Struggling with food? You're not alone!

I first began to attend Overeaters Anonymous many years ago. I was fortunate to have hit a very hard bottom with my health and bulimia struggles, so swiftly sought a sponsor and began working the steps in earnest. Much to my surprise, abstinence came rather easy for me despite my eating disorder of more than […]

For years, I’ve heard people in Overeaters Anonymous meetings talk about the importance of ‘willingness.’ In fact, many for whom abstinence had been but a hoped for dream, shared that they were struggling to find that ‘willingness,’ and even praying ‘to become willing to be willing.’ I thought I was willing, but when things got […]

My plan of eating has evolved over 30 years in program. From early on, I defined my abstinence as “what, when, and why I do not eat.” I am grateful for the grace that allowed me to realize from my first meeting that, as a member of this fellowship, I had to abstain from chocolate. […]

Although I never admitted to this before coming to Overeaters Anonymous, I struggled for decades with uncontrollable nighttime eating. Recovery from compulsive eating and sugar addiction was but a far-fetched dream for the vast majority of my life. It was a secret longing, but never something I would talk about out loud – especially not […]

There was a time when cooking was a huge chore and not something I would ever consider doing on a daily basis when there were fast food restaurants and shops where I could swing by and grab the foods of my choice, even if I ate most of it before ever setting foot in the […]

I know we don’t talk about it a lot at meeting level, but “grief” is a thing that has served as a trigger for a large amount of my compulsivity around food. In fact, I suspect it was a primary underlying cause for my food addiction and disordered eating. Like some of us in the […]

Today is a good day. Why? Because, just for today, I am ‘enough.’ For as long as I can remember, I NEVER felt enough. Not enoughness, inadequacy, feelings of being a failure or a disappointment, ruminating thoughts of being ‘broken’ or ‘a mistake’ – all of this ‘head junk’ forever repeating itself between my ears […]

In Twelve Step recovery programs, the message isn’t to be occasionally honest, or to try to be honest, but to practice “rigorous honesty.” But what does this actually mean? In the rooms of OA recovery, I learned that “honesty” is defined as “devoid of all motives to deceive.” If we look more closely at Step […]

My family is from Italy and came over to the US on a boat back in the late 1940’s. Although they are all exceedingly slim and healthy (most of them living to ripe, old ages), I was the exception in that I struggled mightily with my weight from nearly the moment I was born. While […]

“And they lived happily ever-after.” I grew up on fanciful fairytales and the happy-endings of Disney movies. How many of them ended with that famous one-liner?  “And they lived happily ever after.” In coming into OA (after years of binge eating, sugar addiction, and endless fixing with food), my belief was that when/after I reach […]

You’ve likely noticed the multitude of news headlines and social media posts regarding “easy” and “dramatic” weight loss resulting from “a simple weekly injection,” along with the promise of that injection being made available “in the near future” as a simple little pill. Such a “magic pill” was once the ultimate dream for this compulsive […]

A Requirement for Recovery In addition to having a sincere desire to stop eating compulsively, rigorous honesty is possibly the most important factor in success in recovery. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous clearly states: Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people […]