Nothing Stopping Me
I heard the Second Step and had a spiritual experience that I’ve never forgotten,” says N.P., who went on to lose 75 pounds (34 kg) after joining OA. “Nothing could keep me from coming back.”
Physical Recovery
Sacred and Amazing Gift
Step Eleven is how we communicate with our higher power and how we receive wisdom. In a meditation phone meeting, Katherine’s meditation delivers a poignant message that it’s time to care of the body that has taken care of her in her compulsion.
I Am Listening
Before OA, Courtney neglected and abused her body. “I have taken better care of my car than of you,” she writes in a message to her own body. Now after a few years of abstinence, she is ready to make an Eighth Step, add her own body to the list of persons she has harmed and become willing to make amends.
Step Seven: “The Importance of Working All Twelve Steps” Podcast Series
Gerri, an abstinent food addict and compulsive overeater, and Karen, abstinent compulsive overeater and food addict, host this workshop on Step Seven: “Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.”
Interview with Joe: Compulsive Eater
A preacher’s son, Joe’s compulsive eating was born when he became an adult and renounced the religion of his upbringing. From then on, Joe says he was “running too the food or away from the food.” At Joe’s first OA meeting, he felt hope seeing that others had overcome their food obsessions.
Interview with Dodie: Compulsive Eater
Before OA, food ruled Dodie’s every waking moment, even from a very early age. In college, Dodie weighed 215 pounds (97.5 kg) and felt trapped in ugliness. When she realized she had a problem with food, she found OA, and now maintains a 85-pound (38.5-kg) weight loss.
Interview with Beth: Perfectionism, Isolation, and Compulsive Eating
Beth learned about OA after she noticed a coworker losing weight and becoming noticeably happier. When she realized that she was out of control, she asked if she could join her coworker at a meeting. At the meeting, she was relieved to hear that OA is not a diet program and that the other OA members had problems with food that were similar to her own.
Interview with Mary: Compulsive Overeater
Mary joined OA after a visit to her mother made her significant weight gain an unavoidable topic of discussion. In OA, she was surprised to find people just like her, people who had exceptional problems with food. She was also surprised to see how serene and healthy these people were as a result of working the OA program.
Interview with AJ: Newcomer to OA
AJ joined OA when she became medically obese, which triggered worries about obesity-related illnesses in her family’s history. Today she is no longer obese, and with the help of other OA members, she is living in recovery from compulsive eating.
I’m Still a Newcomer, but I’ve Decided to Sponsor
I felt so at ease with people I hardly knew.