Traditions Suggestions for Tradition Five Tradition Five: Each group has but one primary purpose— to carry its message to the compulsive overeater who still suffers. Tradition Five is clearly stated. It’s the follow-up question that’s important: how are we supposed to do that? Here are some suggestions: Attend meetings regularly and participate by sharing and helping out when you can. Read OA literature and the … Read More
Gratitude Recovery No Stone Unturned OA recovery helps me with my relationships with my Higher Power, myself, and other people. Abstinence gives me clarity to be open to my Higher Power’s messages: I listen to the wisdom of my own body and I hear my HP’s voice in my sponsor and in meetings through members’ shares. I pray to see and hear others through God’s … Read More
Tools & Concepts Baby Steps Up the Mountain Recently I learned I needed to change my plan of eating for my health. Okay, how do I do that? Power through, right?! If I could control my eating I would never have come into Overeaters Anonymous almost thirty years ago. Before that, I tried: I tried every diet in every magazine. Every night, I planned to start this or … Read More
Service Twelfth Step Within Lifeline I am a grateful, abstinent, Lifeline-subscribing member of OA. I love and appreciate our magazine. I have a stack of old Lifelines, and recently my HP inspired me to suggest a good way to use them. When making a Twelfth Step Within call, why not give the prospect a copy of an old Lifeline? I like this idea and recently … Read More
Abstinence The Beginning “Abstinence is the beginning.” This sentence, one I have seen and heard many times since entering the rooms, popped out at me like never before as I read page 272 in Voices of Recovery this morning. Abstinence is the beginning: of connecting with Higher Power, with self, with others who have this disease of connecting with others who don’t have … Read More
Literature Suiting Up For two months, I’ve been attending Overeaters Anonymous meetings. As I worked Step One, my denial started to crumble. I became painfully aware of the ways my life was unmanageable due to my eating behaviors. I could not deny that my closet and drawers were full of clothes that no longer fit me. Only larger-size pants let me breathe when … Read More
Diversity Recovery Around the World As Written and with Urgency I am nine months into recovery in OA and more happy, joyous, and free than I could ever have imagined. And I do mean ever. My heart bursts with the love I have found for my HP through working the program as written. Yet, at the same time, I am almost crying with pain. It’s pain not unlike the pain … Read More
Fellowship Recovery Open Commitment Without a commitment to unity, OA would be a diet and calories club. Everyone would follow the food plan of the most convincing or loudest member. There would be no world service, so groups would only be supported locally. Literature would not be developed and sourced from a central body, and groups would have no reason to meet and reach a … Read More
Steps First Willingness, Then Ability The other day my sponsee was telling me how grateful she was to have me in her life. I had to agree—I was also grateful. Had I not been willing to be a backup for her sponsor then none of the following would have come to pass. This member, who was in her second pregnancy, needed to reach out by … Read More
Diversity Recovery Around the World Focus on Unity I have been a member of Overeaters Anonymous since the early 1980s. I have attended OA meetings in the US states of Florida, South Carolina, Utah, and Maryland and in the country of Israel. There are many differences among these places—in cultures, geographies, and customs. But at every meeting, parts or all of the Steps were read and parts or … Read More