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Serving OA in Rhode Island, Southeastern Massachusetts  


June 2015

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In This Issue

Got a Life Problem?
Twelve Step Your Way to the Solution!  If a life problem is threatening your abstinence, click here.
 

 

Recently, I saw a number of TV ads gearing up for Father's Day, and the hottest gift item seems to be tools. Lawn tools, painting tools, automotive tools, woodworking tools, home repair tools -- even tools for trimming one's mustache!

This got me thinking about the importance of the OA tools. These are more than just gadgets in the OA shed; these are power tools! (Or should I say "Higher Powered tools?")

"We use tools -- a plan of eating, sponsorship, meetings, the telephone, writing, literature, action plan, anonymity and service -- to help us achieve and maintain abstinence and recover from our disease. Many of us have found we cannot abstain from compulsive eating unless we use some or all of OA's nine tools of recovery to help us practice the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions."

So what are you waiting for? This is the best gift regardless of where we might shop for wire cutters or weed whackers.

 

In humble service, 

 

"As Always"
Kara 

Sponsorship: The Cornerstone of my Recovery
    
Sponsorship is the cornerstone of my recovery in Overeaters Anonymous. A sponsor is someone who walks along with me as I get sober with the food and work through and live the 12 Steps as a way if life. I have been a member of Overeaters Anonymous since 1977, and I have two sponsors. Most days since 1986 I report my food plan to one sponsor. I have done Step work with the other since 1998. These compassionate women model for me many recovery Principles: honesty, hope, faith, courage, integrity, willingness, humility, spiritual awareness, love for others and service.

 

Though I am a compulsive overeater and food addict, I did not have a lot of weight to lose when I joined OA. In the beginning, I put on a mask at meetings and never really shared honestly. That kept me in the food until I started over in 1986.

 

Sponsorship is an interesting proposition: I am offered a chance to discover who I am and what makes me tick through sharing honestly with someone I have just met. This person is a stranger to me, doesn't get paid and is not a professional counselor. I do not even know her last name, and yet I feel comfortable being vulnerable and sharing intimate details of my life. As I form probably the first honest and authentic relationship in my life, I learn about being accountable, trust, listening, being available, loving unconditionally, and also the love of one addict for another. I am grateful for the women who have been my sponsors.

 

Getting and staying sober with the food through Step work allows me to live life on life's terms. Because of sponsorship I am a better wife, mother, family member, friend, and worker among workers. As I become a woman of grace and dignity, I have a chance to pay it forward and journey with someone else as she gets abstinent and works the 12 Steps.

 

I have sponsored several women over the years. Not all were a good match and I have made my share of mistakes; but the program gives us Step Ten, so we are both able to continue on. I learn so much from the women I sponsor and am happy to share why OA continues to work for me. For twent- eight years I have remained abstinent, one day at a time, because I have a sponsor and am a sponsor.


 

-Jeanne D., RI

Anonymity

Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all these traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. In the fellowship of OA, personal anonymity means the state of being unknown. We are changing our lives mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually, and we want to express our feelings in the rooms with confidence that no one will go around gossiping about what they have heard in OA. When I first came into the fellowship of OA, I could not pronounce anonymity. My sponsor told me that when I learned what anonymity meant, I would have no problem saying the word. She said the word would just roll off my lips with ease. Then she followed up with, "You will also learn how to mind your own business and leave what you hear in the rooms. This where the promise of knowing a new freedom and a new happiness comes into play. Knowing that honesty in the program suggests not taking what you have heard here to the outside world allows me to release all my pain, which gives me freedom. Today, I am proud to say that I understand and can pronounce anonymity well, and I guard my anonymity, and yours, with all that is within me. Not only do I not gossip, I accept every OA member as an equal in addiction, without regard to what our respective stations in life outside OA may be. I follow no OA "gurus," acknowledge no OA "stars." I only recognize the authority of a power greater than myself as expressed in the group conscience.

-Sylvia H.

Reprinted from "Metro Memo,"

the monthly newsletter of New York Metro Intergroup

OA Preamble has been revised!
     
At the World Service Business Conference (WSBC) in Albuquerque, the delegates voted and approved a revision to the OA Preamble. 

The final sentence was revised adding the following words "and compulsive food behaviors" and now reads:
Our primary purpose is to abstain from compulsive eating and compulsive food behaviors and to carry the message of recovery through the Twelve Steps of OA to those who still suffer.

Please download the revised version, and have your meeting replace their old version with the new one.
Heard it at a Meeting Heard

The wit, wisdom and human-ness of OA is captured in the sayings or truisms we share with each other at meetings. So, we've created a new column in the Ocean & Bay Newsletter called "Heard it at a Meeting." Keeping anonymity in mind, we ask that you submit anything you've heard at a meeting that has helped your recovery by emailing us at oceanandbayoa@yahoo.com.

Here are three new examples submitted by fellow OA members:
  1. If you don't eat, you'll change and if you don't change you'll eat.
  2. If you focus on recovery, you'll lose weight; if you focus on weight, you'll lose recovery. 
  3. You have to decide what your highest priority is, once you've decided it's abstinence - the program starts working.
Latest "Brown Book" Now Available

Affectionately known as the Brown Book, OA's third edition of Overeaters Anonymous includes 40 never-before-published stories by members from around the world.

 

You'll enjoy the distinctive new cover, depicting an image of 12 strips of woven burlap, representing strength in the 12 Steps and Traditions. The back cover lists the Principles of the Twelve Steps of OA.

 

The softcover, 232 page book also includes the complete text of "Our Invitation to You;" a new foreword by Dr. Marty Lerner, an eating-disorder treatment professional; and an addition to the appendix entitled "The Role of a Plan of Eating in Recovery from Compulsive Eating." This was written by a dietitian specializing in addictive and compulsive eating disorders in order to help readers understand the importance of using the plan of eating Tool in finding abstinence.  

 

$13.50 | Order literature online or through Intergroup

Treasurer's Report
Our  Seventh Tradition states that OA is fully self-supporting, accepting contributions only from OA members. Thank you for your generosity that allows us to continue our shared mission to carry OA's message of recovery.

June Treasurer's Report

What does OA do with your contributions?
Reach Out For Recovery
     
Register for the 2015 Region 6 Convention October 23-25 in Hartford, CT. Click here to reserve your room online. If you haven't registered for the Convention yet, please click here to register online.

Let's head to Hartford and REACH OUT FOR RECOVERY!
Ocean & Bay Intergroup 
P.O. Box 41273, Providence RI, 02940
Tel: 401-438-1301 | Email: oceanandbay@yahoo.com