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 …

The recovery Tools I have learned in OA have recently enabled me to overcome one of my greatest fears. I had always been terrified of heights, so when I heard that my coworkers and I would participate in a ropes course as part of our staff training—climbing sixty feet up in the air and balancing on ropes and small pieces …

I thought I had the OA program down. I knew what I needed to do. I had a plan of eating, and I worked my program. Everything was going great—or so I thought. After years of being abstinent and following my food plan, things began to change. Inexplicably, I started gaining weight. After going to a doctor with complaints of …

Unity plays a role for me in going to any length to recover. My sponsor told me to attend OA events, and not only was it good for my program, but also it was a service to support all the OA members who organized the event and all the others who attended. So often I need to make attendance a …

Attending World Service Business Conference as a delegate, I discovered how much responsibility is involved in shaping and maintaining the OA recovery framework from which we all benefit. Every policy and piece of literature goes through an extensive process that includes several layers of review and revision. Ordinary OA members participate in that development process, so our program’s resources are the …

Before I found abstinence and started working the Twelve Steps of OA, my life was falling apart in every way imaginable . . . My health was suffering from the extra 90 pounds (41 kg) I carried, and I was at risk of losing my job in the military because of my weight. If I lost my job, I would …

Every year since I was 13 years old, my New Year’s resolution had been to lose weight. It wasn’t until 2014, when I was 23, that I altered that New Year’s resolution to instead heal my relationship with food. After hitting bottom, bingeing every night on a wide variety of foods, my fear of change was overpowered by the pain …

I love reading and learning about the Steps and Traditions through our Twelve and Twelve literature (I am brand-new to any Twelve Step program). When I read Step Five for the first time, this sentence really stood out for me: “Honesty is a key factor in our recovery from compulsive eating, and so we will want to develop this trait” …

When I was new to recovery, I would call my sponsor and complain about circumstances and how hard it was to stay abstinent. My sponsor would suggest that I get a bigger God. It took me a while to really understand what she meant; I believed in God, but realized I wasn’t able to trust him. Through working the Steps, …

I recently did battle with another disease: shingles. I had so much nerve pain I could not go to meetings, and I felt abandoned. I was forced to make phone calls. Every OA member I called offered help and prayers. Even when I was hopeless, they gave me hope. Nerve pain is similar to the disease of compulsive overeating. Like …