Overeaters Anonymous

Full Day in OA: Saturday January 21, 2012

admin — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:22:17 +0000

The Marin and Sonoma County Intergroups of OA present:

Full Day in OA | Three rooms to choose from each hour featuring Workshops, Special Topics, Meetings, Speakers!

Saturday January 21, 2012 | 9am – 5pm

Elim Lutheran Church, Petaluma

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A Spiritual Discipline

admin — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:10:06 +0000

Abstaining from compulsive eating through having a food plan is a spiritual exercise that brings me closer to God (as I don’t understand God), and that lets me have a true connection with others and myself. All the years I was eating compulsively I was looking for solutions in the food—for friendship, acceptance, satiety, a feeling of belonging, of peace and release, and ease and comfort. Abstinence for me is the action of not looking for these things in food . . .

Many things have been indispensable as I learn how to eat the way I believe I ought to—that is, having moderate amounts of food at fairly regular intervals that keep my body healthy and functional. Some of the things I have learned are the importance of three meals a day withnothing in between; planning each meal ahead of time . . . ; not eating foods that cause me to feel fearful, uncomfortable or guilty; asking trusted friends (including my “normal-eater” spouse) to check out my meal to see if it looks moderate and balanced; stopping to say a blessing before I eat; committing to build a relationship with a Higher Power through prayer; saying “please” every morning and “thank you” every night; assuming a physical posture of humility when I pray; working with a sponsor and sponsee; and developing a repertoire of meals that work, so I have some easy choices to rely on when I feel overwhelmed or scared. Mostly, I have to keep it very simple.

Planning my eating means I don’t always get to eat what or when I want to. By practicing it one day at a time for two and a half years, I’ve learned that it is actually a spiritual discipline. Today I believe I have to put down the food to recover from the food. When I practice refraining from compulsive eating using the very tangible tools I have been given by those who have what I want (and by the grace of that mysterious Power), I find that food does lose its power. In abstinence and in the Steps and tools of this program, I find all the acceptance, power and feeling of belonging that I looked for so desperately in the food.

— Lifeline, September 1995

I Surrender!

admin — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:52:24 +0000

I’m a diabetic whose life had become so unmanageable that my doctor had just about written me off. Thanks to OA, my blood sugar has been normal for the past five months, and I’ve been taken off all medication. I’ve lost 43 pounds (20 kg) and am on a good recovery.

I’ve finally figured out what it means to surrender. Food will never again have the chance to destroy me. I’ve battled food for many years without success. I thought I was strong enough to conquer it, but I was wrong.

I’m tired of coming up bruised and battered after each encounter. I’ve wasted enough of my life in this useless struggle. The war is over. I surrender!

It’s time to rebuild, so I’m walking away knowing that from now on I’ll eat only what I need.

It’s inevitable that our paths will cross again and food will try to seduce me with promises of the pleasures and joys of openended eating. But I know that these are false promises, that the satisfactions of overeating are shortlived.

I’ve found all the good feelings I need in OA. Being abstinent is joy; feeling healthy is bliss.

There are many strange things I’ve learned in OA, but perhaps the strangest of all is that by a simple act of surrender, you can win a war!

— Lifeline, September 1984

A Willing Way

admin — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 08:01:04 +0000

I have been in OA for almost 11 years. I lost my excess weight (some 80 pounds/36 kilograms) in the first year and a half and maintained for many years thereafter. I had been in relapse for quite a while, but never stopped attending OA meetings.

Recently I came to realize that I believed that being thin was what had made me a worthy person. I felt so good about myself when I was thin (for the first time in my life) that I began to panic when I started to regain weight. I lost touch with the fact that food is not my problem; living is. I started desperately trying to diet the weight off again, but it didn’t work. During the past several years, I have regained 50 (23 kg) of those 80 pounds (36 kg). Some of it I needed to gain since I’d lost too much weight originally, but I’m still 30 pounds (14 kg) overweight.

In relapse, I lost sight of the notion that it’s not what I eat but how I live my life that counts. If I’m doing my Higher Power’s will, the extra weight will come off. Lately I’d been doing my will. But I’ve been able to ask Higher Power for the strength to make amends and go forward.

Since I have come to this realization and made a commitment to change, my abstinence has returned. I pray I can continue to let go. Working the Twelve Steps so that I deepen my relationship with my Higher Power and accept HP’s will in my life—that’s the answer for me.

— Lifeline, June 199