A Disease of the Body (Overeaters Anonymous, Third Edition, Appendix C)

This podcast is the recorded script from the OA Foot Steps Intergroup Daily Meditation Meeting called “On Awakening.”

It is a very simple format. It starts with a fifteen minute reading period, followed by the reading from Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 86-88, “On Awakening.”

We then meditate for ten minutes, and then journal for fifteen minutes.

This meeting is entirely self-directed, and you can use this recording at any time of the day as part of a daily practice. 

Written in 1980by the late Reverend Rollo M. Boas, this favorable assessment of Overeaters Anonymous offers a timeless truth: compulsive eating and compulsive food behaviors are indicators of an individual's starved and suffocated spirit. However, with the encouragement, support, and wisdom of OA’s Fellowship, the still-suffering compulsive eater can learn to wean themselves off the debilitating crutch of compulsive food behaviors and find peace in nurturing their spirit. As the individual surrounds themselves with the love found in the OA program, compulsive eating is diminished and a new sense of wholeness and balance emerges.

A short list of titles from among OA’s more than 100 literature items available at bookstore.oa.org.

How to find Overeaters Anonymous in your area or online.

Written in 1980, this assessment by Peter G. Lindner, MD, still holds true today. Obesity is pervasive and comes at a high cost to individuals and societies. This big picture is populated by the individual compulsive eater who is held in bondage to their unhealthy relationship with food by their own hopelessness and defiance. What OA offers that can solve the issue for compulsive eaters is "ego reduction," a means of letting go or surrendering their self will in exchange for guidance and care from a power greater than themselves.

Written in 1980, this assessment by William Hader, MD, still holds true today: compulsive overeating is a disease. It precedes other chronic disorders, and applying treatment principles to compulsive eating similar to those used for alcoholism can be very successful.

Dietitian H. Theresa Wright, MS, RD, LDN, explains how coming to understand problems with food as an addictive process improved the program and peer support based care she was already giving. Discovering Overeaters Anonymous, and learning about OA’s Plan of Eating Tool, confirmed previous success in her practice and gave her a new and stronger way to provide care to her clients.

Ana’s sponsor taught her early in her recovery to use the Tool of writing to work the Twelve Steps of OA and then send her writing in to Lifeline magazine. In this short recording, Ana reflects on Lifeline’s role in her recovery and those of her sponsees. Listen and become inspired to send in your story!