In managing food addiction, there is no “putting it up on a shelf and never touching it again;” it’s an ongoing challenge to keep food within boundaries that are now set and kept. For me, it is also the same with sex. I have to keep my thinking within certain healthy boundaries whenever I think about sex or myself as …

Before I found abstinence and started working the Twelve Steps of OA, my life was falling apart in every way imaginable . . . My health was suffering from the extra 90 pounds (41 kg) I carried, and I was at risk of losing my job in the military because of my weight. If I lost my job, I would …

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 …

Before OA, my life was a constant struggle. It was me against the world, and I couldn’t lower my defenses, or I’d be eaten alive. It was very stressful and tiring. Lack of trust was one of my biggest problems. I grew up in a family in which anything you said could be used against you. I craved trust and …

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 am a compulsive overeater recovering a day at a time in OA, down 86 pounds (39 kg) and abstinent for almost ten years by the grace of God and this amazing Fellowship. I have been meaning to share my experience, strength, and hope in the area of sex relations for a while. Last spring and summer, I faced a …

After being abstinent for a few years and keeping off 75 pounds (34 kg), I have a special Eighth Step amends to make— an amends to my body. I owe you amends for more than thirty-five years of stuffing and starving you; shaming and scolding you; shutting you up; shutting you down; disregarding your cries; and trying to cut myself …

I came into Overeaters Anonymous more than nineteen years ago weighing 250 pounds (113 kg). I thought I was one of God’s biggest mistakes. I hated myself. I hated my body. I recall looking in the mirror and wishing I could just take a knife and cut off all the fat rolls. I got a sponsor at my first OA …

It is an interesting question, “How have I adjusted to life at a healthy body weight?” I have almost always been at a healthy body weight, except when I was borderline anorexic or when my weight zigzagged up to 35 pounds (16 kg) overweight. For most of my adult life, I have been within a normal weight range, but I got …

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 …