My ex-husband and I divorced about five and a half years into my recovery. It was a painful process, but the Tools and Traditions of the OA program sustained me in a variety of ways: Service. Initially, I served as convention treasurer to give me a focus on something other than the divorce. Sponsorship and telephone. I relied more on …

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 …

Growing up in the home of an alcoholic father with my six other siblings seemed easy while I was in it. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered I was having problems because of it. ln my 60s, I started to notice a problem with food, one that I had to admit had been there all my life. It …

Why did I feel like eating? I was working on my Eighth and Ninth Steps—that should have been a clue right there—and I just could not get rid of the hatred I felt toward my grandmother. “Boys don’t cry!”—that’s what she said! So I ate instead, up to over 400 pounds (181 kg)! I knew I wasn’t supposed to hate her, …

I imagine many members of OA have issues with their parents. Here is how I solved my problem with my mother. My mom and I never got along because she was so controlling and at times was abusive during my childhood. I felt completely controlled by her and also misunderstood and, frankly, unrecognized for who I was. I started eating …

I work a pretty structured program and sometimes hear people talk about “rigidity” when they refer to things that I do gladly. It’s spiritually liberating, and has given me fourteen abstinent years so far, so I’m a happy boy. I choose a disciplined approach because I made a deal with God that I would do my share to maintain a …

Here is what has helped me get abstinent: Planning out my food for the next twenty-four hours and making my lunch and snack night before. Making a commitment to my OA sponsor (by phone or email) of what I will eat for the next twenty-four hours. If I need to change it, I call her ahead of time. Being rigorously …

Although I have been in the program for five years, I do not deeply understand the concept of relapse. I ask two questions: First, how can I realize that I relapsed? Second, what are the relapse symptoms and signs? Here are some answers given by abstinent members in a meeting on this topic: Definition of relapse: Relapse, for me, is …