I had entered the program determined to remain open to the spiritual language of 12-step work. Over and over again, their conclusion is that only reliance on God, or our "higher power," as we individually understand that concept, "can restore us to sanity." But OA is filled with people who have hit a wall trying to reason out their eating. This is hard for my psychologically oriented mind to accept. "The reasons are unimportant," says the OA literature. Eating became my one-beat response to every feeling. I eat to numb myself, to deaden the feelings of.is it loneliness? Grief? Anger? Could those circuits have blown out by age 5? That's how old I was when I began stealing loose change to buy candy. The OA program doesn't promote any particular diet, but wheat and sugar so pervasively spark compulsive eating that many members make abstinence from them the turning point in overcoming their addiction.įood has always been my drug of choice. A trigger goes off in my head or in my body or in my blood sugar-I don't know where it goes off, but I am rendered completely, utterly powerless.Īt those times, I am a junkie, a spasm of need and desire, wholly focused on ingesting that bowl of pasta (or doughnuts or ice cream). Left alone with enough for ten people, I'd eat it all. Yet after finishing a normal helping of pasta, I have another. I fit easily into airplane seats, and I came to OA wishing to lose just 20 pounds, not 100 or more. Weight was never an issue in my career or in my marriage.
OA is patterned after Alcoholics Anonymous, and in the language of 12-step programs, I am a "high bottom" addict: My life had not become unmanageable. While the details often exceeded my own most psychotic episodes with food, yielding to the clutches of uncontrollable eating was all too familiar, along with its certain, subsequent dive into remorse, shame, and humiliation. Still, after years of denying that I suffered from compulsive eating habits, I joined Overeaters Anonymous (OA) and listened to these anecdotes with horror and empathy. I do not prowl dark country roads in search of all-night diners or steal cookies from my kid's lunchbox. I do not hide candy bars under the couch. An anonymous, self-described food junkie learns to take it one dish at a time. FAA suggests that its members eat a variety of foods at specified intervals and in set proportions and keep track of what they eat.Her cravings, in retrospect, were out of control-there wasn't enough pasta in the world to satisfy her. All forms of wheat and flour, including flours not made from wheat, are also restricted.
All sugars, sugar substitutes, and artificial sweeteners are restricted by the plan. The organization has a suggested food plan that calls for abstinence from sugar, flour, and wheat. The organization has meetings in the US, Canada, Australia, England, Norway, Sweden and Ireland.įAA holds that some people are addicted to certain foods and must abstain from them like other twelve-step programs, FAA members believe that help from a higher power is necessary for them to avoid the substances they crave. History and description įood Addicts Anonymous was founded in 1987 in West Palm Beach, Florida, by a founder who calls herself "Judith C." By 2007 there were over 150 weekly meetings around the world in addition to phone and online meetings.
It is for people with food addictions and is based on the premise that some people are addicted to refined high- carbohydrate foods and need to abstain from those foods in order to avoid overconsumption. Mutual-help addiction recovery twelve-step programįood Addicts Anonymous ( FAA) is a twelve-step program founded in 1987 that is patterned after the Alcoholics Anonymous program. Not to be confused with Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous.
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