Steps Traditions Accessible to All When I showed up at my first OA meeting, I did not have the desire to stop eating compulsively. I was morbidly obese and had lost and gained large amounts of weight throughout my life. My desires back then were different. I wanted to be thin. I wanted the emotional pain to stop. I wanted a reason to continue living. … Read More
Recovery Working the Program Abstinent Past My Expiration Date I am a compulsive overeater. Before coming to OA, I tried many diets and weight-loss programs. I always lost the 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 pounds but promptly gained it all back and then some. After losing my three-year-old daughter, I wasn’t able to diet and lose weight anymore. When I finally came to OA in 1973, I came … Read More
Diversity Newcomers Threefold Accountability One night, my sponsor asked me how I would feel about putting my scales away and only weighing myself every thirty days. At first, I was like, “What? You have to be kidding me!” I loved to weigh every day because it gave me a measuring stick for my progress. But I was in the program, literally willing to do … Read More
Telephone Tools & Concepts From Phone to Photograph: the Next Right Thing It was 10:30 in the morning, and I was in a dangerous state of mind. I had just broken a promise to myself and gotten on my scale, only to find that its number had not budged a bit. I stared out the kitchen window, my mind racing. “What good is this? I have been abstinent, writing all my food … Read More
Anorexia & Bulimia Not “Too” Scale “Scale Sanity” (July 2017, pp. 8-9) describes very well some of my own crazy behavior with scales, and the writer discovered a “scale abstinence” that is similar to mine. I wish to thank the writer for her pre-scale prayer. That was something I was missing in my program, so I will remember it. As an anorexic, I get irrational satisfaction … Read More
Relapse & Recovery Surrender for Freedom I felt fat from the time I was in kindergarten. Though only slightly heavier than other girls, I was obsessed with my size. I always daydreamed of returning from summer vacation magically thin, suddenly popular, and beloved. As my disease progressed, it morphed through an all-consuming cycle of binge eating, dieting, and exercise bulimia—of self-loathing and self-punishment. After ten years … Read More
Recovery Loving Acceptance My journey in physical recovery has been full of ups and downs, much like the number on my scale before I came into program. I once believed that if I could wear a size 16 in jeans (stretchy jeans, that is), then I could live a fulfilled life; I truly believed I would die happy in a size 16. My Higher … Read More
