I have been in the rooms of OA for five years. I have been relieved of 91 pounds (41 kg). I have been in and out of relapse and have heard many stories of fellows who suffered terribly in this disease. I did not understand the phrase “we use food to stuff emotions we do not want to feel” until …

When I used to exercise compulsively, I had a saying I would use to keep hydrated: “When you think, drink.” Now that I am abstinent, I no longer exercise compulsively. But I use a similar method to make outreach calls. Whenever my intuition (also known as my HP’s will) tells me I should really make a call, I immediately grab …

The most profound change after OA is in the quality of my relationships. When I face a challenging situation with another person, recovery gives me a moment of pause to rein in my temper, take responsibility for my feelings, and then speak and act from a place of compassionate acceptance. I’m particularly grateful for the ability to be more calm …

Every year since I was 13 years old, my New Year’s resolution had been to lose weight. It wasn’t until 2014, when I was 23, that I altered that New Year’s resolution to instead heal my relationship with food. After hitting bottom, bingeing every night on a wide variety of foods, my fear of change was overpowered by the pain …

For half my life, I felt like some kind of awful, monstrous presence—peculiar, pessimistic, and pathetic. I had a dark secret that even I didn’t know about, and almost every action I took was viewed as negative. At home, I was a scapegoat, and at school, I was a crybaby; but wherever I was, I always felt like something from …

I had been out of bed for exactly eight minutes, and the disease was right in my face, a force that almost knocked me over. I was totally into resentment. “Woe is me. It takes so long to prepare my abstinent breakfast. I could be doing other things.” Then, quickly, powerfully, and closer, the voice of Higher Power. Today, it …

Step Two says we “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” There is also a line in AA’s Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions that says, “Take it easy. The hoop you have to jump through is a lot wider than you think” (p. 26). To me, this describes the leap of faith of replacing …

I weighed 240 pounds (109 kg) when I first entered OA. Even though I stalked the rooms for two years, calling the hotline, looking for local meetings, I didn’t have the guts to step through the door. But in September 2010, I was approached by a colleague who invited me to give OA a try. I went that night and …

I’ve been working on my food ideals (how I want to behave around food) and asking God to help me. Since I forget sometimes how good it feels to take actions that deny my disease’s power, I want to write them down on a night when God gave me the willingness to act according to the ideals I’ve been thinking …

I recently attended our local OA Unity Day celebration about an hour away from my home. On the drive to get there, I had time to contemplate my life now and compare it to the year before when I also attended this event. At first, my mind was prone to go to the negative side—I’m a year older, tired, and …