When I came into OA, I was on the edge of a mental breakdown. I’d tried everything to stop my food obsession and my destructive food behaviors. I’d done a lot of work on myself and learned lots of self-help tricks, but nothing was working. I was numbing my feelings 24/7 and could not see a way out. That was …

Before I came to OA, I thought I was the most confident 33-year-old out there. I had a great full-time job, a boyfriend, dog, my own apartment, and a car. Yet, I could not stop eating those binge foods. Then, I lost my ability to diet and kept gaining weight. I was a size 26 and had tried everything from diet programs to …

“So we clean house with the family, asking each morning in meditation that our Creator show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindliness and love” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., p. 83). I walked my daughter down the aisle on Saturday. I was a proud mama! Proud of her for the woman she is and proud of myself for the mom I’ve …

For me, some of the hardest people to be comfortable with are members of my family of origin. I’m the only one who’s in a Twelve Step program, and sometimes when I’m with them, I feel like I’m in another world—yes, the world I had lived in too, until six years ago when I found my way back to the …

Over the years, I’ve held a lot of service positions and learned so much in each one. For me, the rewards of service are many, including self-confidence, people skills, and friendships, not to mention the fact that honoring a service commitment has sometimes been the only thing that has kept me coming back. Recently, I’ve experienced unexpected perks from my …

It’s as simple as this: I settled for food. To block the pain of my love starved existence, I used food and sugar until my carefully constructed façade of beautiful well-being began to bloat from the excesses I needed to eat to feel safe. But I had to do something to keep from losing my looks, the one thing that …

My paternal grandmother was full blooded Tarahumara, the tribe of indigenous people in northern Mexico known for long-distance running. My daddy was a runner, and always told me that there is a runner somewhere in me too. I never believed him. A few weeks ago, I signed up for a 5K training program with my 16-year-old son. I don’t even recognize …

I grew up as an only child with alcoholic overeaters for parents. For the first seventeen years of my life, I dealt with two drunken “rageaholics” acting crazy. I never knew what would happen. I walked around in sheer panic and terror, afraid my parents would divorce, afraid Mom would drink herself to death, afraid Dad would kill someone on …

I grew up in an American, Midwestern, blue-collar, motorcycle-riding family that fully embraced pride of all sorts—pride in our family, our country, our bikes, our tattoos and putting in an honest day’s labor. If family needed help, you showed up on Saturday and helped. You taught your kids how to fix engines, build things, and to listen to their mama. …

During holidays, I can almost feel the frenzy in the air: my fellow compulsive eaters’ worry. Holidays can bring stress, require travel, demand hosting duties, or carry us to strange kitchens and dining tables. Holidays confront us with our love-hate relationship with food and may require stocking up for family feasts at unfamiliar grocery stores. Great anticipation about being with …