I never thought I could or would even be willing to have an abstinent holiday season, but by the grace of God and what I’ve learned in this Fellowship over the past year, I did. Not that I didn’t gaze lovingly at some of my binge foods, but at each moment I had a choice to make: the choice between …

God has blessed me with more than twenty-five years of abstinence, and I am still grateful every day. The most important day for me to be abstinent is today. I was in OA seven years before I got abstinent, and I’ve been abstinent ever since, praise be to my HP. During those seven years, I experimented with abstinence and also …

By my age, I’ve learned that setting down New Year’s resolutions is a hopeless and futile exercise. Last year, however, as a new calendar year began, I realized that I needed to take inventory of my life and my whole program, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I needed to be honest and admit that something I had been rationalizing was a …

I have been maintaining my abstinence through illness, one day at a time, for the past eighteen months, and I am so grateful to other abstinent fellows who had shared with me, prior to my diagnosis, that they faced chronic health conditions. I thought it was a miracle they were abstinent despite their ill health. Then I was diagnosed with …

Food was my best friend for a long time. I had a troubled childhood, and excess food numbed the difficult emotions and gave me comfort. I managed to comfort myself up to 292 pounds (133 kg) by the time I was 26 years old, and I stayed close to that weight for five years. I tried every diet out there, …

I have been reading Lifeline for years and have loved many articles, but this is the first time I felt compelled to respond to an article. I really loved “You Just Might Be” (February 2019), which lists off many indicators, in a humorous way, to tell if you’re abstinent or not. I could relate so much! The first time I …

I’ve lived most of my life in New Jersey, the Garden State, so you’d think I’d be used to eating an abundance of homegrown fruits and vegetables. Au contraire, my OA friends: I grew up with little interest in natural produce, though just outside the New Jersey Turnpike are thousands of fruit and vegetable stands to visit. No, my exclusive …

Recovery in the workplace certainly has its challenges for me. I’m the receptionist for a big organization with a large lobby area. Constantly, lunch spreads and snacks are placed right in front of my desk area. Having to see and smell these items, which are usually off my food plan, can make workplace abstinence a real battlefield for me. I …

Before I came home to OA, it didn’t take much to send me to the food. While stress and other emotions were obvious reasons for me to bury myself in junk food, other feelings— physical ones like being tired or in pain—also gave me all the excuses I needed to overeat. I had no spiritual life either, so I only …

Half my family is from a very small town in Kentucky, and redneck jokes are often shared at family events, no matter how many times I roll my eyes in protest. Recently, during one of my daily conversations with my sponsor (the kind you think will be simple but turn out to be amazing) I shared about a mini-vacation from …