Sometimes in the rooms of OA, we hear that there are no “musts” in the program of recovery – but the journey from active compulsive eating to abstinence and emotional sobriety takes a sustained and dedicated effort.  Our workshop will examine whether OA’s 12-step recovery process can take place without having some clear guidelines that seem a lot like “musts.”

Access files mentioned in this meeting here.

Adina and Sherry. 

Overeaters Anonymous describes itself as “a community of people who through shared experience strength and hope are recovering from unhealthy relationships with food and body image.” (oa.org)

We focus on working the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of OA, in the belief that “once the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.” (Alcoholics Anonymous page 64) We “give up old thought and behavior patterns that have failed us in the past, beginning with our attempts to control our eating and our weight.” (OA 12X12 page 7)

Our primary purpose is to abstain from compulsive eating and compulsive food behaviors and to carry the message of recovery through the 12 Steps of OA to those who still suffer. (OA WSBC 2015)

Yet all too often, we forget that “a healthy body weight” is an outside issue, best left to qualified professionals in the field of eating disorder treatment. We continue to shame and belittle ourselves and our bodies, sometimes using the term “Fat Serenity.” We forget that “In OA, we have no program of diets and exercise, no scales, no magic pills. What we do have to offer is far greater than any of these things – a Fellowship in which we find and share the healing power of love.” (Introduction to the 12 Steps, page 1)

For some of us in the fellowship, when we reclaim the term “Fat Serenity” as a positive spiritual concept, we truly begin to heal our unhealthy relationships with food and body image and achieve recovery, defined by OA as “removing the need to engage in compulsive eating behaviors.”