Only you can decide whether you want to give OA a try - whether you think it can help you. We who are in OA came because we finally gave up trying to control our eating. We still hated to admit that we could never eat certain substances safely. Then we found out that many people suffered from the same feelings of guilt and loneliness and hopelessness that we did. We found out that we had these feeling because we had the disease of compulsive overeating. This series of questions may help you determine if you are a compulsive overeater. Many members of Overeater Anonymous have found that they have answered yes to many of these questions.
- Do you eat when you're not hungry?
- Do you go on eating binges for no apparent reason?
- Do you have feelings of guilt and remorse after overeating?
- Do you give too much time and thought to food?
- Do you look forward with pleasure and anticipation to the time when you can eat alone?
- Do you plan these secret binges ahead of time?
- Do you eat sensibly before others and make up for it alone?
- Is you weight affecting the way you live your life?
- Have you tried to diet for a week (or longer), only to fall short of your goal?
- Do you resent others telling you to "use a little willpower" to stop overeating?
- Despite evidence to the contrary, have you continued to assert that you can diet "on you own" whenever you wish?
- Do you crave to eat at a definite time, day, or night, other than mealtime?
- Do you eat to escape from worries or trouble?
- Have you ever been treated for obesity or a food-related condition?
- Does your eating behavior make you or others unhappy?
What is OA?
Overeaters Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women from all walks of life who meet in order to help solve a common problem - compulsive overeating. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop eating compulsively.
How did OA start?
In January 1960, three people living in Los Angeles, California, began meeting for the purpose of helping each other with their eating problems. Tlhey had tried everything else and failed. The program they followed was - and continues to be - patterned after the Alcoholics Anonymous program. From that first meeting, OA has grown until today there are thousands of meetings in the United States, Canada, and other countries throughout the world.
How do OA member lose weight and maintain their normal weight?
The concept of abstinence is the basis of OA's program of recovery. By admitting inability to control compulsive over eating in the past, and abandoning the idea that all one needs to be able to eat normally is "a little willpower," it becomes possible to abstain from overeating - one day at a time. OA offers the newcomer support in dealing with both the physical and emotional symptoms of compulsive overeating. For weight loss, any medically approved eating plan is acceptable.
Is OA a religious organization?
Overeaters Anonymous has no religious requirement, affiliation, or orientation. The twelve-step program of recovery is considered "spiritual" because it deals with inner change. OA has members of many different religious beliefs as well as some atheists and agnostics.
- 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.
- Were 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.
- 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.
©2008 Overeaters Anonymous