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 […]

Rigorous Honesty Opens The Path to Recovery from Compulsive Eating

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 […]

Falling Into My Higher Power

I am sitting in the shade of a tree overlooking the water of the Niagara River as it rushes toward the American Falls. It’s the last day of my vacation, so I came back to this park to meditate for a few minutes, to connect with serenity, and capture my thoughts before I finish getting […]

Abstinent Holidays

“Once we become abstinent, the preoccupation with food diminishes and in many cases leaves us entirely.” — Our Invitation To You. Before I came into OA, my disease didn’t know the difference between a holiday and a regular day. Any Tuesday in the middle of September was an excuse to overeat. Holidays just made it […]

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 […]

Tool of Sponsorship

“We ask a sponsor to help us through all three levels of our program of recovery: physical, emotional, and spiritual.” – Tools of Recovery Pamphlet The first time I heard about OA, I said, “Is that a group thing? Groups don’t work for me.” I thought I had all the answers and believed that self-reliance […]

The Deadly Disease No One wants to Discuss – Compulsive Eating

To sustain life, every living thing must eat – and, typically, human beings must eat several times a day from a wide variety of food groups. And yet, each of us will come to develop a relationship with food that can either lead to a happy and balanced way of being, or it can result […]

Sharing the worst of myself led to the best things

Step Five: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. “We find we can cope with both good times and bad, learning and growing spiritually from each experience, as our Higher Power intended us to do all along.” — OA Twelve Steps & Twelve Traditions page 49 […]