Recovery Cleaning House I haven’t read much about how overeating’s unmanageability is reflected in the disorganization in our homes. My eating compulsion began with a vengeance when I left home for college in the early sixties. I coped with stress and insecurity by taking food from roommates’ care packages and money from their purses to feed the candy machines downstairs. (Later while in … Read More
Recovery Consequences and Magic I came into OA when I was 35, after realizing that I felt about food the way alcoholics feel about liquor. If I started eating, I didn’t stop until the food was gone. But I didn’t understand being powerless over food; I just wanted to lose weight and move on. You can’t die from food, I thought. Well, I had … Read More
Diversity Newcomers One Meeting A light bulb went on in my head. I got it! After reading the Twelve Steps, I realized my stress and my worries were causing my overeating. Now I put all of that in God’s hands. I don’t worry anymore. It’s wonderful! It’s like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I now get Lifeline, and I’m very aware … Read More
Newcomers Pleased to Believe I just attended my first and second ever OA meetings. In 2013, I lost 80 pounds (36 kg) in seven months using powdered food, veggies, and prescribed medicines under a bariatric doctor’s care. That diet was not sustainable, and now I’ve gained all the weight back, plus 10 pounds (5 kg) more. I knew all along that I could not … Read More
Traditions Tradition 2: Seeing the Love Five or six years ago, I was involved in OA service work within my region. To aid my interactions with the personalities I encountered, I read recovery literature on Tradition Two. Over time, it slowly occurred to me that this Tradition was inviting me to have a relationship with a loving Higher Power. It came with the awareness that I … Read More
Higher Power God Shows Up While I was raised with a concept of God, I used to wonder how God could exist in the chaos and fat that surrounded my life. I must have been cursed! I am thankful God knew better than I did. Over and over, it was as if he were saying, “It’s okay, honey. I’m here for you when you are … Read More
How OA Changed My Life Feeling Good I have been thinking about how proficient I was at feeling bad, and how I am now learning to feel good. My food compulsion started at age 7, which is when the worrying began as well as before-school stomachaches, bad dreams, fear at bedtime, and the chameleon-like behavior I developed to deal with people who were different from me or … Read More
Atheists & Agnostics I’m Not God When the OA speaker said, “I lost a whole person,” it shook me to my core. I needed to do that. Not a whole adult person, just a 30-pound (14-kg), scrawny three-year-old. His picture looked at me from 1951, sitting in the wagon with his two younger siblings, them looking like kids, him looking like desperation to please the photographer. … Read More
Atheists & Agnostics Pathway to Salvation I don’t consider myself a religious person. Although recovery has reconnected me in some ways to the religion of my youth, it does not define my concept of Higher Power. Too often a physical manifestation of Higher Power eludes me. As a child I yearned for the simple belief depicted in the church where I attended a youth program—a gentle … Read More