When I first came to Overeaters Anonymous, I didn’t arrive in a blaze of spiritual awakening or with a neatly tied bow of willingness. I arrived tired. Tired of thinking about food, tired of not thinking about food, tired of promising myself that “tomorrow will be different” and then watching tomorrow unfold exactly like yesterday, only with more crumbs. If you’re in a 12-step program, you’ll know this kind of tired. It’s the exhaustion that comes not just from the behaviour, but from the constant mental negotiation that precedes it. I had friends in AA and used to say if you said food instead of alcohol you would be talking about me. Food was my drug of choice. They told me about Overeaters Anonymous.
I thought I would give it a try. After all, I’d tried everything else and I’d exhausted most of my own ideas — which, as it turns out, is excellent preparation for Step One.
Step One: Admitting What I Already Knew (But Didn’t Want to Say Out Loud)
Powerless is a strong word. I didn’t feel powerless. I felt clever, resourceful, and endlessly inventive when it came to managing food. I had systems, rules, exceptions to rules, and rules about exceptions. Patterns emerged. Fear. Control. Resentment. The familiar tools I’d used not just with food, but with life. Food wasn’t the problem; it was the solution I kept reaching for — a very reliable one, until it wasn’t. What I didn’t have was peace of mind – sanity.
Admitting powerlessness wasn’t about dramatic surrender; it was about honesty. The kind of honesty that says: “If I could have fixed this on my own, I would have done it by now.” That was sobering. Added to that, the idea of a Higher Power made me nervous. What was this? Why should I hand my control over to thys? What helped was hearing people talk about a Higher Power in ordinary, practical terms. Not lightning bolts and thunder, but guidance, pause, something bigger than my own looping thoughts. My Higher Power doesn’t mind if I show up uncertain. Handing everything over to something greater than myself was daunting. Being accountable to myself was challenging enough; being accountable to a Higher Power added another dimension. Some days it feels grounding. Other days it feels awkward and vulnerable. But working these first three steps i coukd see a change for the better. I had found my home.
Food hasn’t disappeared from my life. Neither have cravings, emotions, or bad days. What has changed is the space between impulse and action. There’s a pause now — sometimes brief, sometimes longer — where I can choose something different. That pause is where recovery lives. I still laugh at myself. I still get it wrong. I still show up to meetings feeling messy, uncertain, and occasionally resistant. And I keep showing up anyway.
For Anyone Standing at the Door
If you’re new, or thinking about coming back, or wondering whether you “belong,” I’ll say this: you don’t have to be ready, certain, or sorted. You just have to be willing enough to take the next indicated step — even if you don’t like it, don’t understand it, or plan to argue about it later.
OA hasn’t given me perfection. It’s given me direction, companionship, and a way to live with myself that doesn’t require numbing out at the first sign of discomfort. For today, that’s more than enough. And for the first time in a long while, tomorrow doesn’t scare me quite as much as it used to.
Sharon B
©2026 Experience Strength & Hope Newsletter,
All rights reserved. Proudly sponsored by OA Foot Steps VIG #09670.
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