Tools & Concepts Higher Prescriber My action plan is a prescription for recovery from my food addiction: Eat three moderate, weighed-and measured meals Pray morning, day, night, and as needed Connect daily with my sponsor and OA friends Attend two to three face-to-face OA meetings a week Read OA-approved literature and other recovery and spiritual books two to three times a day, or more as … Read More
Recovery Working the Program Whatever and However As a sickly kid, I learned to be dependent on my mother. She made all the decisions for me, and I learned that I was incapable of picking myself up when I fell. She was judgemental and emotionally abusive—a rageaholic and compulsive overeater. At age five, my clothes fit tightly because I was fat. I ate to bury the pain, … Read More
Steps Traditions The Springboard I never destroy my Fourth Step work, so I can quickly make an Eighth Step amends list using the folks I mentioned in Step Four. But my Eighth Step list often includes more names than I’d written before. There are always more people I have harmed, even people toward whom I hold no negative feelings whatsoever, not even resentment. I … Read More
Sponsoring Tools & Concepts What If At a recent OA business meeting, our discussion revolved around member retention: how can we keep newcomers and other members coming back? After the meeting, a person near me said, “What if . . . what if everyone here took on one more sponsee?” What if? What if? This churned in my mind for over a week as I thought … Read More
Gratitude Recovery Blessings Count As a child, I was taught that if you have nothing nice to say, then say nothing at all. Now that I’m a member of Overeaters Anonymous, that axiom takes a different slant: if I have nothing nice to say, it’s time to count my blessings. So here is today’s gratitude list: I am grateful for the people in my life. … Read More
Relapse Twelfth Step Within Packet Project Assemble Twelfth Step Within packets to give to struggling members! Place these packets on your literature table or hand them out at a Twelfth Step Within event. The packets might include: A current list of local OA meetings with contact names and telephone numbers A list of names and phone numbers of those willing to sponsor A list of names … Read More
Steps Amending Fear and Shame Step Eight: Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. For so long, I’ve felt like I lived on an island inside a stone fortress. I lived this way because I believed that people wouldn’t like me and would eventually try to harm me. I hid my feelings, actions, and … Read More
Anorexia & Bulimia Don’t Do It Alone I am a lifer. My disease is such that I can never leave OA. I spent a lifetime struggling to control my food and body, and the result was a soul-wrenching desperation to find another way. My disease takes a form I call “classic bulimia.” I binged until it hurt, threw up, and then binged again. It wasn’t always end-on-end … Read More