12 Traditions

    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.
Kansas City Overeaters Anonymous
Reprinted by permission of
Overeaters Anonymous, Inc.; World Service Office
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