This site was established in November 2004, and is maintained by the Greater Omaha Intergroup of Overeaters Anonymous.
Overeaters Anonymous, Inc. All rights reserved. | Reprinted by permission of Overeaters Anonymous, Inc.; World Service Office
Privacy Policy
The GOII Website is for use only by those who desire to stop eating compulsively. Please respect the privacy of the meeting contacts listed by refraining from using their information for any other purpose. Contact us via the website form or call GOII
Hotline at 402-344-7925 to locate an appropriate resource for the information you need.
Overeaters Anonymous, Inc. All rights reserved. | Reprinted by permission of Overeaters Anonymous, Inc.; World Service Office
Privacy Policy
The GOII Website is for use only by those who desire to stop eating compulsively. Please respect the privacy of the meeting contacts listed by refraining from using their information for any other purpose. Contact us via the website form or call GOII
Hotline at 402-344-7925 to locate an appropriate resource for the information you need.
Our Invitation to You
We of Overeaters Anonymous have made a discovery. At the very first meeting we attended, we learned that we were in the clutches of a
dangerous illness, and that willpower, emotional health and self-confidence, which some of us had once possessed, were no defense against it.
We have found the reasons for the illness are unimportant. What deserves the attention of the still-suffering compulsive overeater is this: there
is a proven, workable method by which we can arrest our illness.
The OA recovery program is patterned after that of Alcoholics Anonymous. We use AA's Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, changing only the
words "alcohol" and "alcoholic" to "food" and "compulsive overeater".
As our personal stories attest, the Twelve Step program of recovery works as well for compulsive overeaters as it does for alcoholics.
Can we guarantee you this recovery? The answer is simple. If you will honestly face the truth about yourself and the illness; if you will keep
coming back to meetings to talk and listen to other recovering compulsive overeaters; if you will read our literature and that of Alcoholics
Anonymous with an open mind; and, most important, if you are willing to rely on a power greater than yourself for direction in your life, and to
take the Twelve Steps to the best of your ability, we believe you can indeed join the ranks of those who recover.
To remedy the emotional, physical, and spiritual illness of compulsive overeating we offer several suggestions, but keep in mind that the basis of
the program is spiritual, as evidenced by the Twelve Steps.
We are not a "diet or calories" club. We do not endorse any particular plan of eating. Once we become abstinent, the preoccupation with food
diminishes and in many cases leaves us entirely. We then find that, to deal with our inner turmoil, we have to have a new way of thinking, of
acting on life rather than reacting to it -- in essence, a new way of living.
From this vantage point, we begin the Twelve Step program of recovery, moving beyond the food and the emotional havoc to a fuller living
experience. As a result of practicing the Steps, the symptom of compulsive overeating is removed on a daily basis, achieved through the process
of surrendering to something greater than ourselves; the more total our surrender, the more fully realized our freedom from food obsession.
Here are the steps as adopted for Overeaters Anonymous:
"But I'm too weak. I'll never make it!" Don't worry, we have all thought and said the same thing. The amazing secret to the success of this program
is just that: weakness. It is weakness, not strength, that binds us to each other and to a higher power and somehow gives us the ability to do
what we cannot do alone.
If you decide you are one of us, we welcome you with open arms. You are not alone anymore! Welcome to Overeaters Anonymous. Welcome
home!
We of Overeaters Anonymous have made a discovery. At the very first meeting we attended, we learned that we were in the clutches of a
dangerous illness, and that willpower, emotional health and self-confidence, which some of us had once possessed, were no defense against it.
We have found the reasons for the illness are unimportant. What deserves the attention of the still-suffering compulsive overeater is this: there
is a proven, workable method by which we can arrest our illness.
The OA recovery program is patterned after that of Alcoholics Anonymous. We use AA's Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, changing only the
words "alcohol" and "alcoholic" to "food" and "compulsive overeater".
As our personal stories attest, the Twelve Step program of recovery works as well for compulsive overeaters as it does for alcoholics.
Can we guarantee you this recovery? The answer is simple. If you will honestly face the truth about yourself and the illness; if you will keep
coming back to meetings to talk and listen to other recovering compulsive overeaters; if you will read our literature and that of Alcoholics
Anonymous with an open mind; and, most important, if you are willing to rely on a power greater than yourself for direction in your life, and to
take the Twelve Steps to the best of your ability, we believe you can indeed join the ranks of those who recover.
To remedy the emotional, physical, and spiritual illness of compulsive overeating we offer several suggestions, but keep in mind that the basis of
the program is spiritual, as evidenced by the Twelve Steps.
We are not a "diet or calories" club. We do not endorse any particular plan of eating. Once we become abstinent, the preoccupation with food
diminishes and in many cases leaves us entirely. We then find that, to deal with our inner turmoil, we have to have a new way of thinking, of
acting on life rather than reacting to it -- in essence, a new way of living.
From this vantage point, we begin the Twelve Step program of recovery, moving beyond the food and the emotional havoc to a fuller living
experience. As a result of practicing the Steps, the symptom of compulsive overeating is removed on a daily basis, achieved through the process
of surrendering to something greater than ourselves; the more total our surrender, the more fully realized our freedom from food obsession.
Here are the steps as adopted for Overeaters Anonymous:
- We admitted we were powerless over food - that our lives had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
- Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
- Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
- Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
- 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. - 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.
"But I'm too weak. I'll never make it!" Don't worry, we have all thought and said the same thing. The amazing secret to the success of this program
is just that: weakness. It is weakness, not strength, that binds us to each other and to a higher power and somehow gives us the ability to do
what we cannot do alone.
If you decide you are one of us, we welcome you with open arms. You are not alone anymore! Welcome to Overeaters Anonymous. Welcome
home!
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