Longtimers used to say, “Either you’ll get the God-thing, or you’ll put a gun in your mouth.” At a recent meeting, some men shared about having suicidal thoughts. I had been a part of that misanthropic club, so I may be a terminal case, but I’m not unique. The God-thing must be easier for religious folks. I can’t buy a …

Freedom from the guilt of overeating—what a concept! Before OA, guilt wrenched me. It was my fault I was fat and unable to do something about it. I’m glad I jumped out of that depressing cycle. Without the guilt I can focus on recovery, which should have been my primary concern anyway! The path of recovery led me to eat …

Happy, joyous, and free is what we can be in this Twelve Step program. Attitude change—the only person we focus on changing is ourselves. Prayer is suggested as a form of meditation—a strong component of the Eleventh Step. Problems begin to lose the magnitude they once had (when we do the necessary Step work). You need never be alone again—we …

In the “Kingdom of OA,” December 12 is officially Twelfth Step Within Day. We members of Region Eight’s Twelfth Step Within Committee address the twelfth day of every month as a day to reach out to still-suffering OA members, and on “twelve-twelve” (December 12), we double down. Everyone in OA acknowledges this official designation. According to my TSW Committee’s website, we …

Gratitude was not part of my vocabulary until I walked into an OA meeting. At times, I may have experienced gratitude or been aware of it, but I never verbalized it. Since coming to OA, I am aware of my gratitude on so many levels. First, I’m grateful that such an organization exists and is available to me wherever I …

Step Eleven: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Recently, I found myself in a place of fear, and my gut reaction is to want to control the world around me to feel safe. My …

At last night’s meeting, my group read the April 17 entry in For Today (p. 108). Writing on the topic of “love in action” convinced me to be more questioning and honest about working the Twelve Steps. My main takeaway was the idea that love is expressed in actions. Words of love, in and of themselves, are insufficient. I have …

I’m a recovering anorexic and bulimic. I have over seven years of not purging, over six years of not weighing myself, and over five years of not restricting. I’m a firm believer that, with time, abstaining gets easier. What I learned this week, however, is there will be days when that doesn’t feel true. Three weeks ago, I had a …

Before I got involved in service at the intergroup level, I hadn’t given a lot of thought to intergroups and what they do. Now, I see all the services they provide and what we would miss if we lost our intergroup. Our web page, telephone answering service, meeting lists, equipment, speakers list, Fellowship-wide celebrations like IDEA Day, communications with region and …

At our meetings, before the meeting is opened up for sharing, someone always reads the statement on cross talk from the Suggested Meeting Format, so that members are aware of guidelines for sharing. Recently the leader of our meeting slipped: instead of asking for a volunteer to read the statement about cross talk, she asked, “Who would like to read …