How OA Changed My Life Unwrapping For me, being a compulsive overeater is a gift. It came wrapped in ugly, grimy paper, but it’s still a gift. The ugly paper represents how my illness treated me: It made me eat so much I got really fat, made it so that even if did lose weight I gained it back, and it made a glutton of me. … Read More
Tools & Concepts Building Blocks 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. … Read More
Service Live and Learn—and Serve If I accept the circumstances I am in, I am given the opportunity to learn and serve. To learn and serve is the agreement I made when I entered the Twelve Step program: Accept—Learn—Serve. When I came to understand I had a disorder that made me different from many other people, and when I came to accept I would have … Read More
Fellowship Tools & Concepts Pass It On My first few years in OA, I was working the Twelve Step program my own way. It didn’t work. I heard the suggestion to get a sponsor, so I did—several times— but I never bothered to talk to them. After four of the most painful years of my existence, having one foot in the Fellowship and the other pointing outward, … Read More
Fellowship Tools & Concepts Someone to Practice On I didn’t want advice. I didn’t want to go through another person to get to God. I had isolated to perfection—and then I learned what a sponsor could be for me. I still have my first sponsor, and for a brief time, I had an additional sponsor from whom I gleaned a tremendous amount. For me, a sponsor is a … Read More
Higher Power The Still, Small Voice There is a voice that lives within me. It is calm and soothing and always steers me to the right course, even when my will wants to go the other way. This is the voice of my Higher Power, ever steady and always present. When I’m faced with a difficult decision, this is the voice that guides me. This is … Read More
Working the Program Know-How 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, … Read More
Writing The Next Write Action Fear almost crippled me into inaction this week. I’d begun a new venture but found myself catastrophizing over events out of my control. Now, I know how recovery works. I learn more each day and have been blessed with sixteen years in our program. I find solutions in my God and the Steps, and they have never once let me … Read More
Higher Power Another Leap “Act as if” was a concept I found hard to comprehend. Fake it until you make it? Wouldn’t that be lying to myself and being something I’m not? I just did not get it. I had always been encouraged to do things I wanted to do, but never felt that I could. My excuses varied: I was too fat. I … Read More
Abstinence Simple and Sane After more than five years in OA, I can look back and see the grace of my Higher Power in the early actions of my sponsor when she immediately suggested we work through The Twelve-Step Workbook of Overeaters Anonymous. One of the earliest benefits of our work together was that I became aware of how much time, energy, and effort I’d … Read More
