A Program for Living.

“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

1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon OA unity.
2. 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.
3. The only requirement for OA membership is a desire to stop eating compulsively.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or OA as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to the compulsive overeater who still suffers.
6. 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.
7. Every OA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8. Overeaters Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
9. OA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
10. Overeaters Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence, the OA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
11. 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.
12. 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.

DOs

• Practice the Steps and Spiritual Principles daily throughout your life.
• Include the Steps when discussing potential solutions.
• Write/journal.
• Maintain contact with sponsors and OA friends to receive their active listening, acceptance, and compassion.
• Use the Serenity Prayer and other prayers and meditate.
• Listen for others’ experience, strength, and hope—from all Twelve Steppers.
• Have a sponsor to talk to.
• Read sections from our literature that deal with your current problem.
• Remember that you are not alone.
• Write out and follow a plan of eating.
• Make a gratitude list.
• Remember that we do not control the world or other people.
• Ask for help.
• Ensure your feedback is welcome before giving it.
• Trust Higher Power.
• Attend meetings, face to face and/or online, to see familiar faces.
• Let go of your perfection. Keep in mind your progress.
• Recognize how you identify when others share their stories.
• Let go.
• Make a Twelfth Step outreach call to see who you can help.
• Do service throughout your life, not only in OA.
• Call/text immediately when you realize you are struggling.
• Remember that food does not fix it.
• Be patient. Remember what it was like when you were a newcomer.
• Attend retreats, workshops, marathons, and conventions, and listen to podcasts.
• Take responsibility for your recovery.
• Take the First Step every day.
• Consider taking food with you when you need to be away from home.
• Shut the kitchen down after meals.
• Develop and follow a plan of action.

DON’Ts

• Take yourself and your issues too seriously.
• Criticize.
• Treat your commitments as optional.
• Be inflexible or insist that your sponsees work their program exactly as you dictate. Allow for personality differences and seek out what will work.
• Preach.
• Psychoanalyze.
• Expect your sponsor to save you.
• Ignore what appears to be the truth, just to spare someone’s feelings. Ask questions, with gentle love.
• Isolate.

Tradition Five

Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the compulsive overeater who still suffers.

OA Responsibility Pledge

Always to extend the hand and heart of OA
to all who share my compulsion;
for this I am responsible.

What does working the program mean?

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!

There is more information deeper in our website that will discuss in detail how to “work” these Steps. For now, let’s uncover some terms you may not know.

A handy guide to terms and concepts

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.

Tools: we have nine Tools that help focus us while we work our program of recovery, including:

• A Plan of Eating
• Sponsorship
• Meetings
• Telephone
• Writing
• Literature
• Action Plan
• Anonymity
• Service

Plan of Eating: This gives us a daily guide to avoid trigger foods and any destructive eating behaviors.

Sponsorship: Sponsors have been working the program to the best of their ability and walk you through the Twelve Steps. They help you understand each step and how to work the program in the best way for you. Sponsors go beyond being a supportive friend; they are truly a gift to the program. Read our sponsor relationship statement from the Board of Trustees.

Meetings: We offer over 6,400 face-to-face and virtual meetings worldwide, and in languages other than English. Find a meeting that will work for you and your schedule. Meetings help us learn about the Tools and Steps, and also provide fellowship, which is critical to our recovery. We have discovered we need each other to get well.

Telephone: We reach out to one another between meetings, for support for ourselves and to offer help to others.

Writing: Some call it journaling. When we put our difficulties down on paper, it becomes easier to see situations more clearly and determine any necessary action.

Literature: OA has excellent books, and pamphlets–that help us understand how to “work the Twelve Steps” and give us examples of what life in recovery looks like.

Action Plan: This Tool helps incorporate the use of all the other OA Tools to bring structure, balance, and manageability into our lives and helps us work our program consistently.

Anonymity: Anonymity gives OA members freedom of expression and safeguards us from gossip. A deeper understanding of this Tool is that it assures that we each are one among many. OA has no stars.

Service: You will hear a lot about service in OA. This Tool is addressed in greater detail deeper in our website. But, for now, please know that any form of service – no matter how small – helps reach a fellow sufferer while adding to the quality of our recovery.

Now that we’ve covered key parts of the program, let’s see what it might look like to work the program on a daily basis.

Your day starts with reading some program literature, or taking time to pray and meditate on what you have read or on something about the day ahead. You might phone, text, or email a program friend or your sponsor to go over your Plan of Eating for the day. You might even get to a meeting. At the end of your day, you may reflect on what happened and what you learned. This simple routine keeps us on track.

If you have yet to actually go to a meeting, find one now.

Find a Meeting

If you are still not sure OA is for you, listen to a podcast or check out the Newcomer section in our bookstore. The Where Do I Start? pamphlet is a good choice.