What is OA?
Overeaters Anonymous (OA) is a community of people who support each other as they recover from compulsive eating and food behaviours. There are OA groups in over 75 countries meeting in person, online, and via the telephone each week. OA’s 60-year history has shown that it is possible to recover from the disease of compulsive eating. We invite you to join us to find the freedom that many of our members have discovered over the years. You can read more about OA on the World Service Office website.
OA Preamble
Overeaters Anonymous is a Fellowship of individuals who, through shared experience, strength, and hope, are recovering from compulsive overeating. We welcome everyone who wants to stop eating compulsively.
There are no dues or fees for members; we are self-supporting through our own contributions, neither soliciting nor accepting outside donations. OA is not affiliated with any public or private organisation, political movement, ideology, or religious doctrine; we take no position on outside issues.
Our primary purpose is to abstain from compulsive eating and compulsive food behaviours and to carry the message of recovery through the Twelve Steps of OA to those who still suffer.
How does OA work?
We in OA believe we have a threefold illness—physical, emotional, and spiritual. Tens of thousands have found that OA’s Twelve Step program brings recovery on all three levels. The Twelve Steps embody a set of actions we take. These Steps put us in touch with a Higher Power who restores us to sanity.
As we work the Steps, we let go of old attitudes, and we find we are being relieved of our obsession with food and weight. Those of us who choose to work the Steps, one day at a time, achieve a new way of life with lasting freedom from our food obsession.
A sponsor can help us understand how to apply the Principles of the Steps. Sponsors are members who also work the program.