Keep Coming Back Relapse Balance in Program The week before Unity Day, I made a commitment to call three people whom I had not seen in many months. I left three messages, and one called me back. She was happy to hear my voice, but said, “I just cannot stand to do all the work this program requires: the prep, planning, shopping, and precooking, and the reading … Read More
Recovery Working the Program Our Shared Solution We recover together or not at all. This is the “we” in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. OA is not an “I” program. I tried the “I” program. It was all I knew; wasn’t I supposed to apply my will to problems and overcome them? But my food issues were impervious to my efforts. I was stuck. And 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
Diversity Newcomers Long Shot Win Overeaters Anonymous seemed like a long shot to me. How could it help me? I didn’t have serious weight issues—but my eating was out of control. I certainly was a compulsive eater. I spent most of my day obsessing about what to eat. Should I eat some protein or maybe more greens or perhaps just give up and eat potato … Read More
Telephone Tools & Concepts Call, Read, Write, Share I was sitting at my kitchen counter doing job-related work. I’d been struggling with food, and I had spent a lot of that day crying as I thought to myself, I am never going to be free. My phone rang, and I didn’t recognize the number. I contemplated not answering, but something prompted me to pick it up. I was … Read More
Meetings Tools & Concepts First Meeting Back The seed of OA was planted in this compulsive person’s head in 2002 when I was 19 years old, but I was not yet ready to accept the fact that I was a compulsive overeater. Fast-forward to 2015: at 31 years old, I was at the end of my rope—I’d lost my will to fight for myself and was questioning … Read More
Diversity Newcomers Search Support It was May of 2015, and I was up 30 pounds (14 kg) after a yearlong sugar binge. Although I’d been on a constant roller coaster of losing and gaining, this was the biggest weight gain I’d experienced in seven years. It was also the low point when I began to realize my powerlessness over food. I had not yet … Read More
Atheists & Agnostics Higher Power Port of Call My spiritual journey in OA started like a ship in a sea of confusion. How could I understand God’s plan for me, or take Steps Three and Eleven—surrender to, and maintain conscious contact with, God as I understood him—when I don’t believe that I, as a human, can understand God? My ship visited many ports of discovery. In Port One, … Read More
Relapse Relapse & Recovery Callback I am just coming back from a bingeing relapse that started with me eating two pints of ice cream as an appetizer. I went out searching for a 24-hour grocery store at 4 o’clock in the morning on Christmas Eve to buy ice cream. I ended up at a gas station in an area so crime-ridden that there was an … Read More
Service Tools & Concepts Give It Some G-A-S When I came into OA in 1983, I was taught early on about the G-A-S that makes the program run: Gratitude, Abstinence, and Service. I started my service by giving rides to meetings, arranging for my two daughters to babysit so young mothers could get to meetings, and making at least three phone calls every day. I set up the … Read More