"I put my hand in yours, and together we can do what we could
    never do alone. No longer is there a sense of hopelessness, no
    longer must we each depend upon our own unsteady willpower.
    We are all together now, reaching out our hands for power and
    strength greater than ours, and as we join hands, we find love
    and understanding beyond our wildest dreams."
-Rozanne, S., OA Founder

We of Overeaters Anonymous have made a discovery. At the very first meeting we attended, we learned that we were in the clutches of a dangerous illness, and that willpower, emotional stability and self-confidence, which some of us had once possessed, were no defense against it.

We have found that the reasons for the illness are not what is important. What deserves the attention of the still suffering compulsive overeater is this: there is a proven, workable method by which we can arrest our illness.

The OA recovery program is patterned after that of Alcoholics Anonymous. We use AA's Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, changing only the words "alcohol" and "alcoholic" to "food" and "compulsive overeater."

As our personal stories attest, the twelve step program of recovery works as well for compulsive overeaters as is does for alcoholics.

Can we guarantee you this recovery? The answer is simple. If you will honestly face the truth about yourself and the illness; if you will keep coming back to meetings to talk and listen to other recovering compulsive overeaters; if you will read our literature and that of Alcoholics Anonymous with an open mind; and most, important, if you are willing to rely on a power greater than yourself for direction in your life, and to take the twelve steps to the best of your ability, we believe you can indeed join the ranks of those who are recovering.

"I'm not alone anymore! Such a blessed relief just to know Iım not the only one who feels and acts this way, that there are others just like me!" These are the reactions almost all of us had when we came to Overeaters Anonymous. At last we were home! Now we no longer had to depend on our own unsteady willpower. We reached out our hands for power and strength greater than ours, and our hands were taken in love and understanding.

In the past, most of us had tried various methods of weight reduction and control. Diet doctors, shots, pills, psychiatry, hypnosis, fad diets, and health farms. For most compulsive overeaters these are only temporary solutions. Many of us would indeed lose weight, only to gain back more than ever before.

How many times we had heard it said, "If you'd only use a little willpower, you could lose all that weight." Or, "Don't you know you're asking for a heart attack with all that extra poundage?" Many times we'd eat out of frustration, resentment or self-pity, only to wake up next morning saying, "Today's the day Iıll start my diet, and I'll never go off again!" Of course, our good resolutions never lasted very long, and we were soon back on the same old merry-go-round of diets and binges.

Now, for the first time in our lives, we have HOPE! We find that, within the Fellowship of Overeaters Anonymous, we are not alone. We meet others who have suffered as we have, and they offer love, compassion and understanding of our common problem. In OA we can bring our feelings out into the open. Here we find willing ears and sympathetic hearts, people who are not judging us and who are ready to share their strength as we make the long journey back to recovery.

We discover that we help ourselves most by helping others with the same problem. We learn that we must honestly admit to our innermost selves that we are compulsive overeaters and are powerless over food. This is the first step toward recovery. We realize we have found something we never had before: a proven, workable method by which we have been able to arrest our common illness, one day at a time.

March 2000
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.