Category Archives: Step 1

Member Experience #2: Nothing Tastes as Good as Abstinence Feels

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SeacoastOA member experiences provide experience, strength, and hope anytime. Sharing our experiences also strengthens our own recoveries. Click here to share yours.

I had been coming to OA meetings for about four months. Although I had not found abstinence yet, I had somehow been controlling the wildest of the bingeing that brought me to OA and had consequently lost about 15 pounds.

I spent a great deal of time in those early months unsure whether I belonged in OA or not. You know what they say about denial. In any event, by the grace of God, I kept coming to meetings. 

Leaving a meeting one evening, I suddenly decided it would be a good idea to hit a drive-thru window, and not just for the scintillating conversation. This would be a transgression of a self-imposed bottom line, but that didn’t seem such a big deal at the time. I ordered and ate with no real satisfaction. As I finished the last of the bag’s greasy contents, I had a moment of truth. And I saw the truth. I had eaten a bag full of empty calories, without my own permission. It was in that moment I decided I want what you OAs have and was willing to go to any lengths to get it. 

I called a fellow OA member the next day, put together a food plan, and committed to abstinence. I’ve been able, through the tools of the program, the support of fellow OAs, and the grace of God, to maintain my abstinence on a daily basis since then. I can’t say I’m glad I hit that drive-thru, but if that’s what it took to bring me to what I have today, I certainly don’t regret it. And nothing tastes as good as abstinence feels!

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.

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.