Additional Resources
Browse through these essential elements of the OA Program.
The Twelve Steps
The Twelve Steps are the heart of the OA recovery program. They offer a new way of life that enables the compulsive overeater to live without the need for excess food. The ideas expressed in the Twelve Steps, which originated in Alcoholics Anonymous, reflect practical experience and application of spiritual insights recorded by thinkers throughout the ages. Their greatest importance lies in the fact that they work! They enable compulsive overeaters and millions of other Twelve-Steppers to lead happy, productive lives. They represent the foundation upon which OA is built.
The Twelve Traditions
In working Overeaters Anonymous' The Twelve Traditions are the means by which OA remains unified in a common cause. These Twelve Traditions are to the groups what the Twelve Steps are to the individual. They are suggested principles to ensure the survival and growth of the many groups that compose Overeaters Anonymous. Like the Twelve Steps, the Twelve Traditions have their origins in Alcoholics Anonymous. These Traditions describe attitudes which those early members believed were important to group survival.
The Twelve Concepts
In Overeaters Anonymous, the Twelve Steps serve as the spiritual principles that support our personal recovery from compulsive overeating. The Twelve Traditions aid us, individually and collectively, in maintaining unity of purpose within the Fellowship. The Twelve Concepts of OA Service, adopted by the World Service Business Conference (WSBC) in 1994, help us apply the Steps and Traditions in our service work, which is an important part of the OA program. The Concepts define and guide the practices of the service structures that conduct the business of OA. These Concepts depict the chain of delegated responsibility we use to provide service throughout the world. Although they focus on OA world services, the Concepts direct all OA's trusted servants to well-considered actions for group participation, decision making, voting and the expression of minority opinions. The Twelve Concepts support our primary purpose of carrying OA's message of recovery to the still-suffering compulsive overeater.
The Tools
In working Overeaters Anonymous' Twelve-Step program of recovery from compulsive overeating, we have found a number of tools to assist us. We use these tools regularly to help us achieve and maintain abstinence. In Overeaters Anonymous (OA), abstinence is "the action of refraining from compulsive eating." Many of us have found that we cannot abstain from compulsive eating unless we use some or all of OA's tools of recovery.
Twelfth Step Within Day is December 12
12th Step Within
Every December 12, OA groups and service boards around the world are encouraged to plan events for Twelfth Step Within Day, a day to support the still-suffering compulsive eater within our Fellowship. If you or a group would like to get started with something simple, our global website at OA.org has a few ideas to make it happen: