While they are not professionals, they can provide members with their own experiences and suggestions on how to work the program successfully.
A sponsor is a longtime member of the program who has been abstinent for a long period of time. Getting a sponsor in the program is strongly recommended for newcomers before they begin working the steps. Overeaters Anonymous helps members let go of their attitudes and the negative feelings associated with compulsive eating, and slowly allow them to free themselves from their food obsessions. Before joining the fellowship, many members suffer from feelings of depression, anxiety, guilt and sadness addressing these feelings can help members not only begin eating healthy, but improve their quality of life and increase their self esteem. Members have the ability to create their own plan of eating, which can help them find their own ways to avoid trigger foods and destructive eating behaviors. In the fellowship, members are encouraged to maintain abstinence, which is refraining from compulsive eating and food behaviors while working towards a healthy body weight. While diets and exercise may have temporarily helped members before Overeaters Anonymous, willpower alone is not enough to recover from this addiction. One of the reasons that a 12-step recovery process is needed to battle compulsive eating addiction is because the problem is viewed as an addiction, which means it cannot be cured or fixed the illness needs to be arrested. It is accessible in over 75 countries and approximately 6,500 groups meet weekly. Today, the group has over 65,000 members. Although the meeting only began with one other individual, slowly after, another woman became involved and the program began to grow and grow.īecause the women knew that the 12-step format was successful with other programs, such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Rozanne’s involvement with Gamblers Anonymous, they adapted the same process for Overeaters Anonymous. She officially started a meeting in 1960 to try to find others who may have suffered from this problem as well. The idea for the program started in 1958, when Rozanne S., a member of Gamblers Anonymous, began realizing that she had a problem with compulsive eating. Overeating is a chronic condition that many people try to use to help relieve stress, but in the long run, will result in more stress, health problems and other emotional issues. Because compulsive eating is considered a disease, such as alcoholism or drug addiction, it is something that cannot simply just be stopped.
Many of these individuals have tried to solve their problems with food by trying to control their eating habits and weight gain or loss before joining the fellowship, but have failed. 84% of the members had identified as binge eaters 15% as bulimics and 1% as anorexics, so there is a variety of members in the fellowship.
During a 2001 survey, members of the group were polled to identify what kinds of problems were significant in the group. The fellowship welcomes anyone who has a problem with food. These issues can include binge eating, compulsive overeaters, anorexics and bulimics. Overeaters Anonymous is a 12-step program for individuals who have addictive problems related to food.
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