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."