Tools & Concepts Serenity on Aisle Nine On Thanksgiving Day, our area adds an extra meeting for people to attend. Emotions from anticipating family and food are high and that makes this holiday meeting so intimate and lifesaving. One year we couldn’t use any of our regular meeting places, so we decided to meet in the lounge and snack area of a local grocery store that was … Read More
Abstinence How I Work It—Today In 2003, I was in my 30s and I couldn’t stop bingeing. In spite of the fat, depression, headaches, stomachaches, diarrhea, and isolation, I just couldn’t stop. So I came to OA, got a sponsor, and started weighing and measuring my food. My goal was to work the program intensely for one year and “get it.” (I had always been a … Read More
Literature A Story and a Sign I was in a situation recently where I was required to wait patiently (not my strong suit); I got out an old Lifeline to help me behave properly. When I opened it, it fell open to the perfect article for me, a story that dealt with letting go of compulsive action and surrendering an emotion-packed situation to a Higher Power. My … Read More
Relapse & Recovery Different Perspectives In 1994, I hit bottom. Food no longer filled the hole in my soul. A sense of hopelessness and futility was constantly with me. I had reached what was my heaviest weight of 335 pounds (152 kg) and doubled my size in just four years. I was a graduate assistant working as a tutor at my university’s writing lab. One … Read More
Newcomers An Act of Hope When I walked into the rooms of Overeaters Anonymous, hope felt like a possibility, a possibility of a better life. I’d been bottling up all my feelings again; my mom had recently passed away and my wife and I had just moved into the South Bay area. Fear, anger, and sadness were churning inside me, and I did what I … Read More
Relationships Feeling Present We buried Bibs today. He was almost 20 years old. Bibs helped me with my OA program in death and in life. Alive, he opened me to the insanity of my anger at his being a cat, insistent about being fed on his schedule, not mine. Writing about my anger, I discovered I was angry about my own food plan. … Read More
Uncategorized Working the Program Pug Life My name is Lucy. I am a pug. I want to tell how my brother Joey, my sister MP, and I all helped with our Mom’s recovery. In 2009, our Mom was very sad. She was eating a lot. Nothing would help. She even took trips and had holidays but was still very sad. We decided to help. On our Mom’s … Read More
How OA Changed My Life Recovery Dance In my dance class tonight, I raised my hand and asked for help with a troublesome step sequence. The teacher spent a good three or four minutes going over it with me until I understood, and she had to explain it a few different ways before I figured it out. All my classmates were standing around watching and waiting. The teacher looked around … Read More
Steps How I Ask The Seventh Step is one of the most important in my recovery. Every Step is crucial, of course, but Step Seven holds a special place in my heart. For me, it is the realization of a miracle. I ask my HP, whom I call God, to remove my resentments, fears, drivenness, and obsession with control (or illusions of control), and … Read More
How OA Changed My Life Better Now I have changed my focus: I used to say to myself, when I was about to overeat, “This will add half a pound (.2 kg) to my weight.” That consequence was not effective in stopping me from overeating. It seemed too distant, too much like “I will deal with that later.” I’ve now identified something that is affected the moment … Read More