Category Archives: Abstinence

12 Abstinence Strategies for the Holiday Season

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holiday handsThanksgiving and Christmas are bad enough for compulsive eaters. But in between them are five weeks of office parties, boxes of holiday candy, cocktail parties, and more. OA’s Steps, Tools, and Traditions are our keys to success. Here are 12 specific ideas for using them to get through the holiday season.

12. Use Step One: Remind yourself that you are powerless over food, of the pain, suffering, and unmanageability of your life when you eat compulsively. Abstinence is sweeter than any holiday confection.

11. Live One Day at a Time!: Don’t think about getting through the entire holiday season, instead focus on staying abstinent until you go to sleep tonight.

10. Sponsor and Be Sponsored: Turn to your sponsor for support and then check in with any sponsees to see how they are doing.

9. Make a 12th Step Within Call: December 12th is OA’s 12th Step Within Day. Get out of your head by calling someone you haven’t seen at a meeting lately or drop in on the 12th Step Within Day phone marathon.

8. Assess Your Abstinence: If you’re worried about whether you can make it through the season, take a look at OA’s Strong Abstinence Checklist for suggestions that are proven

7. Inventory Any Slips: If you do stray from your plan, use OA’s Been Slipping and Sliding to learn how you can avoid a future slip.

6. Ask Other Members for Help: If you don’t have a sponsor, get one. Even if you do, ask other OA members how they cope with the holidays.

5. Don’t Forget Service: At your meetings, raise your hand for any service opportunities available and do them cheerfully. Read the Promises, put away chairs, order the literature: It’s a holiday gift that you’ll want to keep on giving.

4. Take Some Quiet Time: Whether as part of your daily spiritual activities or right before a holiday get-together, take some quiet time, relax, read some program literature, and get into a frame of mind where your Higher Power can help you.

3. Make Meetings: Don’t let them slip away. If the holiday season is messing up your meeting schedule, supplement with phone meetings or online meetings. Or attend one of OA’s holiday phone marathons.

2. Talk to the Newcomer: Nothing so ensures immunity from compulsive eating as working with newcomers. Greet them warmly, make them feel welcome, and give them a buzz during the week.

And the most important support for abstinence during the holidays or anytime:

1. Trust and Rely on God: As powerless people, we must seek the power to abstain from a source greater than ourselves. Ask your Higher Power, however you define It, for ease and comfort, the willingness to avoid compulsive eating, and to focus your attention on how you can bring others good cheer during this season.

A Video Introduction to OA

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If you missed our “Freedom Isn’t Free” workshop yesterday, we missed you! It was a great recovery experience. Our leader had so many great things to say, and in our next couple of posts, we will highlight a few resources and initiatives he mentioned in passing so that we can all learn more about them.

Today, we’ll focus on the newcomer video he mentioned and how you can use it yourself whether you’re new to the program or not. The Westchester United Intergroup (WUIG) has created a video just for newcomers that we’ve made available on our Newcomers page. The point of the video is to quickly help newcomers understand exactly what the program. In fact, it’s good for OA veterans too! In about nine minutes it covers:

  • the cycle of addiction
  • some key terms of recovery
  • how to get honest about our food
  • how the Tools and Steps work
  • what to do to get started.

Click the image to watch it.

What a great way to learn about OA FAST!

For Newcomers

  • Watch the video so that you’ll understand the basics of OA.
  • Talk about it with other members, especially your sponsor.
  • Reflect on it as you read our Newcomer’s Packet.

Current Members

If you have an opportunity to 12th Step someone, this is a great way to do it. Share your membership with them, tell them your story, and if they’d like to know more, this video is a great resource for them.

Sponsors and Temporary Sponsors

Here’s three ways to use this video with someone you’re working with:

  1. Have a newcomer or sponsee watch it by themselves to learn about the program.
  2. Watch it with them and talk about it as you watch (ideal for use with a tablet device or laptop)
  3. Watch it yourself and use it as talking points for working with others or sharing at a meeting.

Food addict or compulsive eater?

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Hi, I’m _______, and I’m a _______. That’s a staple of 12-Step culture. It’s one of the ways we remain equals in our meetings and put principles before personalities. In some fellowships, the second blank probably doesn’t have much variation: alcoholic for example. OA is a little different in this way because there are as many food compulsions as there are members. Here are a few of the many self-descriptions that members in our area and elsewhere use:

  • Compulsive overeater
  • Compulsive eater
  • Food addict
  • Compulsive eater and food addict (or vise verse)
  • Binge eater
  • Sugar addict
  • Sugar and flour addict
  • Anorexic
  • Bulimic
  • Exercise bulimic.

It doesn’t matter what we call ourselves, we still get to be members as long as we have a desire to stop eating compulsively. The important thing is that we are in a meeting, seeking a solution, and no longer in denial about what our problem is. There are as many names for this disease as there are members. No matter what we call ourselves, we all belong, we can all be loved unconditionally by this fellowship, and we can all find a path to abstinence that meets our own personal needs if we keep coming back. That’s what OA’s new Unity in Diversity Checklist is all about. In OA we’re all the same, yet we’re all different. It’s what gives us strength and the ability to help members with a wide range of compulsive food behaviors. The Unity in Diversity Checklist is now linked on our Meetings Resources page.

Register for “Freedom Isn’t Free” Workshop, August 16th in Portsmouth

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break freeRegistration is now open for “Freedom Isn’t Free,” a no-cost, dynamic one-day walk through OA’s 12 Steps. This workshop will emphasize the nature of the disease, getting honest about food, and the process of change. Our guide will be a 32-year OA veteran who has led 25 Step-study retreats.

Join us if you are…
…A newcomer interested in getting your recovery rolling
…A current member who wants to restart your program 
…A long-timer who wants to kick your program into a higher gear
…Anyone who wants a JOLT! of OA energy.

Register now by email or voicemail (603) 418-4398. Please provide your name, your phone number, your email address, and what Intergroup you are from.

Please download this flyer to share at your meetings.

Registration is FREE. We ask for registration because our room is limited to 100 attendees. Registrations are on a first-come, first-serve basis. So please sign up now!

Sponsored by Seacoast Intergroup

DETAILS AND DIRECTIONS
Saturday, August 16th, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Community Campus
100 Campus Drive Portsmouth, NH
Google Map

From I-95, take Exit 5 for the Portsmouth Traffic Circle
Exit the circle for Route 1 South
Follow Route 1 South for 2.7 miles
Turn right onto West Road (across from Corpus Christi Parish Church) and follow as it becomes Campus Drive
Community Campus will be on your left, please use the front entrance.

Strong Abstinence Checklist

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OA's Strong Abstinence Checklist

OA’s Strong Abstinence Checklist

2014 is SeacoastOA’s Year of Abstinence. As if on cue, OA World Service recently passed along an excellent tool, the Strong Abstinence Checklist. Click the link to download a printable PDF.

The Strong Abstinence Checklist includes twelve questions that remind us of the actions we can take to get and keep our abstinence. It also includes twelve questions for written reflection.

Here’s four ways you might find it immediately useful:

  1. Assess your abstinence anytime, anywhere
  2. Ask your sponsor to work through it with you
  3. Work through it with a sponsee to support their abstinence
  4. Use one of its questions as the topic in a discussion-format meeting.

This checklist has been added to our website and can be found on our Recovery Resources page. Please feel free to distribute it at your meetings—it is OA approved.

 

Register for “Living in the Solution” Workshop, June 1st in Portsmouth

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Registration is now open for “Living in the Solution,” a workshop on abstinence, sponsorship, service, and the traditions and concepts of OA!

Register by email (preferred) or voicemail (603) 418-4398. Please provide your name, your phone number, your email address, and what Intergroup you are from.

Please download this flyer to share at your meetings.

The workshop will be June 1st in Portsmouth and will be facilitated by OA’s Region 6 trustee. Registration is limited to 50 participants. Be sure to bring a notebook and a pen!

Registration is FREE. We are limited to 50 attendees, and registrations are on a first-come, first-serve basis. So please sign up now!

Sponsored by Seacoast Intergroup

DETAILS AND DIRECTIONS
Sunday, June 1st, 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Community Campus
100 Campus Drive Portsmouth, NH
Google Map

From I-95, take Exit 5 for the Portsmouth Traffic Circle
Exit the circle for Route 1 South
Follow Route 1 South for 2.7 miles
Turn right onto West Road (across from Corpus Christi Parish Church) and follow as it becomes Campus Drive
Community Campus will be on your left, please use the front entrance.