Twelve Traditions
- 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.
© Overeaters Anonymous, Inc. All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of Overeaters Anonymous, Inc.; World Service
Office. Copyright may not be reproduced
in any manner without written permission of OA Inc.