Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Google+ Share on Reddit Share on Pinterest Share on Linkedin Share on Tumblr It was a rainy evening, and I was tired and unmotivated. I did not relish the thought of taking my daughter home, grabbing dinner, and paying for the gas to go all the way back to my meeting in the town where I’d just finished work. But I was struggling that week, and I needed a meeting. I decided, as I have many times before, that I would attend a phone meeting instead. To be certain I’d follow through, I called an OA friend nearby and asked if we could do the phone meeting together. We listened in on a ninety-day meeting, where OA members with ninety or more consecutive days of abstinence are encouraged to share, and newcomers and others introduce themselves at the end and can get phone numbers. It was very inspiring and humbling to listen to the reading from the Big Book about being “like men who have lost their legs; they never grow new ones” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., p. 30). I heard people from around the US with twenty-five or more years of abstinence all echo the same truth, that they still need daily reminders that their once-normal eating habits will never return, that they will never grow the legs that would let them pass as normal eaters. I cannot describe the energy, inspiration, and encouragement that such a meeting kindles in me. I highly recommend that all OA members explore the various types of meetings to make up for missed face-to-face meetings or to supplement our recovery with extra meetings. Meeting-makers make it, so make it to an online or phone meeting this month! — Edited and reprinted from Road to Recovery newsletter, South Central Pennsylvania Intergroup, April 2011
