Home Higher Power My First Prayer

My First Prayer

4 min read
2

My personal first spiritual experience was my first weight loss in OA.

I came in because of desperation and rage. My family was crazy (so was I), and I had nowhere else to go. I had just been on a fast of water and diet soda, but when I weighed myself, I had gained ten pounds. I felt empty and desolate—what had I done wrong? A woman mentioned OA, so I called her.

As usual, I wanted what I wanted immediately, so I called and called desperately as I gained weight more and more during the holidays. In January, I came into OA with her. At first, I was turned off by the word “God,” but I had nowhere else to go and I needed a sponsor. Somewhere in my mind I knew this was the solution.

That first month was all about hearing what God had done for these OA members. Maybe, just maybe, I could get the same thing. “Act as if,” I was told. Try it. If it didn’t work, they would be glad to give back any weight I lost. Some guarantee!

In my first prayer, I said to God, “If you are there, you will have to help me. I will do the footwork (food plan), and you will have to do the rest. If you will just help, I will stay in program.”

Well, I am happy to say, I lost 15 pounds (7 kg) that month and started my Steps. That was my first spiritual experience, for which I am humbly grateful. I am grateful to say I do the Steps over and over, all twelve of them. God works with me on a daily basis. My faith is stronger than any happiness, more than I could ever have believed or hoped for.

My faith in God is maintained one day at a time. My three home-group OA meetings help keep it that way by the grace of God.

— Edited and reprinted from The Road to Recovery newsletter, Westchester United Intergroup, November 2006


Atheists and agnostics wondering whether OA can work for them can read a new PDF download at oa.org. “What If I Don’t Believe in God?” explains, in the words of atheist and agnostic OA members, how a belief in God is not necessary to find and recovery from compulsive eating in OA

  • From Great Fall to Grateful

    I would like to tell you how I think the character, Humpty Dumpty, can be like some compul…
  • 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 …
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
  • Stepping-Stones, Nuggets, and Gems

    Spirituality is the solution to our problem of powerlessness, and we find this solution in…
  • Spiritual Rewrite

    I was complaining recently to my sponsor about the religious language of the Eleventh Step…
  • A Pause Between Kitchen and Table

    I was having trouble staying abstinent in the moments between preparing my food and eating…
Load More In Higher Power
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…