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.
The 12 Steps & 12 Traditions of Overeaters
Anonymous

The 12 Steps
  1. We admitted that 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 lives and our will 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.


The 12 Traditions
Like the Twelve Steps, the Twelve Traditions have their origins in
Alcoholics Anonymous. These Traditions describe attitudes which
those early members believed were important to group survival.

  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 nonprofessional,
    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.

For an in-depth study of the Twelve Traditions, read The Twelve
Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous available from
our online literature catalog.
OA Steps, Traditions,  & Prayers
Prayers

The Serenity Prayer
God, grant me the serenity to accept
the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.


I Put My Hand In Yours
I put my hands in yours and together we can do what we could never
do alone. No longer is there a sense of hopelessness, no longer must
we each depend upon our own unsteady willpower. We are all
together now, reaching out our hands for power and strength greater
than ours, and as we join hands, we find love and understanding
beyond our wildest dreams.


Step 3 Prayer
God, I offer myself to Thee to build with me and do with me as Thou
wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will.
Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to
those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I
do Thy will always!


Step 7 Prayer
My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and
bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of
character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my
fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding.
Amen.