Kansas City Overeaters Anonymous - 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.

1. We admitted 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 will and our lives 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.

"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!