At your meeting
Welcome newcomers, lead a meeting, set up the room, manage Zoom, or become your group’s intergroup delegate.
Member Service
Carry the Message Forward.
Service strengthens our own recovery while helping the still-suffering compulsive eater find OA. Every member has something meaningful to offer.
Across the Valley
Support events, communications, literature, technology, meeting resources, and member services.
Learn more →Intergroup Delegates
Represent your meeting, carry information in both directions, and participate in decisions that support local groups.
Learn more →
Many hands, shared purpose
Start where you are.
- 01
Ask your group
Your meeting’s secretary or delegate can share current openings and simple ways to help.
- 02
Attend intergroup
See how local groups work together, hear current needs, and meet members serving across the Valley.
- 03
Offer what you know
Writing, welcoming, organizing, design, technology, listening, and steady attendance can all be service.
Read Here or Continue at OA.org.
Short and medium OA materials are available below in accessible text. Longer or frequently updated resources include a local orientation and a link to the current official version. Local summaries are not substitutes for OA-approved literature; use the source link for the exact current OA text.
Complete OA Text
The Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous
The Twelve Traditions guide OA groups in unity, autonomy, service, self-support, anonymity, and carrying the message.
Read the Complete OA TextShow or hide
“These Twelve Traditions are to the groups what the Twelve Steps are to the individual. They are suggested principles to ensure the survival and growth of the many groups that compose Overeaters Anonymous.”
—The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous
- Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon OA unity.
- For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority — a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
- The only requirement for OA membership is a desire to stop eating compulsively.
- Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or OA as a whole.
- Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to the compulsive overeater who still suffers.
- An OA group ought never endorse, finance or lend the OA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
- Every OA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
- Overeaters Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
- OA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
- Overeaters Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence, the OA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
- Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, films, television and other public media of communication.
- Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all these Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.
Permission to use the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous for adaptation granted by AA World Services, Inc.
Local Summary
Service, Traditions, and Concepts Workshop Manual
A workshop manual for exploring how service, the Twelve Traditions, and the Twelve Concepts support healthy groups and service bodies.
Local Summary
Planning a Sponsorship Workshop
Practical OA guidance for service bodies and members planning a sponsorship-focused workshop.
Local Summary
Sponsorship Day Workshop
A ready OA workshop resource for exploring sponsorship as a tool of recovery and service.
Local Summary
Guidelines for Public Information Events
Current OA planning guidance for newcomer nights, young-adult events, presentations to helping professionals, health fairs, and other outreach. It covers timing, budgets, accessible venues, approved literature, speakers, publicity, anonymity, and follow-up; use the official document when planning an event.