Thank you for Lifeline magazine. My latest issue arrived two days ago, and, as always, it gave me insight, contact, Tools, and a feeling of connection. About fourteen years ago, I lived in Houston, Texas. I was sick of my obsessive eating behavior and sick of resorting to strict diets or fasts to make up for bingeing. I had heard …

We buried Bibs today. He was almost 20 years old. Bibs helped me with my OA program in death and in life. Alive, he opened me to the insanity of my anger at his being a cat, insistent about being fed on his schedule, not mine. Writing about my anger, I discovered I was angry about my own food plan. …

These are things I do to maintain abstinence: I have a sponsor. Although I often complain, procrastinate, and argue, I eventually become willing to do what my sponsor asks. I work the Steps with my sponsor. I call my sponsor almost daily to commit my food to him. I have a food plan. I know what abstinence means for me: …

My “home” has been under renovation for the past sixty-five years. When I first walked into OA rooms in 1977, my home was mangled, beaten down, and full of holes. My efforts alone were not working, but it was hard to trust the process. I had failed so many times, and I did not want to wait—I was constantly frustrated. …

I am a 62-year-old male, and since I came into program at the end of March 2015, my marriage has been restored and my family is mostly on good terms with me. My depression has lifted. I have excellent friendships inside and outside the Fellowship, and I feel a joy in daily living I had not felt for forty or …

I don’t really know how a computer works. People with comprehension greater than mine designed this amazing tool. But I don’t need to understand all the intricacies of a computer in order to use one. If I just follow simple directions, I can do pretty amazing things with words and pictures, such as send and receive messages in a flash, …

There are so many useful slogans in OA. I have heard them at meetings and read them in our literature. I have underlined them, highlighted them, and written them down in a notebook for later review, but there’s one I find especially inspiring. When I first came into program I didn’t like the phrase “One day at a time.” In my mind …

How to live life on life’s terms was the most important lesson I learned during my deployment in 2015. I’m a member of the U.S. Navy, and I spent more than seven months on a ship sailing across the ocean. The ship’s menu did not cater to me. The hours of food service did not cater to me. My work …

I came into OA in the middle of 2008. At the time I weighed just over 80 kilograms (176 lbs) and was on the way up. It was the most I had ever weighed. I believed I was going to end up obese, and I didn’t care. From the age of 15, I had been experimenting with diet pills, never …

Over twenty-two years ago, after six years of being in OA, I finally accepted that there were certain foods I could not begin to eat without developing uncontrollable cravings. My six years of recovery/relapse cycles and my thirty-five years of yo-yo dieting were suddenly explained. It was clear: In order for me to be abstinent, I had to eliminate those …