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Overeaters Anonymous
OA Region 8

“We of Overeaters Anonymous have found in this Fellowship a way to recover from the disease of compulsive overeating. We use ‘compulsive overeating’ and ‘compulsive eating’ interchangeably. These terms include, but are not limited to, overeating, under-eating, food addiction, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, overexercising, purging, and other compulsive food behaviors. No matter what form our disease takes, anyone having a problem with food can find help in Overeaters Anonymous. After repeated failures to control our eating and our weight, we now have a solution that works. Our solution is a program of recovery—a program of Twelve simple Steps. By following these Steps, thousands of OA members have stopped eating compulsively."—Read the full Introduction to the Twelve Steps.

Excerpted from The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous, Second Edition, © 2018 Overeaters Anonymous, Inc.

For a deeper understanding of the Twelve Steps and an in-depth study of the OA Twelve Step recovery program, read The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous, Second Edition.

The Twelve Steps of Overeaters Anonymous are:

1.      We admitted we were powerless over food—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2.     Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3.     Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4.     Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5.     Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6.     Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7.     Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8.     Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9.     Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10.  Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

11.   Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12.  Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Permission to use the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous for adaptation granted by AA World Services, Inc.