“Through service in OA, my issue of not trusting people has come up for healing,” says Barb K. of Indiana USA. Over the years, Barb has learned in OA how to negotiate speaking up when she needs to speak up and trusting in OA unity when other OA members see things differently, and this shows just how valuable service can be to our recovery.
Here is a simple question that has helped me numerous times: how important is it? Asking myself this helps me reframe how I think about problems and situations and spurs me to ask myself these follow-up questions: Is it worth my sanity and my abstinence to keep obsessing over a problem? The answer is always “No, it is not.” Without spiritual, emotional, and physical recovery, I cannot maintain contact with my HP, who helps me … Continued
One of my favorite passages from the OA Twelve and Twelve is this from Step Five: “Most of us find that fear is at the root of many of our damaging emotions and actions. As we grow in the Twelve Step way of life, we learn that our fears usually stem from our inability to trust that our basic needs will be met. Perhaps we have … Continued
Earlier in her program, Barbara E. says she was “extremely skeptical that I might ever become neutral around the foods that beckoned me or that I’d become a happier, less volatile woman.” But her sponsor persisted in feeding her OA wisdom, and Barbara was desparate, and so she listened. Simply put, Barbara says of her sponsor, “She was right.”