For Today: October 12th

Success can corrupt;

Usefulness can only exalt.

Dimitri Mitropoulos

One of the great strengths of Overeaters Anonymous is our usefulness to one another.  Just by being present at meetings, we are doing a useful service for our fellow members as well as ourselves.

Once we’ve met the qualifying requirements---a desire to stop eating compulsively---nothing is mandatory in OA.  We make no pledges to anyone about anything.  What we eat and how much we weigh are not matters to be publicly determined and sworn to; indeed, even practicing the twelve steps is our own affair.

Attendance at meetings, however, is a minimal commitment each of us makes to ourselves.  If we can do nothing else, we can go to a meeting.

For Today:  The first criterion of usefulness in OA is a member’s presence at meetings.

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By sharing experience, strength and hope, we begin to heal.  By sharing struggles, we learn better ways to deal with our addictions. Just knowing that other people share this disease, we no longer feel alone.  When we isolate and stay away from meetings is when we go back to our drug of choice, feeling that the disease is overwhelming and impossible to manage.

Even when I don't feel like participating in a discussion, I do it anyway.  Who knows WHO I may be helping by sharing myself and my story? 


Through the fellowship of OA, we come to feel that we CAN do this; we are NOT alone; and that we CAN put our disease into remission by following the steps and the guidelines set forth by those who have gone before us. Bill W probably never realized, in his wildest dreams, that his words would become the Bible for millions of recovering addicts for generations to come.


My involvement with my OA group may seem like a drop in the bucket...........but it may just BE the exact words someone else needs to hear to get himself on the road to recovery.  For today, I pray to stay involved with OA and to keep coming back.  It works when WE work IT.