Welcome. If you're struggling with food, you're not alone.
This page is here to help you understand what Overeaters Anonymous is, what we offer, and how to get started. Take your time—there’s no right way to begin, just a next step.
In Overeaters Anonymous, you’ll find members who are:
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Extremely overweight, even morbidly obese
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Only moderately overweight
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Average weight
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Underweight
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Still maintaining periodic control over their eating behavior
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Totally unable to control their compulsive eating
OA members experience many different patterns of food behaviors. These “symptoms” are as varied as our membership. Among them are:
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Obsession with body weight, size, and shape
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Eating binges
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Grazing
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Preoccupation with reducing diets
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Starving
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Excessive exercise
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Inducing vomiting after eating
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Inappropriate and/or excessive use of diuretics and laxatives
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Chewing and spitting out food
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Use of diet pills, shots, and other medical interventions, including surgery, to control weight
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Inability to stop eating certain foods after taking the first bite
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Fantasies about food
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Vulnerability to quick-weight-loss schemes
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Constant preoccupation with food
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Using food as a reward or for comfort
Our symptoms may vary, but we share a common bond: We are powerless over food and our lives are unmanageable. This common problem has led those in OA to seek and find a common solution in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous. We find that, no matter what our symptoms, we all suffer from the same disease—one that can be arrested by living this program one day at a time.
What exactly is an OA meeting like?
First of all: deep breath. There’s nothing to be nervous about. You will be welcome. You’ll find you are not alone anymore. Everyone at the meeting knows where you’re coming from about food. Here’s what happens at a typical meeting, but all meetings are a little different.Once you’ve found a meeting that you want to check out, you show up. Set aside an hour for your meeting. Consider this “you” time. You’ll meet others like you with a simple first name introduction and be genuinely welcomed. Get yourself settled with the group to enjoy various readings, members sharing their journeys, and learning more about OA. Participate as much or as little as you want. You are welcome to share but you don’t have to. If you have questions, you can talk with individual members after the meeting. Congratulations—you completed your first meeting!
But, wait. What about the weigh-in? What about paying a membership fee? There’s none of that. When people become members, they often voluntarily contribute, but it’s never required. We promise.
So, to recap, at OA there’s …
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No weigh-in
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No membership fee
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No judgment
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No religion (we’re a spiritual group)
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A safe place for everyone (all genders, races, ages, sexual orientations, sizes)
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A program that works
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Hope…and there are people who will understand
To find the meeting that works for you we suggest you try a variety. Meetings in the Los Angeles area can be found here and include in-person, virtual, and hybrid.
We of Overeaters Anonymous have made a discovery. At the very first meeting we attended, we learned that we were in the clutches of a dangerous illness, and that willpower, emotional health and self-confidence, which some of us had once possessed, were no defense against it.We have found that the reasons for this illness are unimportant. What deserves the attention of the still-suffering compulsive overeater is this: There is a proven, workable method by which we can arrest our illness.
The OA recovery program is patterned after that of Alcoholics Anonymous. We use AA’s twelve steps and twelve traditions, changing only the words “alcoholic” and “alcohol” to “food” and “compulsive overeating.”As our personal stories attest, the twelve-step program of recovery works as well for compulsive overeaters as it does for alcoholics. Can we guarantee you this recovery? The answer is simple. If you will honestly face the truth about yourself and the illness; if you keep coming back to meetings to talk and listen to other recovering compulsive overeaters; if you will read our literature and that of Alcoholic Anonymous with an open mind; and most important, if you are willing to rely on a power greater than yourself for direction in your life, and to take the twelve steps to the best of your ability, we believe you can indeed join the ranks of those who recover.
To remedy the emotional, physical, and spiritual illness of compulsive overeating we offer several suggestions, but keep in mind that the basis of this program is spiritual, as evidenced by the twelve steps.We are not a “diet and calories” club. We do not endorse any particular plan of eating. Once we become abstinent, the preoccupation with food diminishes and in many cases leaves us entirely. We then find that, to deal with our inner turmoil, we have to have a new way of thinking, of acting on life rather than reacting to it – in essence, a new way of living.
From this vantage point, we began the twelve-step program of recovery, moving beyond the food and the emotional havoc to a fuller living experience. As a result of practicing these steps, the symptom of compulsive overeating is removed on a daily basis, achieved through the process of surrendering to something greater than ourselves; the more total our surrender, the more freely realized our freedom from food obsession.“But I’m too weak. I’ll never make it!” Don’t worry, we have all thought and said the same thing. The amazing secret to the success of this program is just that: weakness. It is weakness, not strength that binds us to each other and to a higher power and somehow gives us the ability to do what we cannot do alone.
If you decide you are one of us, we welcome you with open arms. Whatever your circumstances, we offer you the gift of acceptance. You are not alone anymore. Welcome to Overeaters Anonymous. Welcome home!
(Reprinted with permission from the World Service Office of Overeaters Anonymous)
As we work the Overeaters Anonymous Twelve Step program of recovery from compulsive eating, we have a number of Tools to assist us. We use these Tools—a plan of eating, sponsorship, meetings, telephone, writing, literature, action plan, anonymity, and service—on a regular basis, to help us achieve and maintain abstinence and recovery from our disease.
A Plan of Eating
As a Tool, a plan of eating helps us abstain from compulsive eating, guides us in our dietary decisions, and defines what, when, how, where, and why we eat. (See the pamphlet A New Plan of Eating for more information.) This Tool helps us deal with the physical aspects of our disease and achieve physical recovery.
Sponsorship
We ask a sponsor to help us through all three levels of our program of recovery: physical, emotional, and spiritual. Find a sponsor who has what you want and ask that person how they are achieving it.
Meetings
Meetings give us an opportunity to identify our common problem, confirm our common solution, and share the gifts we receive through this Twelve Step program. In addition to face-to-face meetings, OA offers telephone and other types of virtual meetings that are useful in breaking through the deadly isolation caused by distance, illness, or physical challenges.
Telephone
Many members call, text, or email their sponsors and other OA members daily. Telephone or electronic contact also provides an immediate outlet for those hard-to-handle highs and lows we may experience.
Writing
Putting our thoughts and feelings down on paper, or describing a troubling or joyous incident, helps us better understand our actions and reactions in a way that is often not revealed by simply thinking or talking about them.
Literature
We read OA-approved literature, which includes numerous books, study guides, pamphlets, wallet cards, and selected Alcoholics Anonymous texts. All this material provides insight into our disease and the experience, strength, and hope that there is a solution for us.
Action Plan
Creating an action plan is the process of identifying and implementing attainable actions to support our individual abstinence and emotional, spiritual, and physical recovery. This Tool, like our plan of eating, may vary widely among members and may need to be adjusted as we progress in our recovery.
Anonymity
Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities (Tradition Twelve). Anonymity assures us that only we, as individual OA members, have the right to make our membership known to others. Anonymity at the level of press, radio, films, television, and other public media of communication means that we never allow our faces or last names to be used once we identify ourselves as OA members (Tradition Eleven).
Within the Fellowship, anonymity means that whatever we share with another OA member will be respected and kept confidential. What we hear at meetings should remain there.
Service
Any form of service—no matter how small—that helps reach a fellow sufferer adds to the quality of our own recovery. Members who are new to OA can give service by attending meetings, sharing, and putting away chairs. All members can also give service by putting out literature, welcoming newcomers, hosting a virtual meeting, or doing whatever is needed to help the group. Members who meet specified requirements can give service beyond the group level by serving at the intergroup, service board, region, or world service level.
As OA’s Responsibility Pledge states:
“Always to extend the hand and heart of OA to all who share my compulsion; for this I am responsible.”
Further Information: A Plan of Eating
Many of us came to Overeaters Anonymous expecting to find the perfect diet and get our food problem under control. What we found instead was a Twelve Step program that provides a foundation for living a balanced and healthy life. We learned that OA does not have a specific diet. We came to understand that the basis for stopping our compulsive food behaviors—and staying stopped—is personal, inner change. Yes, we had to decide—with help—the appropriate plan of eating for ourselves, but the power to follow that plan comes from emotional and spiritual change. We achieve this inner change by working the Twelve Steps and learning to live according to the Principles underlying the Steps. As a result of working the Twelve Steps, our obsession with food is lifted.
OA is a Twelve-Step Fellowship much like Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s our one-day-at-a-time approach plus our members that make us different from other solutions you may have tried. You may not be familiar with a twelve-step program—and that’s okay, we’re here to help!
Abstinence is the action of refraining from compulsive eating and compulsive food behaviors while working towards or maintaining a healthy body weight. Spiritual, emotional, and physical recovery is the result of living and working the Overeaters Anonymous Twelve Step program on a daily basis.
Now that you have found Overeaters Anonymous, you may want to make sure our program is right for you. Many of us have found it useful to answer the following questions to help determine if we have a problem with compulsive eating.
1. Do I eat when I’m not hungry, or not eat when my body needs nourishment?
2. Do I go on eating binges for no apparent reason, sometimes eating until I’m stuffed or even feel sick?
3. Do I have feelings of guilt, shame, or embarrassment about my weight or the way I eat?
4. Do I eat sensibly in front of others and then make up for it when I am alone?
5. Is my eating affecting my health or the way I live my life?
6. When my emotions are intense—whether positive or negative—do I find myself reaching for food?
7. Do my eating behaviors make me or others unhappy?
8. Have I ever used laxatives, vomiting, diuretics, excessive exercise, diet pills, shots, or other medical interventions (including surgery) to try to control my weight?
9. Do I fast or severely restrict my food intake to control my weight?
10. Do I fantasize about how much better life would be if I were a different size or weight?
11. Do I need to chew or have something in my mouth all the time: food, gum, mints, candies, or beverages?
12. Have I ever eaten food that is burned, frozen, or spoiled; from containers in the grocery store; or out of the garbage?
13. Are there certain foods I can’t stop eating after having the first bite?
14. Have I lost weight with a diet or “period of control” only to be followed by bouts of uncontrolled eating and/or weight gain?
15. Do I spend too much time thinking about food, arguing with myself about whether or what to eat, planning the next diet or exercise cure, or counting calories?