Steps Tools & Concepts Traditions Acceptance Without Issue During any political election, I am especially thankful for OA’s Tradition Ten: “Overeaters Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues.” I know I can go to a meeting and no one will talk about the candidates or the issues. I am very aware that some members are strongly supporting a policy that is different than mine. At other occasions outside … Read More
Steps Traditions Saying the Words Step Ten: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. Most days, I take personal inventory at the end of the day. It helps me sleep. I inventory fears, resentments, and stressful thoughts and beliefs. Wrongs seem to stem from those. I also list gratitudes, but not the things I think I should be grateful for. … Read More
Steps Traditions Imagine If Tradtion Nine: OA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. Tradition Nine is kind of buried, and it seems like one of those boring maxims about how we set up shop. Yeah, yeah, so we can have an intergroup and world service, isn’t that special . . … Read More
Steps Traditions Skye’s No-Limit Step Nine: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. As a compulsive eater, I need to ask my Higher Power to guide every aspect of my life. The littlest thing can easily tip me off-balance. Lately, my home renovations resulted in impulsive online purchases. I’ve been asking God for … 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
Steps Priceless Peace Before I was halfway through my Ninth Step, I experienced, as the Big Book promises, a new freedom I’d never dreamed was possible: “Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th. ed., p. 84). I was free from the fear of financial insecurity. The feeling was new and odd. Much of my life had been … Read More
Steps Morning Crossing When I drew this picture, I realized that I was like the baby loon on its mother’s back. If I try to venture out alone, I am facing a lot of danger from my disease, which hides below the surface. So every morning, I have to turn over my will to God and ride along, safe because God cares for … Read More
Steps Stepping to Freedom Entering the rooms of OA nearly three decades ago, I anticipated that I’d be given a diet based on restriction and deprivation. I never dreamed I’d be given a life-enriching recovery program and the freedoms in each of OA’s Twelve Steps: Step One. Admission of my powerlessness means freedom from my mental obsession with food, allowing expanded space in my … Read More
Steps Traditions Presently Unchained The OA program encourages us to live one day at a time. In other words, that says to me, “Live in today.” I heard a cute story about a man who was dragging a chain behind him on the sidewalk. Another man asked him, “Why are you dragging that chain?” To which he replied, “Have you ever tried pushing one … Read More
Keep Coming Back Relapse One Thing Changed I have not always had a weight problem, but I’ve always had the disease of compulsive overeating. Before age 13, the disease did not show up on my body, because I was using the fuel to grow. But it was definitely at work between my ears, manifesting mentally through my obsession with sweets and other binge foods and spiritually through … Read More