Light in Real Life First, I had to get past the mourning stage. I arrived at OA grieving the loss of my best friend, lover, and confidante—my go-to for any emotional relationship. Compulsive overeating had replaced many important relationships in my life, leaving me in a turbulent, one-sided, love-hate situation. OA was gentle in guiding me to a healthier state of mind, putting food … Read More
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
Finding Support I came into OA on May 31, 2013, fearful, bitter, angry, resentful, and worried about everything. When the Twelve Steps were read at my first meeting, I heard the First Step and thought, “How could this group of people possibly know me?” My life was unmanageable. I was on family leave to provide constant care to my husband. I was … Read More
A New Love Song In my late 30s, I got way too excited about writing songs with my church’s music director. For several months, as we collaborated, I flirted with him and got enmeshed with his dream of selling songs commercially. I’d always been overweight, but during this time I was so alight with creative and sexual energy that I barely slept or ate, … Read More
Applying Traditions, Accepting Others My oldest daughter in her early teens caused me a great many problems—this was in the mid-1990s. Coincidentally at that time, Lifeline featured a series of articles on various Traditions. During one of my weekly phone calls with my sponsor, I mentioned those Lifeline articles. She suggested I go through the Traditions and see how many of them applied to … Read More
From Mother to Child For many years I blamed my mother for conditions in our family that fostered my addictive nature and compulsive relationship with food. Because ours was such a confusing mixture of love and resentment, and because I never received the support and guidance I needed, I never thought I would want to bring a child into this world. Thank goodness for … Read More
Healing Relationships With OA Traditions I was one of those people who, when first arriving at OA is interested in all aspects of OA except for ____. And I had a list of what I was interested in and willing to give my time and attention to. The Twelve Steps? Yes. Telling someone what I ate? No. Getting a sponsor? No! Then came another bottom … Read More
Friends and Family—Reframed Recovery has allowed me to enjoy the pleasures of friendship, really for the first time since childhood. Now I can truly say that I am a friend and I have friends, both in and out of the rooms. When I was in the food, I was so unhappy I couldn’t be open to the often-subtle pleasures of friendship, such as … Read More
Present and Available I’m very grateful my partner is not a compulsive overeater or a manager of my recovery. Recovery has helped me have a more genuine relationship with him. Before OA, I just wanted him to go to bed so I could binge. I realized in OA that my primary relationship really was with food. This food focus also applied to friends … Read More
With Support and Love Being in Overeaters Anonymous has changed my life for the better and given me a different lease on life. More importantly, it has broken those chains that for forty years prevented me from living the full life that God desires me to live. I did not discover the root cause of why I overate until 2005, when I had a … Read More