Service Tools & Concepts Inexpensive Message I’ve found it useful to think about the groups of people I associate with and consider what I’ve done lately to be of service to them. Family, religious groups, Twelve Step groups, neighbors, friends, and volunteer site workers are some of the categories of people in this inventory. A recent look at my activities showed that I wasn’t doing much … Read More
Recovery Relationships Writing Away Resentments 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 … Read More
Sponsoring Tools & Concepts Abstinent, Loving Witness Active addiction leads to denial, and asking more of a sponsee than I do myself is a red flag. Stinking thinking says my extra weight doesn’t count because I carry it so well. Without abstinence, serenity eludes me, and I’m in bondage to self, reactive and thin skinned about feedback or comments. Boundaries get lost in a food fog, and … Read More
Steps The Big Payoff I took Step Nine, completely and thoroughly, thirty-one years ago. I’d been a compulsive thief and cheat and often a manipulator and bully, so I had a lot of cleaning up to do. My sponsor kept me at it, doing one thing each day. It might be searching for a phone number for someone I hadn’t seen in fifteen years, … Read More
Abstinence Blessings and Opportunities 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 … Read More
Recovery Working the Program Starter Recipe My spiritual breakfast is Step Eleven, and it’s the most important meal of each day. It nourishes my brain with fuel I need to have a fighting chance of serenity and abstinence in the twenty-four hours ahead. I try to do Step Eleven as soon as I wake. If I give my brain even half an hour in charge, my … Read More
Traditions Giving Back Studying and working the Seventh Tradition has been one of the most important gifts of my recovery from the disease of compulsive eating. Learning to do my part has taught me how to behave responsibly in all aspects of my life. Truly, I did not know that doing a service or making a donation could be the pathway for me … Read More
Anorexia & Bulimia Don’t Do It Alone I am a lifer. My disease is such that I can never leave OA. I spent a lifetime struggling to control my food and body, and the result was a soul-wrenching desperation to find another way. My disease takes a form I call “classic bulimia.” I binged until it hurt, threw up, and then binged again. It wasn’t always end-on-end … Read More
Share It Outside Issues A concern arose as I was reading the April 2017 issue. The article in “What Works for Me” and the “Send Us Your Stories!” box imply that OA is a place to set forward personal likes or dislikes as advice or suggestions. They also imply that exercising, taking baths, and having pets are promoted by OA. They may be good ideas … Read More
Steps Connection Bridge Step Eight: Made a list of all persons we had harmed and become willing to make amends to them all. The list of people I had harmed was very fresh in my mind the day I walked into OA. In fact, it was branded on my conscience and burned fiercely as shame whenever I encountered someone I had harmed. But … Read More