Thank you for my recovery. I owe my life to you, the twelve-step program of Overeaters Anonymous, and my Higher Power.

I thank my Higher Power every day for this amazing life that has unfolded before me. I thank the program by working the steps, practicing these principles in all of my affairs and stepping up for service whenever I hear the soft whisper of my Higher Power.

It first started as my heart pounding during a meeting, which my sponsor said was HP prompting me to share. Then no one was willing to take the key for the meeting that I desperately needed. (Remember when we all met in person?) That was HP creating the willingness to do a little bit more. Thank you for being the kind and loving sponsor that my HP knew I needed to work the Steps.
 
HP spoke through a newcomer who saw something in me that she wanted, so I started to sponsor. I was slowly led to take on more and more responsibility with each new service opportunity. HP used all of you to show me that I am someone who is trustworthy and to challenge me to grow.
 
Thank you for showing up. Thank you for greeting me at the door as if I was a dear friend and asking me my name. Thank you for asking me to read the promises from the Big Book, a reading that I had never heard before that touched my heart as if it was written just for me. Thank you for asking me to make coffee and heat the water for tea.

Thank you for taking the time to tell me to be gentle with myself after I shared about a disappointing misstep. Thank you for calling me when I stopped showing up to my regular meeting. Thank you for asking me to speak at your meeting. Thank you for asking me to be your sponsor. Thank you for asking me to represent our meeting at Intergroup. Thank you for attending Intergroup! And Region One Assembly. And WSBC.
 
Thank you – all of you – for loving me until I could love myself; for believing in my abilities when I thought I had none. For sticking with me when I was sure my way was the path I needed to be on. I would not be alive today if you had not been in my life.

​When you chose to attend the meeting instead of isolating, you helped me. When you made that outreach call, you helped me. When you planned that OA event, you furthered my recovery. When you shared your heart and your truth, you helped me open my heart and speak my truth. When you showed me your imperfections, you gave me the courage to share mine and know that I am still loved.
 
I have no doubt whatsoever that OA saved my life. This fellowship. Each and every one of you, regardless of where you are in your own recovery journey, have the power to save a life. Thank you for saving mine.
 
Alice W. - Region One

This workshop was part of our 2020 OA Region One Convention on Zoom and included two speakers, a writing prompt with writing for ten minutes, sharing in small group breakout rooms, and sharing as a large group at the end of the workshop. For each question, participants were asked to put their “one thing” in the chat.  Here (with only minimal editing) are their responses to our three "Just One Thing" questions.
 

One thing I have done to bolster my recovery in 2020:

• Willingness to use Zoom
• Attended lots of different meetings across the country as we are able to attend meeting virtually.
• Went to an OA Rise meeting.
• honestly saying "I don't know" and being teachable
• I started a virtual meeting
• agreed to be a temporary sponsor, which opened a lot of doors
• "Balance" (more of it in life)
• studied the principle of the traditions once a month
• Doing Step 10 from Big Book - spot checking throughout the day, not just at night, I became aware of the sixth sense and intuition. This is the voice of HP.
• I make a choice everyday which road I am choosing to take 1/ the path to recovery abstinence living joyous and free or 2/ control, overeating, despair and suffering
• Setting Boundaries
• Getting a sponsor
• Attended Zoom meetings out of state.
• Making 3 or more outreach calls every day.
• Hosting virtual workshops
• began sponsoring
• Working the first 3 steps with sponsees.
• Learn to surrender to my Higher Power.
• More exercise. Discovering an online gym.
• Working with a sponsor to keep accountable so that I keep moving forward with my Ninth Step work
• Joined the Step 10/11 train which is a group of women who get paired up for two weeks and call each other with their inventories.
• Also to join Step 10/11 train, you can email 1011steptrain@gmail.com. There is an orientation meeting you'll need to attend first.
• listened to my instinct in asking for a particular person to be my sponsor.
• realizing I am a food addict and that changed everything
• Made a decision to live (a healthy life) rather than continue to compulsively overeat.
• Coming to this Convention.
• getting "back to basics" with my program...asking what wirjs? and doing that
• Acting on any small willingness that came to me
• Meditation walk daily
• Lots of shares about steps 10, 11 and 12
• Attend or facilitate a 12 Step workshop from the green workshop guide
• More service
• Started a Step Study using the 12 Step Study and Workshop
• Facilitated a Virtual Step Study using the 12 Step Workshop and Study guide of OA (Green spiral)
• Sponsoring a newcomer very different from me with food and HP issues
• Even with COVID, I can still attend my Yuma meeting and see my Yuma OA’ers even if I am not going this year.
• I took on new service position
• Worked the steps with my first ever step sister from 20+ years ago and together we used the green workshop book. It was amazing. I also started using a meditation app twice daily.
• 3 meals 1 day at a time with nothing but life in between. My choice is to be in recovery.
• acceptance of necessity of shutting down, vs winter travel to warm places, of needing to scale back on risky activities (mountain climbing, skydiving) that also help with weight maintenance, willingness to give up diagnosed food allergens, break with family of origin. Willingness, acceptance, surrender, life on life's terms... etc...

  
Just one thing I would say to a newcomer that might be helpful to them, OR one thing that really helped ME as a newcomer:

• wanna temporary sponsor?
• don't do this alone
• Welcome Home
• Go to as many meetings as possible.
• go to a Virtual newcomer meeting
• find a 12 day sponsor
• slow down and KISS! (Keep it Simple, Sweetie!)
• You're not alone, here's my number, keep coming back.
• This is an addiction and needs to be treated seriously.
• grab a sponsor guide
• Try at least 6 meetings
• listen for your story in others shares
• There is no one right way to do the program. Keep coming back until you find what works for you.
• it works if you work it
• ask for a glossary for all the acronyms
• Don't give up because the program doesn't make sense at first...keep going to meetings, get a sponsor who can guide you through it.
• Put yourself in the middle of the herd so that you create connections and break the isolation!
• Take what you want and leave the rest.....p.s. we do pick up more as we keeping coming back.
• Try the “New to OA” meeting every Saturday at 6PM through Oregon Intergroup.
• oa.org - find a virtual meeting
• Let go of defiance; and remember you have a choice; you don't HAVE to do anything; you are choosing to do this!
• you are welcome you are deserving you are special and you are not alone
• tradition 3, together we get better
• It's a we program!
• It's ODAT, I don't give up eating a certain food for the rest of my life, but for today, I choose not to eat it.
• let us love you  until you love yourself
• Here's my phone number, you're very welcome to call.
• Get a sponsor
• Keep a journal from day 1 to reflect on as you go through your program.
• the only way you fail is to leave
• OA is the "Good Clean Plate Program" at a buffet of ideas.  Take what you want, and leave the rest. However, you might consider taking what you need and leave the rest.
• know that you can't do it wrong ❤
• a desire to stop eating compulsively is the only requirement
• this is a rough time to join a fellowship. congratulations on your bravery. keep coming back.
• Ask someone if they would like a temp sponsor!  it helps!
• Give yourself some grace while learning the lingo and ask questions if you don't understand!
• A sponsor helps in working the 12 Steps and progressing in your recovery. It is okay to ask for a sponsor, even if you are new.
• bring your journal to meetings to take notes for recovery tips!
• Keep coming back and keep trying new things, even if abstinence eludes you.
• Join a Step Study Group
• life will change, the world will change, you will change over the long haul. but this can be the thread of your life....
• go to oaregion1.org/sponsorship.html to get a sponsor
• Ask someone to take you through the Newcomer's First 12 Days.  (Let newcomers know about this resource. 12 Days may seem do-able to a newcomer and make it easier to start.)

 
One thing I would like to commit to adding to my program for the rest of 2020:

• 30 meetings in 30 days....30 phone calls in 30 days...30 meditations in 30 days.  Set up a calendar for whatever you decide to do 30 days on!  Keep it Simple.  :)
• More meditation...walking meditation
• A E I O U 10th Step:   a = abstinence    e = exercise   I = what I did for myself   o = what did I do for others   u = what was uncomfortable (more classic 10th step)  (some people add “Y” for Yahoo’s/Gratitudes) to the above format
• Begin looking at the Principles of the Steps/Traditions/Concepts
• Go to a meeting in every state / every province / why not in other countries?
• Ask for willingness, then act on it as soon as it comes!
• look at my food plan.  Not perfection, but ask my sponsor if I can start committing my food.  Or, find a food plan partner.
• I felt JOY at the idea of attending meetings in other countries -- I'm going to start doing that!
• oa region 9 can take you to Europe meetings
• Make outreach calls on a weekly basis
• really committing to an action plan, including being more open to service.
• continue project -- catch myself in being negative toward myself. work on this and make more progress.
• start a daily practice that supports my well-being for the day -- commit to making this a more regular, daily thing each morning
• Have been working on my action plan.  Have made an action plan surrounding food plan, which helps me eat more regularly and on time. This helps me with daily routine.
• reach out to newcomers. call out and be humble and real
• Daily 3:00 tea time when depression sets in.
• I want to commit to loving myself fiercely for the rest of the year. Being kind to myself.
• Wake up and say I'm glad to be alive and today I'm going to be excited!
• I would tell newcomers that OA has taught me tons of new tools to live my life free of food addiction, obsession, and shame.
• So grateful for this experience. All the best to you for the next 24
• I love this banquet of ideas and the fact you set it up to record commitments in chat!!!

  
Thank you to everyone for your amazing shares!

“I wish someone would give me advice about my problems,” one person from our Fellowship shared after a meeting.  Although I stumbled for a minute, as I knew that cross-talk was not allowed, I started to think about her question more.
 
Then I realized that there are ways in OA that we give a great deal of advice:

• We advise depending on God’s guidance
• We recommend reading OA literature
• We suggest you attend several meetings to see the many ways OA can help you
• We suggest using our nine tools of recovery to help guide you
• We advise you that a sponsor is a very helpful person to have in your life
• We suggest spiritual ways to find a new perspective and a new strength

 
There is so much guidance offered and wisdom in taking these actions.  I think the thing is that I have to be the one taking the action instead of waiting for the right words or right person to “fix” me.  As it says in For Today on page 277 about looking elsewhere for peace:
 
“‘I would if I could, my friend, but – as it is for me – the problem is within.’  It is not the weather, the dog, the neighbor, my house, my spouse, or lack of spouse, my job or lack of one; it is within me.
 
For today: I am completely honest in taking stock of myself so I can learn why I feel as I do about myself.”
 
Now that’s some good advice!
 
Gratefully,
Nadine D. – Region One

Tradition Three says that the only requirement for membership in Overeaters Anonymous (OA) is the desire to stop eating compulsively. Tradition Four states that each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or OA as a whole. 

Have you noticed a recent trend toward special focus groups (groups which are specifically for members who share one trait)?  I believe that this is a wonderful thing, a finding of identity. Identity is the spiritual principle of Tradition Three.  Some of us, especially those who have been around OA for a long time, want everything to stay the same as it has always been.  But slowly, over time, we have allowed many things which we didn’t want to let into OA when the subject was first raised. I would much rather be an “elder statesman” than a “bleeding deacon” (or a “stick in the mud”).  I have been around OA for over forty years now, therefore I have a wealth of experience from which to draw perspective.  On the other hand, when I first came into OA, we did not worry about lots of things, and I like the “let them whirl” attitude of not correcting what others are doing.  I try to stay with correcting my own behaviors and attitudes rather than watching for what others are doing wrong.  It is not my job to be the OA Traditions police. 

Each OA group has the right to do things wrong.  One of my pet peeves is the practice of only reading one Tradition per week at meetings. However, that is NOT against Traditions and so I may grumble, but it is not my job as a Trustee to push my will on others. 

Tradition Four allows each meeting to have its own ways of doing things, unless it affects other groups or OA as a whole.   Both the OA and the AA “12x12” books (The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous and The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous) have interesting anecdotes about experiences with these Traditions. 

One of the stories I enjoy in Tradition Three is about how early in AA, they were very afraid of losing their meetings and their sobriety.  They wanted to keep certain people out and only allow “pure and respectable alcoholics” in.  So, the General Service Office asked that each group to send in its list of “protective” regulations.  The total list of those to be excluded was huge: beggars, tramps, asylum inmates, prisoners, queers, plain crackpots, fallen women, atheists, and more. Those early AA members suddenly realized that if all those rules had been in effect everywhere, no one could possibly have joined AA!  They came to their senses and made the only requirement for membership the desire to stop drinking.

When I came into OA, I think there were some members who would have been very happy if I had gone away--I didn’t believe in the God that those sweet little ladies believed in, plus I had taken drugs and had sex.  But I did have the desire to stop eating compulsively.

These days, people seem to be asking for more special focus groups. Based on some of the experience above, I say let them do it.  It may be that some of those members can start their recovery journey in a special focus group and stay in OA to support all other compulsive eaters toward recovery.  I stayed, even though some people rolled their eyes when I shared, but they didn’t kick me out and I kept coming back until I too found recovery.

So, love and accept them all, even if they challenge your beliefs.  Accept their right to work OA their own way. 
​
Margie G. – Region One

Lately it has been hard for me to get to meetings.  I love being able to go to a meeting without leaving my house, but sometimes sitting at my computer paying attention for an hour feels like more than I can do, and there often seems to be something else that needs done instead.  But, I know from past experience that not wanting to go to meetings is a “red flag” for me.

One of the advantages of having been in these rooms for years is that people notice when you aren’t showing up as often.  I’m grateful for OA friends who have called to say they’ve missed seeing me, and who have sent text messages saying "I hope to see you at the noon meeting today!"  They’ve helped me get back to where I hear the things I need to hear.

At one such meeting, we read a wonderful story titled “Power of Meetings” (Taste of Lifeline, pages 70-73).   The author shared about her first meeting, which changed her life, and said that meetings continue to be a foundation of her recovery.  This got me thinking about my own first meeting and what meetings have meant to me.  I realized that although “meetings” is technically just ONE of our Tools, they incorporate most of the other Tools as well. 

I attended my first meeting in 1993.  There was only one other person there, but this man put out the sign, led the meeting, shared his phone number, gave me a Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous), and reviewed the meeting directory with me.  That meeting got me started in OA and introduced me to literature and phone calls.  I also got to be honest about my crazy food and unmanageable life for the first time.  In 2021, I get to give back by helping ensure there is someone there to welcome others to their first meeting—on Zoom.

As I attended more meetings, I met my first sponsor.  That’s really the best place to meet sponsors, right?  When I started sponsoring others (my Step 12 foundation), I connected with those people because we were at the same meeting. Zoom meetings are where they keep the newcomers these days, and I’m grateful to be sponsoring two new people in the past year.

In my early days of program, when the “We Care” list went around the meeting, I wrote names and phone numbers inside the covers of my OA books.  Now my cell phone is chock-full of OA numbers…members I’ve met at both face-to-face and Zoom meetings.

I own just about every OA book published, but I certainly don’t read them all on my own.  On non-meeting days, I might not get around to reading at all.  We fumbled around a bit at first on Zoom, but meetings soon hit their stride and most have chosen one of our amazing, hope-filled books as their focus. 

My first service was setting out chairs at a face-to-face meeting.  Zoom meetings also need people to give service, and it is important for me to step up.  When I say yes to service in a Zoom meeting, it’s easier for me to stay present, and it’s good for me to know I am contributing to the well-being of the meeting.

Meetings are where I learned to listen and give other people my undivided attention, three minutes at a time, without giving advice.  It is a little harder in Zoom meetings, but I’ve found that leaving my video on helps me be accountable for being attentive, and taking notes helps if I'm having trouble staying focused.  When I do these things, I am much more likely to come away thinking “Wow! What a great meeting!”

These days, there are new voices sharing their stories of hope in our meetings—our “world-wide Fellowship” has become an everyday reality.  We’re connected in a way we were not before, and what a boon this must be for meetings in small towns everywhere!

Meetings have provided structure for me—an opportunity to “show up” on an ongoing basis.  I wasn’t happy to have the bottom fall out of that structure a year ago, but I am grateful we as a Fellowship made quick use of the tools at hand to make meetings available again.

I see my OA family at OA meetings.  As a person who (still!) has a tendency to drift toward isolation, the Fellowship is very important for me.  I need to show up and claim my seat (or at least my little square!) at meetings.  I am grateful to be able to do so.

See you on Zoom!  :)
 
​
Beverly M. – Region One 

In the back of the Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th edition) on page 563 is “The Long Form” of the Twelve Traditions.  This is how the Traditions first appeared in 1946.

The long form of the Twelfth Tradition starts on page 565:

“12.—And finally, we of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the principle of anonymity has an immense spiritual significance.  It reminds us that we are to place principles before personalities; that we are actually to practice a genuine humility.  This to the end that our great blessings may never spoil us; that we shall forever live in thankful contemplation of Him who presides over us all.”

I really love this reading; it helps me remember that there is something bigger than me. Bigger than the conflict between me and that other person who wants us to do it her way instead of my way—the right way.  It makes me want to act like a saner and more giving person. 

Often in OA we get stuck on the idea that anonymity is about not using our names with public media.  That is one of the meanings of anonymity, but it is not the only meaning.

One of the synonyms of anonymity is “namelessness.”  That is why we do not put the names of speakers on OA event flyers or schedules.  The emphasis is on the topic rather than the person.  We do not put names of authors on OA literature either.  We say, “my sponsor told me….” rather than “Jean told me…”  When I say my sponsor says to read xxx; I might as well say the OA program says to read xxx.  That way I honor the process and the program, not one specific person.

I love doing service at a “high” level, but I try to stay humble about it because I have seen people get very wrapped up in being the person in charge or who is at the top.  In OA we only hold positions a short time and then we rotate on to other positions and allow someone else to fill the “top spot.”  Sometimes I have seen people gain weight after being in a top-level position.  I know that I have certain strengths, but I also have weaknesses and so do other people. I do not want to lose my abstinence after being in a high position.  I know that my recovery is worth far more to me than any OA service position. This “Long Form of the Twelfth Tradition” helps me stay right-sized.

Margie G. – Region One
  
 
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“But my darling, there’s no such thing as the light at the end of the tunnel, you must realize that you are the light.”  Anonymous
 
This always makes me feel so empowered.  It reminds me that I am in charge of my own recovery.
 
Light shines out of darkness.  When I first came to OA, I was in a very dark place.  I thought my problem was that I couldn’t stop eating at certain times. Over time I realized there was a much bigger reason why the food called to me.

• Selfishness in so needing your approval to feel ok about who I was.
• A tired, worn belief that my opinion didn’t matter.
• An obsession with body size and weight that took up way too much space in my head.

 
It was hard for me to shine when I kept dumping darkness on myself.
 
When I saw people recovering in the rooms of OA, the first thing I noticed was that they looked “lighter.”
 
Could it be that when we have hope, coupled with a faith that works for us and an honest desire, with courage to talk with a sponsor, that our load is lightened and it shows up on our face? It seems to me as we rid ourselves of the darkness, the lightness of our heart can begin to glow.
 
You know, light only has one purpose…to shine!

May you be a shining example of recovery this year and may your glow help light the way for others seeking the peace found in O.A.
 
Nadine D.- Region One

 
 
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