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 life.

I am free to be present with family and friends: I’m not obsessively thinking about when and how I could get food, where I could hide it, and how I would offset the inevitable binge.

I am free to try new things, to be an adventurer in life on whatever scale. I’m told that recovery is right outside my comfort zone, and I’m willing and open to experience that.

I’m more and more free of the resentments that plagued my emotional life. Through the Fourth Step inventory process, I can examine my difficulties with others and make amends where I’m wrong. (Understanding the concept of “my part,” which is so integral to Step work, is a boon that “normies,” people without food addiction, might never experience.)

I’m free to become the person God means me to be spiritually, emotionally, physically, and vocationally. My growth was stunted through all those years of active food addiction. Now in OA, I am able in some sense to reclaim the years lost to compulsive overeating.

I’m free to let others go: people I resent and people I love (often they are one and the same). I have learned in the rooms that these people, too, have a Higher Power overseeing their journeys in life. I’ve learned that I am powerless over others’ pain, as much as I would like to alleviate it; the best service I can offer them is to pray they find peace.

I am free finally to live, really live; to love, really love; and to experience the spiritual, emotional, and physical growth this program promises and delivers.

— Christina R., New Jersey USA