Steps Traditions My Part of Together OA’s Twelve Traditions offer guidelines on how we can all get along. Simply put, we come into OA from diverse cultures, backgrounds, beliefs, personalities, and defects, so these guidelines are necessary for our survival as an organization. It is no surprise, then, that unity should be our First Tradition. This tradition forms the cornerstone of our organization; it’s how we … Read More
Diversity Recovery Around the World Better Than Smooth I live in a small town, and we’re a pretty homogenous group racially and culturally. But I have some thirty years of attending OA, and my early years were in a larger city. This city was very diverse, and I struggled with that somewhat in my work and in my neighborhood. Diversity was causing more problems than I could imagine, … Read More
Diversity Recovery Around the World We All Qualify I am a compulsive overeater of a common variety, and there is little about me personally that would not fit right into the least diverse of OA meetings. I am female, white, and I have been in OA for six years with four years of continuous abstinence. I came into the rooms of OA morbidly obese and now am at … Read More
Diversity Recovery Around the World What Matters More When I first heard the phrase, “But I’m too weak! I’ll never make it,” from Our Invitation to You, I translated it to something else in my mind: “But I’m too different! I’ll never be accepted.” I worried if I didn’t see other people like me in the meeting, then I couldn’t safely share about the details of my life. … Read More
Anorexia & Bulimia Diversity Until I Could I am grateful to have been accepted in OA as a person who is not overweight and is a lesbian. My eating disorder began at age 14, when I became aware of my sexual orientation. The thought of being gay was so reprehensible to me that I began hiding myself from myself; I created a distraction by obsessing about food … Read More
Anorexia & Bulimia Diversity Balanced Prescription My first OA meeting was in 1980. I was a college student, sick from bouts of anorexia and bulimia, and afraid I would not be “as sick” as others in the rooms. Sure enough, my first impressions were that I was different; I was the thinnest and youngest in the room; and maybe I didn’t belong there. During the meeting … Read More