Welcome!
If you think that you have an issue with food and eating, whether overeating or undereating, in a compulsive manner, then we welcome you with open arms to our fellowship. Baltimore Overeaters Anonymous groups hold regular weekly meetings all around the metro area and surrounding counties. Please feel free to attend as many as you like. Please call the contact person for a meeting before attending the first time as sometimes meetings change and it’s always a good idea to find out where exactly the meeting is being held. Some meetings are in churches or synangogues, some are in private homes, and they can be held anywhere. There is a lot of information on this website, but this site can never substitute for attending a local meeting, so come on out. We know it is uncomfortable for many people to place themselves in a new social environment so that is why we want you to know you are welcome. No matter what you have done, or are currently doing, you are welcome. We wish you success in your journey to recovery.
A few things to know before attending:
- There are no dues or fees, but we are self supporting. No one is ever turned away for lack of funds. We pass a basket during the meeting for regular attendees, not for the newcomer.
- Please hold your questions until the end of the meeting and please don’t directly comment on what someone else has said. You can share on what is related to you.
- Never discuss what you hear at a meeting – OA members, including you, need to know that they can share whatever they need to at a meeting, knowing that what they say will be held in the strictest confidence.
- Meetings run for 1 hour.
- You don’t get weighed in – there are no scales.
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 that the reasons for this 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 “alcoholic” and “alcohol” to “food” and “compulsive overeating.”
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 keep coming back to meetings to talk and listen to other recovering compulsive overeaters; if you will read our literature and that of Alcoholic 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 this program is spiritual, as evidenced by the twelve steps.
We are not a “diet and 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 began the twelve-step program of recovery, moving beyond the food and the emotional havoc to a fuller living experience. As a result of practicing these 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 freely realized our freedom from food obsession.
“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. Whatever your circumstances, we offer you the gift of acceptance. You are not alone anymore. Welcome to Overeaters Anonymous. Welcome home!
