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 […]
Category Archives: Abstinence
OA Member Recipe: Yummy Good-4-U Spinach Parmigiano Chicken Rollatini
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 […]
My OA Weight Release Journey: Happily Ever After…?
“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 […]
Comparing Weight Loss Drugs to OA’s Twelve Steps
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 […]
Miracles of Recovery: Following Doctors’ Orders
A recent conversation with a fellow OA member had me thinking about the miracles of recovery in Overeaters Anonymous. One of those miracles enables us to follow doctors’ orders regarding changes to our food and action plans to support our health. Even after 30 years of abstinence in OA, I still can resist making changes […]
Levels of Competence in Recovery
I’ve been in OA for 30 years. Over time in recovery listening to speakers at meetings, retreats, and conferences, I’ve heard many ways to express the levels of competence in recovery. One of the ways I marked my early progress was to notice my turn-around time. I had a long history of overreacting to the […]
Aspects of Abstinence
Compulsive overeating is a substance addiction like addictions to alcohol, drugs, nicotine, etc. In fact, we often refer to certain foods as “alcoholic foods.” As a compulsive overeater, I define my addiction as the inability to not eat something I know is going to hurt me. The harm goes beyond the emotional and social damage […]
Achieving Fit Spiritual Condition
OA’s 12 step program of recovery from compulsive eating promises members “a life beyond our wildest dreams.” While that promise appears in various forms in our literature, the expression “fit spiritual condition,” comes at the end of the 10th step promises on pages 84 and 85 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous: “And we […]
WHY ME GOD?
I asked that question often when I was a little girl, probably omitting God. To me God was mean, punishing, to be feared. Why me? Why was I fat? Why wasn’t I cute like the other girls? They didn’t have to hide their bodies. I envied their legs. I wanted normal legs. There was a […]
Happy to Share the Secret to Recovery
Step Twelve: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs. “We’re always happy to share our secret: the Twelve Steps of Overeaters Anonymous, which empower us to live well and be well one day […]
The Gift of Abstinence
Step Twelve: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs. “We’re always happy to share our secret: the Twelve Steps of Overeaters Anonymous, which empower us to live well and be well one day […]
A New Year – A Renewed Commitment to Recovery
More and more, with each passing year, I count the many blessings that have come from working the Twelve Steps of Overeaters Anonymous. Today, deep in my heart, I can really FEEL the experience of “my cup runneth over.” This feeling doesn’t come from an overflow of food (as once was the case), but from […]