OA is a Twelve-Step Fellowship much like Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s our one-day-at-a-time approach plus our members that make us different from other solutions you may have tried. You may not be familiar with a twelve-step program—and that’s okay, we’re here to help!
The Twelve Steps are the heart of the OA recovery program. They offer a new way of life that enables the compulsive eater to live without the need for excess food.
The ideas expressed in the Twelve Steps, which originated in Alcoholics Anonymous, reflect practical experience and application of spiritual insights recorded by thinkers throughout the ages. Their greatest importance lies in the fact that they work! They enable compulsive eaters and millions of other Twelve-Steppers to lead happy, productive lives. They represent the foundation upon which OA is built.
We admitted we were powerless over food — that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
We re entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
The Twelve Traditions are the means by which OA remains unified in a common cause. These Twelve Traditions are to the groups what the Twelve Steps are to the individual. They are suggested principles to ensure the survival and growth of the many groups that compose Overeaters Anonymous.
Like the Twelve Steps, the Twelve Traditions have their origins in Alcoholics Anonymous. These Traditions describe attitudes which those early members believed were important to group survival.
Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon OA unity.
For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority — a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
The only requirement for OA membership is a desire to stop eating compulsively.
Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or OA as a whole.
Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to the compulsive overeater who still suffers.
An OA group ought never endorse, finance or lend the OA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
Every OA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
Overeaters Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
OA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
Overeaters Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the OA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, films, television and other public media of communication.
Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all these Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.
A Plan of Eating: As a Tool, a plan of eating helps us abstain from compulsive eating, guides us in our dietary decisions, and defines what, when, how, where, and why we eat. (See the pamphlet A New Plan of Eating for more information.) This Tool helps us deal with the physical aspects of our disease and achieve physical recovery.
Sponsorship: Sponsors have been working the program to the best of their ability and walk you through the Twelve Steps. They help you understand each step and how to work the program in the best way for you. Sponsors go beyond being a supportive friend; they are truly a gift to the program. Read our sponsor relationship statement from the Board of Trustees.
Meetings: We offer over 6,400 face-to-face and virtual meetings worldwide, and in languages other than English. Find a meeting that will work for you and your schedule. Meetings help us learn about the Tools and Steps, and also provide fellowship, which is critical to our recovery. We have discovered we need each other to get well.
Telephone: We reach out to one another between meetings, for support for ourselves and to offer help to others.
Writing: Some call it journaling. When we put our difficulties down on paper, it becomes easier to see situations more clearly and determine any necessary action.
Literature: OA has excellent books, and pamphlets–that help us understand how to “work the Twelve Steps” and give us examples of what life in recovery looks like.
Action Plan: This Tool helps incorporate the use of all the other OA Tools to bring structure, balance, and manageability into our lives and helps us work our program consistently.
Anonymity: Anonymity gives OA members freedom of expression and safeguards us from gossip. A deeper understanding of this Tool is that it assures that we each are one among many. OA has no stars.
Service: You will hear a lot about service in OA. This Tool is addressed in greater detail deeper in our website. But, for now, please know that any form of service – no matter how small – helps reach a fellow sufferer while adding to the quality of our recovery.
Abstinence is the action of refraining from compulsive eating and compulsive food behaviors while working towards or maintaining a healthy body weight.
Spiritual, emotional, and physical recovery is the result of living and working the Overeaters Anonymous Twelve Step program on a daily basis.
Now that we’ve covered key parts of the program, let’s see what it might look like to work the program on a daily basis.
Your day starts with reading some program literature, or taking time to pray and meditate on what you have read or on something about the day ahead. You might phone, text, or email a program friend or your sponsor to go over your Plan of Eating for the day. You might even get to a meeting. At the end of your day, you may reflect on what happened and what you learned. This simple routine keeps us on track.
If you have yet to actually go to a meeting, find one now.