Fellowship Recovery No Longer Isolated It is a wonderful feeling to go around the room and look into another compulsive eater’s eyes and say, “I put my hand in yours because I care,” and really mean it sincerely. Unity Day reminds me that I am no longer isolated in my home, in my room, in my hiding places, being loved and comforted by my food. … Read More
Traditions Guarding the Traditions At OA meetings, I often hear shares that include social issues. We members are products of our environment, after all, and those environments can include poverty, deprivation, abuse, harassment, homelessness, injustice, unfairness at work, and victimization by criminals. For my part, I have a social conscience, and my failure to live up to its demands is a factor in my … Read More
Literature Tools & Concepts Real Magic I am contemplating the last workbook question of the Twelfth Step: “What is the message I am living?” (The Twelve Step Workbook of Overeaters Anonymous, Second Edition, p. 107). My mind ventures back several months, when a spark inside my soul led me to put these Twelve Steps to the test. Would the promises of the Step Principles really materialize … Read More
Meetings Tools & Concepts Quickly or Slowly Like many compulsive overeaters, I entered the rooms of OA only to lose weight. I’d tried dozens of weight loss programs and lost weight, only to gain it back plus more. I came for the vanity and stayed for the sanity. I really listened to the Big Book promises when they were read aloud at OA meetings, and I realized … Read More
Sponsoring Tools & Concepts Life Gets Easier I was talking to my sponsee the other day. Just writing that sentence is a revelation—me, a sponsor? That’s something I thought would never happen, and something I would never be good enough for. When I was asked to be a sponsor, I was so stunned that the first thing that flew out of my mouth was, “Are you sure?” … Read More
Atheists & Agnostics Higher Power Getting Warmer I came into program uncomfortable with the concepts of belief and faith. I preferred facts and proof. Belief, I felt, was a sentiment best reserved for the religious, which I was not. I was, however, powerless over food and I wanted what this program had to offer. More than anything, I wanted the Twelve Step promises to come true in … Read More
Steps Priceless Peace Before I was halfway through my Ninth Step, I experienced, as the Big Book promises, a new freedom I’d never dreamed was possible: “Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th. ed., p. 84). I was free from the fear of financial insecurity. The feeling was new and odd. Much of my life had been … Read More
Recovery Relationships Freedoms Gained in OA First, I can go into a supermarket and not have to buy the sugars and carbs I’m addicted to. What a freedom and relief that is! “Not today!” I think to myself with gratitude. Also, I have the freedom to be happy in life and enjoy its pleasures. No longer is that dark shadow, the curse of addiction, crossing my … Read More
Steps Awakening Began Step Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Working the Twelve Steps of the OA program is what helped me most in recovery. For me, great help came from working the Fourth Step because it helped me get in touch with some very traumatic things that happened in my past. At first, the memories of these things … 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