Tools
of Recovery
In working Overeaters Anonymous' Twelve-Step program of recovery from
compulsive overeating, we have found a number of tools to assist us. We
use these tools regularly to help us achieve and maintain abstinence.
In Overeaters Anonymous (OA), abstinence is "the action of refraining
from compulsive eating." Many of us have found that we cannot abstain
from compulsive eating unless we use some or all of OA's eight tools of
recovery.
A Plan of Eating
As a tool, a plan of eating helps us to abstain from eating
compulsively. Having a personal plan of eating guides us in our dietary
decisions, as well as defines what, when, how, where and why we eat. It
is our experience that sharing this plan with a sponsor or another OA
member is important.
There are no specific requirements for a plan of eating; OA does not
endorse or recommend any specific plan of eating, nor does it exclude
the personal use of one. (See the pamphlets Dignity of Choice and A
Plan of Eating for more information.) For specific dietary or
nutritional guidance, OA suggests consulting a qualified health care
professional, such as a physician or dietician. Each of us develops a
personal plan of eating based on an honest appraisal of his or her own
past experience; we also have come to identify our current individual
needs, as well as those things which we should avoid.
Although individual plans of eating are as varied as our members, most
OA members agree that some plan — no matter how flexible or structured
— is necessary.
This tool helps us deal with the physical aspects of our disease and
helps us achieve physical recovery. From this vantage point, we can
more effectively follow OA's Twelve-Step program of recovery and move
beyond the food to a happier, healthier and more spiritual living
experience.
Sponsorship
Sponsors are OA members who are living the Twelve Steps and Twelve
Traditions to the best of their ability. They are willing to share
their recovery with other members of the Fellowship and are committed
to abstinence.
We ask a sponsor to help us through our program of recovery on all
three levels: physical, emotional and spiritual. By working with other
members of OA and sharing their experience, strength and hope, sponsors
continually renew and reaffirm their own recovery. Sponsors share their
program up to the level of their own experience.
Ours is a program of attraction: find a sponsor who has what you want,
and ask that person how he or she is achieving it. A member may work
with more than one sponsor and may change sponsors at will.
Meetings
Meetings are gatherings of two or more compulsive overeaters who come
together to share their personal experience, and the strength and hope
OA has given them. Though there are many types of meetings, fellowship
with other compulsive overeaters is the basis of them all. Meetings
give us an opportunity to identify and confirm our common problem and
to share the gifts we receive through this program.
Telephone
The telephone helps us share one-to-one and avoid the isolation which
is so common among us. Many members call other OA members and their own
sponsors daily. As a part of the surrender process, it is a tool with
which we learn to reach out, ask for help and extend help to others.
The telephone also provides an immediate outlet for those
hard-to-handle highs and lows we may experience.
Writing
In addition to writing our inventories and the list of people we have
harmed, most of us have found that writing has been an indispensable
tool for working the Steps. Further, putting our thoughts and feelings
down on paper, or describing a troubling incident, helps us to better
understand our actions and reactions in a way that is often not
revealed to us by simply thinking or talking about them. In the past,
compulsive eating was our most common reaction to life. When we put our
difficulties down on paper, it becomes easier to see situations more
clearly and perhaps better discern any necessary action.
Literature
We study and read OA-approved pamphlets; OA-approved books, such as
Overeaters Anonymous, Second Edition, The Twelve Steps and Twelve
Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous and For Today; and we read Lifeline,
our monthly magazine on recovery. We also study the book Alcoholics
Anonymous, referred to as the "Big Book," to understand and reinforce
our program. Many OA members find that when read daily, the literature
further reinforces how to live the Twelve Steps. Our OA literature and
the AA "Big Book" are ever-available tools which provide insight into
our problem of eating compulsively, strength to deal with it, and the
very real hope that there is a solution for us.
Anonymity
Anonymity, referred to in Traditions Eleven and Twelve, is a tool that
guarantees that we will place principles before personalities. The
protection anonymity provides offers each of us freedom of expression
and safeguards us from gossip. Anonymity assures us that only we, as
individual OA members, have the right to make our membership known
within our community. Anonymity at the level of press, radio, films and
television means that we never allow our faces or last names to be used
once we identify ourselves as OA members. This protects both the
individual and the Fellowship.
Within the Fellowship, anonymity means that whatever we share with
another OA member will be held in respect and confidence. What we hear
at meetings should remain there. However, anonymity must not be used to
limit our effectiveness within the Fellowship. It is not a break of
anonymity to use our full names within our group or OA service bodies.
Also, it is not a break of anonymity to enlist Twelfth-Step help for
group members in trouble, provided we refrain from discussing specific
personal information.
Another aspect of anonymity is that we are all equal in the Fellowship,
whether we are newcomers or seasoned long-timers. And our outside
status makes no difference in OA; we have no stars or VIPs. We come
together simply as compulsive overeaters.
Service
Carrying the message to the compulsive overeater who still suffers is
the basic purpose of our Fellowship; therefore, it is the most
fundamental form of service. Any form of service—no matter how
small—which helps reach a fellow sufferer adds to the quality of our
own recovery. Getting to meetings, putting away chairs, putting out
literature, talking to newcomers, doing whatever needs to be done in a
group or for OA as a whole are ways in which we give back what we have
so generously been given. We are encouraged to do what we can when we
can. "A life of sane and happy usefulness" is what we are promised as
the result of working the Twelve Steps. Service helps to fulfill that
promise.
As OA's responsibility pledge states: "Always to extend the hand and
heart of OA to all who share my compulsion; for this I am responsible."