The Tools of Recovery

In working Overeaters Anonymous' Twelve-Step program of recovery from
compulsive overeating, we have found that there are a number of tools available to
assist us. We use these tools-a plan of eating, sponsorship, meetings, the telephone,
writing, literature, anonymity, service-on a regular basis and a plan of action, to help us achieve and maintain abstinence.

In Overeaters Anonymous (OA), abstinence is "the action of refraining from
compulsive eating." Many of us have found that we cannot abstain from compulsive
eating unless we use some or all of OA's eight tools of recovery.

A Plan of Eating

As a tool, a plan of eating helps us to abstain from eating compulsively. Having a
personal plan of eating guides us in our dietary decisions, as well as defines what,
when, how, where and why we eat. It is our experience that sharing this plan with a
sponsor or another OA member is important.

There are no specific requirements for a plan of eating; OA does not endorse,
recommend or distribute any specific food plan, nor does it exclude the personal
use of one. For specific dietary or nutritional guidance, OA suggests consulting a
qualified health care professional, such as a physician or dietician. Each of us
develops a personal plan of eating based on an honest appraisal of his or her own
past experience; we also have come to identify our current individual needs, as well
as those things which we should avoid.

Although individual plans of eating are as varied as our members, most OA
members agree that some plan-no matter how flexible or structured-is necessary.

This tool helps us deal with the physical aspects of our disease, and helps us achieve
physical recovery. From this vantage point, we can more effectively follow OA's
Twelve-Step program of recovery and move beyond the food to a happier,
healthier and more spiritual living experience.

Sponsorship

Sponsors are OA members who are living the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
to the best of their ability. They are willing to share their recovery with other
members of the Fellowship and are committed to abstinence.

We ask a sponsor to help us through our program of recovery on all three levels:
physical, emotional and spiritual. By working with other members of OA and
sharing their experience, strength and hope, sponsors continually renew and reaffirm
their own recovery. Sponsors share their program up to the level of their own
experience.

Ours is a program of attraction; find a sponsor who has what you want, and ask
that person how he or she is achieving it. A member may work with more than one
sponsor and may change sponsors at will.

Meetings

Meetings are gatherings of two or more compulsive overeaters who come together
to share their personal experience, and the strength and hope OA has given them.
Though there are many types of meetings, fellowship with other compulsive
overeaters is the basis of them all. Meetings give us an opportunity to identify and
confirm our common problem and to share the gifts we receive through this
program.

Telephone

The telephone helps us share on a one-to-one basis and avoid the isolation which is
so common among us. Many members call other OA members and their own
sponsors daily. As a part of the surrender process, it is a tool with which we learn
to reach out, ask for help and extend help to others. The telephone also provides an
immediate outlet for those hard-to-handle highs and lows we may experience.

Writing

In addition to writing our inventories and the list of people we have harmed, most of
us have found that writing has been an indispensable tool for working the Steps.
Further, putting our thoughts and feelings down on paper, or describing a troubling
incident, helps us to better understand our actions and reactions in a way that is
often not revealed to us by simply thinking or talking about them. In the past,
compulsive eating was our most common reaction to life. When we put our
difficulties down on paper, it becomes easier to see situations more clearly and
perhaps better discern any necessary action.

Literature

We study and read OA-approved pamphlets; OA-approved books, such as
Overeaters Anonymous, The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of
Overeaters Anonymous and For Today; and we read Lifeline, our monthly
magazine on recovery. We also study the book Alcoholics Anonymous, referred to
as the "Big Book," to understand and reinforce our program. Many OA members
find that when read on a daily basis, the literature further reinforces how to live the
Twelve Steps. Our OA literature and the AA "Big Book" are ever-available tools
which provide insight into our problem of eating compulsively, strength to deal with
it, and the very real hope that there is a solution for us.

Anonymity

Anonymity, referred to in Traditions Eleven and Twelve, is a tool that guarantees
that we will place principles before personalities. The protection anonymity provides
offers each of us freedom of expression and safeguards us from gossip. Anonymity
assures us that only we, as individual OA members, have the right to make our
membership known within our community. Anonymity at the level of press, radio,
films and television means that we never allow our faces or last names to be used
once we identify ourselves as OA members. This protects both the individual and
the Fellowship.

Within the Fellowship, anonymity means that whatever we share with another OA
member will be held in respect and confidence. What we hear at meetings should
remain there. However, it should be understood that anonymity must not be used to
limit our effectiveness within the Fellowship. It is not a break of anonymity to use
our full names within our group or OA service bodies. Also, it is not a break of
anonymity to enlist Twelfth-Step help for group members in trouble, provided we
are careful to refrain from discussing any specific personal information.

Another aspect of anonymity is that we are all equal in the Fellowship, whether we
are newcomers or seasoned long-timers. And our outside status makes no
difference in OA; we have no stars or VIPs. We come together simply as
compulsive overeaters.

Service

Carrying the message to the compulsive overeater who still suffers is the basic
purpose of our Fellowship; therefore, it is the most fundamental form of service.
Any form of service-no matter how small-which helps reach a fellow sufferer adds
to the quality of our own recovery. Getting to meetings, putting away chairs, putting
out literature, talking to newcomers, doing whatever needs to be done in a group or
for OA as a whole, are ways in which we give back what we have so generously
been given. We are encouraged to do what we can when we can. "A life of sane
and happy usefulness" is what we are promised as the result of working the Twelve
Steps. Service helps to fulfill that promise.

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."

Action Plan

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Anonymous, Inc.; World Service Office. Copyright may not be reproduced in any manner
without written permission of OA Inc.