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Heart-Felt Pages

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I have been an OA member for thirty-five years and abstinent from sugar and wheat products for thirty-four years. Yes, that is miraculous, but the real miracle is that this bratty girl who didn’t want to have anything to do with the spiritual part of our Twelve Step program now can’t seem to live without her Higher Power.

Reading OA literature has been a great part of the change in my heart. I’ve had a subscription to Lifeline magazine since 1986, and I have a copy of the October 1986 issue. In it is an article titled “My Kind of Boss” (p. 8) that I still like to share with sponsees about how God is our real employer!

In December 2000, just when I needed it, Lifeline published “It Will Be Okay” (p. 16). The writer reminded me “acceptance didn’t have to mean liking the situation; it meant being free of the need to fight its reality. It meant being open to the idea that we could be okay even if we didn’t like the way things were.” She continued, “Old ogres came up: my core issue of being abandoned; the low self-esteem that tells me I am unworthy of being loved. . . . Yet I did not have to act on any of it. I did not have to eat . . . accept it and ask for help to know God’s will to do the next right thing.”

I have kept Lifelines for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes I know a person from my area, intergroup, region, or world service who wrote an article, or sometimes there’s an article about a hot topic. Once, there was a picture of OA members each holding up their OA Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions books (December 2001, p. 25), and I knew the group was from my area. Another issue featured several entries from a writing workshop our intergroup had offered (“Navigating the Traditions,” June 2014, pp. 5–7). I even wrote an article about the Serenity Prayer and how I use it when I have many problems overwhelming me (“Spinning Thoughts,” November 2002, p. 9).

My recovery on all three levels—physical, emotional, and spiritual—has been enhanced by Lifeline. I am forever grateful for this publication.

— Linda

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