. Hope you can join us!

—Edited and reprinted from The Northern Lights Newsletter, November 2016

  • Eight Other Tools

    Here I sit, self-quarantined in the middle of a viral pandemic after returning home from t…
  • Learning More Each Day

    After several starts, I found myself knowing that OA was for me, thanks to the acceptance …
  • Partners in Recovery

    There are many different ways to share experience, strength, and hope in the OA Fellowship…
Load More Related Articles
  • Low-Tech Outreach

    I am on my intergroup’s public information committee. We make flyers with a tear-off porti…
  • Available to Everyone

    Here are a few ways I carry the message to other compulsive overeaters. I print out OA’s C…
  • Radio-Active

    I was listening to a commentary about obesity on our local radio station. The commentator …
Load More By admin
  • Literature Prices and Postage

    I’m a member of a virtual group, and neither my current hometown nor the place I’m plannin…
  • Awesome Silver Linings

    I am grateful for the coronavirus. No, thank God, I have not had it, and I know it has cau…
  • Love and Service

    Love and service. These are, I sense, one and the same. Love, without service, is illusory…
Load More In Fellowship
Comments are closed.

Check Also

Low-Tech Outreach

I am on my intergroup’s public information committee. We make flyers with a tear-off porti…