goddessgrrl
Overeaters Anonymous & the TOOLS of recovery!
Jun 14, 2012
I started attending Overeaters Anonymous meetings on 4/2/12, about a month after my open RNY surgery. I love this group. The 12 steps WORK if you work them. OA meetings have helped me so much!OA has a pamphlet: The TOOLS of Recovery. The tools are
A Plan of Eating
Sponsorship
Meetings
Telephone
Writing
Literature
Action Plan
Anonymity
Service
I see my WLS as one of the tools of my recovery from compulsive overeating.
I didn't enter my first meeting with a willingness to share the fact that I'd had RNY a month previous. I told one other member (privately) that I'd had WLS.
We talk a lot on OH about "head hunger." Whatever you want to call it, I have struggled with the removal of food as my numbing drug of choice from my life since my RNY 2/28/12. I researched & read everything I could about RNY for years before I had my surgery, but nothing prepared me for the yanking of my "safety net" or "magic carpet" - food food food - out from under me overnight.
I see a counselor (social worker) every Wednesday. I go to AT LEAST one OA meeting a week (so far this week, 3). I honestly don't know where I'd be today if I hadn't walked into that first meeting on 4/2/12.
The thing about 12-step meetings is that they're run & attended by HUMANS. lol! We have our shortcomings. But we're all in this journey together.
You'll find that the meetings offer you a feeling of peace & serenity when you walk into the room (before anyone says a word). Remember, we are all "sick," so don't paint the whole program as unworthy if one person says something without thinking it through.
I look at it this way: I am there at the Overeaters Anonymous meetings to help myself one day at a time, but ALSO to help OTHERS recover from compulsive overeating. I'm on the leading edge at my local OA meetings. As WLS becomes more common, OA groups will open their doors & minds up to helping post-ops utilize this miraculous tool to overcome compulsive eating, just like we use the other tools of recovery.
I'm a PIONEER!
As we say in OA: "Keep coming back! It works if you WORK IT!"
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About Me
VA
Location
19.2
BMI
Feb 01, 2012
Member Since
Before & After
rollover to see after photo
Leaving for the hospital 2/28/2012, 257 lbs.
257lbs
Christmas Eve 2012, 150 lbs! Lost 107 lbs in less than 10 months!
150lbs
