It is a proven system. . . . It works whether you have lived it or have not yet lived it . . . Come back a week, a month, or a year later, and you will notice the reality of emotional maturity. One cannot walk a lifestyle of living the Steps without the Steps … Continued
“I am not the poster child for OA,” says Carol M. from Washington USA, “but I have a stable relationship with food and eating behaviors.” Read more as Carol shares how she created positive momentum in her OA program.
Jean C. first joined OA 35 years ago but failed to work the Steps, which she attributes to another 18 years outside the rooms. Today, however, she is back, she is abstinent, and she is here to share what she has learned.
Diane D. did all the right things to find recovery in OA, from surrendering in Step One to adopting a plan of eating and throwing herself into service. But then everything crashed because of illness and an outside addiction, and God seemed nowhere to be found. How did she make it back to recovery?
As a child, Bianca tried weight gain as a defense against her abuser’s desires. “Unfortunately, it did not work,” she says. But as an adult, she was able to overcome her trauma and emerge into a hopeful and healthy life with OA and therapy.
A.F.S. from Illinois USA was a “revolving door member, joining and dropping out, for decades, and during that time she continued cycles of binge eating and restricting. It was not until she was given the gift of desperation that she committed to truly working the program. “And I hated it,” she says, “but the freedom tastes much better than any food I could eat.”
Have you ever met someone with 47 years of abstinence? Meet Chris Q., who became abstinent on November 13, 1977, and shares read her story about what it takes: “Abstinence . . . . is ours for the asking if we are willing to fight for it,” she says.
Mary was very excited about her trip to Italy, but she had also became very anxious about it’s world-famous food culture, a prime attraction for tourists. How to manage this? She found simple and powerful answers from her sponsor and OA-approved literature. Her sponsor’s reminder? “I’m pretty sure God is in Italy.”
Lisa A. from California USA saw that abstinent OA members not only committed to their plan of eating but also committed to working the OA program. Keeping her abstinence has required adjustments over the years, but nevertheless, “I am free from compulsive eating . . . and free to experience the promises . . . of the Big Book,” she says.
The sexual abuse that Blanca suffered as a child led her to gain weight in an attempt to make herself less attractive, and led later to multiple suicide attempts. Thankfully, her desperate attempts to outrun her pain were soothed and solved in Overeaters Anonymous. “My practice of the Twelve Steps leaves me with some very empowering ways of seeing life,” she says. “My smiles . . . . are coming from a place of inner peace, confidence, and happiness.