A fellow ended the Serenity prayer recently with this verse and I stopped in my tracks. I had not heard this version before and it really resonated with me.

To say that I struggle with giving up my will is a gross minimization. I am ALL about the power when it comes to my way! My mother says I came out of the womb saying, “you can’t tell me what to do.”

I know I want to give it all to HP and have him drive the bus, but I often realize after a situation, event or thought that I have taken it back. Worse, I sometimes knowingly take the power back as if I think I am winning some sort of battle between HP and myself.

This verse reminds me that HP and I are not on opposing sides, but rather going alongside. The more I practice the steps, give service and surrender the more my will aligns with Higher Power. Afterall, as that same fellow says “GOD’s GOT IT.”

I know I am more present with HP’s will then I was when I started and I am continuing to get better at working with Higher Power one day at a time.

What helps you remember to give it to HP?

I look forward to seeing all of you at convention!

Teri O
First Vice Chair

MY blog submission is due today and I don’t know what to write about. I have been in a shaky place lately.   I spoke with my sponsor about how I was feeling discouraged and unmotivated to practice the daily disciplines that keep me close to my Higher Power and abstinent. I have relapsed before and know that the first compulsive bite is that last step in a relapse.  “My food has been good, but I am scared that I will lose it if I keep on the path I have been on.”  Of course, know I was in danger is helpful, but I am still as powerless over my thinking as I am over the food.  My brain has this uncanny ability to resist the very things that are good for me.  I know that a meeting or an outreach call will alleviate the loneliness of isolation.  I know that prayer and meditation are how I can connect with my Higher Power.  I know how basic self-care activities – getting to bed at a decent hour, waking up and dressing as becomingly as I can each day, and exercise – all lead to my feeling better about myself and the world around me.  Just like I always know that I needed to stop eating so much if I wanted to lose weight and be healthier.  And, just as with the food, I couldn’t myself to do the things I need t”to do on my own.  My sponsor didn’t scold me for feeling sorry for myself, which is what I expected.  She suggested that I act myself into right thinking by writing for one minute each day and returning to the practice of sending her a nightly inventory each night. So, this blog is my writing for this morning.  I have been doing this for 5 days and nights now.  The nightly inventories have really helped me to see how much I had been fighting accepting life as life is right now. I have been dealing with health issues. I have been angry that I wasn’t recovering according to my own timetable and also afraid about it.  I was pissed at my Higher Power because life wasn’t’ going my way. Selfishness, anger and fear.  No wonder I haven’t felt close to HP and felt on a slippery slope.  Thankfully, my HP has a pretty solid self esteem and loves me in all of me – angry, joyful, whatever.  Admitting how I was feeling to myself, and to HP, means that I can ask to have these defects to be removed and for the willingness to take the next right action.  For today, I pray for the willingness to take the next right action and that that leads to the next right action after that.  I am so grateful for this program and the fellowship that gives me people I can turn to when I am struggling.  

Lisa S. Region One Secretary

I wanted my first blog to be uplifting, something insightful, beautiful, inspirational. But that’s not where I am at today. Today, I am struggling. When I first came to OA, I thought I was at the lowest point in my life. It was easy to admit my life was out of control and that I needed help. I wish I could say that my journey in OA was solid from that point forward, but I would be kidding myself and lying to you. No, I dragged my feet, tried to do the program my way and was selective about what advice I would follow, and not surprisingly, I did not recover. Truth be told, I am still not recovered. Today, I am abstinent by the grace of my HP and I am grateful because in the last year alone, I have been arrested and briefly incarcerated, homeless, my wife filed for divorce, and two of my kids are choosing sides and not talking to me. And I don’t think that things are going to get better from this point forward. I might lose everything, my home, my dog, my job. I am scared to death. But I am not compulsively overeating. No, I am maintaining and working toward a healthy body weight. So that is a miracle. And if this miracle is possible, maybe HP has something in store for me that I can’t see either. Because when I was 355 pounds with diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, I didn’t believe that I would be alive to see my 50th birthday next month. I hope I do make it. But you know what, I am not alone in this journey. I have my
OA family praying for me and encouraging me. I still make mistakes and I owe amends, I am far from perfect. I am just another member of OA who found that service is a lifesaving tool. So for Today, I will trust in my HP a little more, I will admit my mistakes and make amends, and I will survive another day.

​James G. Second Vice Chair

​As I sit here on a beautiful, sunny Sunday in Seattle knowing that this blog post is due, I am feeling grateful for the type of recovery I have today. I’m not anxious that I won’t get it done or that it won’t be perfect (what does that even mean anyway?). Everything used to be black and white for this sugar addict. And what do I mean by the “type of recovery I have today”? I mean that the phrase “like a loose garment“ feels really applicable and true for me in this moment. Not that there haven’t been other times in my almost 6 years of sobriety in OA that have felt similarly but this feels like a new, deeper, sensation.

What do I attribute this sense of ease and peace to? Hmmm… well I wish it was something profound like - oh I don’t know- I have learned the secret of inner peace ….it’s pickle ball!!! 

But honestly, I think it’s just continuing to put 1 foot in front of the other in recovery even when I don’t want to. One of my favorite phrases is “I can be willing to do something I don’t want to do“ - often that’s the case. And I’ve learned to call that willingness grace. I’m on a streak of regular meditation right now and as much as I don’t understand it, 10 minutes of meditation can really change how I react toward people and events in my day. I also still make time for 3 to 4 meetings a week, and I am really fortunate to be able to do that -  even on mornings when EVERYONE IS ANNOYING ME AND I DON’T LIKE THE WAY THE MEETING IS BEING LED AND THAT PERSON IS MAKING ME FEEL FRUSTRATED!!!!!!!! Oh Erinbryn. 

Most of my meetings are early morning before my day really gets started; if you had told me almost 6 years ago that I would be happy to wake up in the morning and sit in the quiet Sun rising I would’ve told you you were crazy, all while wiping last nights binge off of my sheets and clothing. My relationship with my higher power keeps growing and while I still don’t understand this power that has helped make my life manageable, easeful and yes, even SERENE some of the time, I know it’s there.  I trust that if I keep showing up and putting one foot in front of the other, I will continue to have a life that allows me to feel, grow and even thrive! HP has never let me down yet.  I just have to keep practicing the trust that when things don’t go the way I THINK they should that’s probably an indication that everything is going to work out better than I could have imagined. :)

Practice, practice, practice. 
I’m so grateful for the willingness to keep showing up. 
​
Erin F. MAL R1

I recently listened to a podcast on what the speaker calls the “Twelve Freedoms” which she took from the pages of the OA 12&12.
 
Below is each step, the Freedom associated with the step, and my experience, strength and hope in blue.

1. We admitted we were powerless over food and that our lives had become unmanageable. Freedom from food obsession.  I do my OA footwork each day and claim being free of compulsive eating and obsession one day at a time.
2. Came to believe a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. Freedom from insanity and hopelessness.  I see my insanity in using my character defects to try to achieve what I want. It might work in the short time, but never in the long run.  Freedom from insanity is not choosing to act out of a character defect.  I’m free from hopelessness, because I’ve seen so many program miracles in my life and in the life of OA.
3. Made a decision to turn my will and my ways over to the care of God as I understand Him. Freedom from bondage of self.  I am definitely self-will run riot and sometimes I marvel at how the people at my first OA meeting 36 years ago must have seen me and loved me anyway.  I don’t know all of God’s will for me, but I have learned to trust I will be told the next right thing.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Freedom from dishonesty. It’s much more satisfying and interesting when I have the courage to be honest.
5. Admitted to God, myself, and another person the exact nature of my wrongs. Freedom from isolation. Okay, I’ve just told the worst things I’ve done to another person and they didn’t leave. What a glorious relief.
6. Became entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character. Freedom from fear of change.  A lot of my recovery has been to let go of resisting whatever happens. I remind myself that change can be good.
7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings. Freedom from self-reliance.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Freedom from blame.  I was the expert at justifying my eating habits, and my behavior, but now am reminded to practice humility and gratitude.
9. Made direct amends wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or others. Freedom from fear of people.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. Freedom from complacency.  I am completely convinced that I cannot live with resentment and I need to ask myself each day if I have any resentments and then resolve them.  Most days I write out a daily tenth step.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will and power to carry it out. Freedom from loneliness.  This one was a surprise to me.  I thought loneliness came from not being with other people.  But truly it’s my relationship with my HP that fills me every time someone lets me down.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps we tried to carry this message to other compulsive eaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs.  Freedom from lack of purpose.  For sure, I didn’t know what I had to offer to people.  And  just by living this program, I carry the message.  I keep in mind the OA responsibility pledge: to carry the hand and heart of OA to all who share my compulsion, for this I am responsible.

I encourage anyone to reflect on these twelve freedoms, or other freedoms that might be true for you from working the OA 12 Step program.  I was a pretty tough nut to crack when I came into OA 36 years ago. And I can say now that  I am truly grateful for the freer life I have now.

Carrie A.

​The Big Book Promises
(What they mean to me and how they came true.)
 
If we are painstaking about this phase (making amends) of our development we will be amazed (new awareness) before we are halfway through. This amazement, this awareness, this awakening (spiritual change) started around the seventh step. This is when I became aware of… opening the curtains, my heart quit jumping in my throat, the silence wasn’t deafening and no more knotted, gnarly stomachs.

What development? The development of changing myself from the character with defects that I had become, into the best possible version of myself. By the 9th step, the authors’ promise that if I have thoroughly completed the first nine steps a whole bunch of cool things will come to be.

We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. The greatest freedom for me came, not just from a life changing weight loss, but from unlocking the cell door of this prison that was my mind. My mind told me lies, held me captive, fed me substances and even talked me into hurting others. By opening my mind and working the steps, I took back my life. The one that the step 9 promises, promised me.

Freedom wasn’t free. For freedom, I had to do the work, I had to work the steps. Happiness on the other hand, happiness must be free because once I put in the work to change, happiness just miraculously appeared.
  
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. I had, from severe memory impairment, shut the door on my past but my body carried the regret and the sorrow still tugged at my mind. Completion of the steps led me to realize that the past was a place for learning not for living.

We will comprehend the word serenity (no dictionary can explain serenity, the only way to understand serenity is to live it) and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone (I thought this meant how much weight I lost), we will see how our experience can benefit others. Serenity and peace, like happiness, came with the freedom. The freedom from the bondage of self. In other words, while you are a prisoner of your mind (fear, guilt, anger, regret…), you are not free.
 
That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. Just stepping away from active addiction, I no longer felt worthless from repeating the same compulsive insane behaviors over and over. Behaviors that I blamed on others until I completed my fourth step.
 
We will lose interest in selfish things (substance and/or behavioral compulsions) and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. No longer had I a need to be noticed in the crowd, funnier than the masses, or louder than the others. I was given the phenomenal opportunity to do lots of service and the more I said yes to service, the less I practiced self-will. When I couldn’t show up for me I could show up for service.  

Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change. I had moved into a small low level apartment where I felt like I didn’t want to wake up one more day. I hated life, I hated people, and I hated me. At 400 pounds I had no reason to go on. Following the completion of the 12 steps and with a loss of 185 pounds my attitude started to change. I could move again, and I wanted the world to know it. I had life again and I wanted to embrace every moment I was awake. I had a reason to live again.

Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. When I first heard this promise, I wondered what weight and compulsive eating has to do with economic security. But I also knew that I struggled with many compulsive behaviors including debiting and spending. I began to use the steps in other areas of my life and economically my life did change. I no longer feared the future. I began to lean on the big guy and despite my poor money and credit state, I moved into a downtown Highrise, something I had not thought possible until finding recovery.

We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. People used to baffle me. People with behaviors and emotions could upset me or ruin my day as easily as possible. I found communication and relationships to be difficult and not worth it. After doing the steps especially step four and nine, I began to take the focus off myself and placed it on others. I finally realized that I could not change or control anyone, not even me. Situations which used to baffle me now teach me.  

We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. I can’t, God can, I think I’ll let him. I have this belief that God won’t walk us to it if God can’t walk us through it.

Are these extravagant promises? Not a chance, these are the most realistic promises since all over the world people are changing their lives. We think not. They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. People are changing their lives and these promises are kept for many who have come before us. They will always materialize if we work for them. It works if you work it!

​Diane D.