Meetings Still Possible When I started going to meetings years ago, I went to face-to-face meetings. I thought attending face-to-face meetings each week was the only way I could work program. However, in the past two years I have struggled with health issues, making weekly attendance at face-to-face meetings impossible. During this time, I discovered new ways to work my OA program. Now, … Read More
Abstinence Need–to–Dos These are things I do to maintain abstinence: I have a sponsor. Although I often complain, procrastinate, and argue, I eventually become willing to do what my sponsor asks. I work the Steps with my sponsor. I call my sponsor almost daily to commit my food to him. I have a food plan. I know what abstinence means for me: … Read More
Fellowship Tools & Concepts Prayers Answered I always start the story of my first sponsor by saying it was totally a “God thing.” I was living in Heidelberg, the only German city at the time with an English-speaking OA meeting. Being new, I needed a sponsor, so I used the Sponsor by Mail program, which was pages and pages of names and mailing addresses of people … Read More
Working the Program Caring is the Key I have developed a repertoire of activities I can engage in instead of eating compulsively. My overeating often stemmed from a misguided attempt at self-care; I thought I could make myself feel better by eating. Therefore, my efforts to avoid overeating revolve around taking better physical, emotional, and spiritual care of myself: I write about what I am feeling and … Read More
Relapse Slipping & Sliding Newly Willing I joined OA in January 2016. Though I consistently attended meetings, I could not get more than four months of continuous abstinence. Program has been a miracle—I remember a time when I couldn’t go more than twenty-four hours without bingeing, restricting, or over-exercising—but I still found myself frustrated. Slips began with compulsive habits creeping back: taking little nibbles of food … Read More
Diversity Promise to My Granny When I was young, my granny always told me it’s what’s on the inside that matters, but I couldn’t help but see myself as ugly, fat, and disgusting. In seventh grade, I weighed 145 pounds (66 kg), and I started restricting my food and exercising two hours every day. I lost 20 pounds (9 kg) in three weeks. People flattered … 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