Voice of Recovery

VoiceofRecovery(VOR)isthequarterlynews-

letterofGreaterPittsburghIntergroupOA(GPIOA).

In This Issue Going strong with step 10

Members 1

All compulsive eating behaviors welcome

Members 3

Wanted: Your thoughts for the next issue 4

OA and covid-19 4

Intergroup Roster 4

Dates to Note 4

Personalstoriesexpresstheexperienceoftheindivid-ualmemberandnotnecessarilyofOAasawhole.

OtherOAgroupsarewelcometoreprintwithoutper-mission;

pleasecreditGreaterPittsburghIntergroup.

3rd Quarter 2020

I go to a private place, and do a daily 10th Step as part of my evening prayer time. I have a prayer asking myself where have I been selfish, dishonest, fearful or resent-ful? I ask if I need to discuss with my sponsor making an amends. If I am particularly disturbed about a situation, I will write a “Dear God” letter and share it with my sponsor. I will also pull out my AA Big Book and read Step 10: on pages 84 and 85.

I will write a “Dear God” letter

Something that is an aside to this: I have found that IF I am living the principles of this program, and step out-side of those principles, and

Members Keep Their Recovery Going Strong by

Working the 10th Step In this issue members share how they work their 10th Step. They offer a range of approaches to continuing to maintain a personal in-ventory. Read on for some wonderful ideas about how to keep your program strong by working Step 10. Getting better is about maintaining my conscious contact with God and oth-ers throughout the day which helps me accept many things in life. I count the times I'm on the beam or off the beam daily. End the day with counting my blessings, thanking my Higher Power and the Fel-lowship, for one more day of freedom from our dis-ease. -- Beverly B.

am in a full spiritual connec-tion with my God that day, then, I immediately know if I’ve stepped OUTSIDE those principles...I get an ache in my gut, where my soul is, which lets me know, I need to look at what part I have played in the situation.

–Monica F. I make amends for my wrongs. One time I was waiting for a doctor call, and when I talked to a nurse at the doctor office early, I was upset and I was cranky. When she called later, I made my amends for my behavior. When someone is helping me, I should stay grateful, not cranky and mean. I should vent on an

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Voice of Recovery 3rd Quarter 2020 Page 2

empty piece of paper. My sponsors listen and don’t tell anyone what I tell them. I trust them fully with all of my secret stuff that no one knew. I write and read it to them, and I have been pitching them out. I wrote, I read, I gave it away. I’ll do the same thing again. I no longer eat to push down any-thing big or small. – Carolyn S. I do an (almost) daily written 10th Step, usu-ally at night but sometimes in the morn-ing. I'm chronically ill and learned years ago that I don't have the spiritual leeway to not do a consistent written 10th Step. For many years I did a resentment or fear inventory out of the Big Book, but I got to the point where on nights where I couldn't come up with an active resentment or fear I wouldn't write a 10th Step, and my spiritual condition suf-fered. Many years ago, I learned about a 10th Step method called the 4 G's, and that's what I do 99% of the time now.

The 4 Gs are Grateful, Good, Glitch and Goal

The 4 G's are Grateful, Good, Glitch, and Goal, and so each evening I make a list of things that I'm grateful for, things I did good that day, things that were glitches (for me, this is usually a list of character defects that reared their ugly head in some way, shape or form), and things that are goals for the fol-lowing day. My goals list usually coincides with my plan of action tool, b/c it allows me to prioritize what *has* to be done the follow-ing day vs what I *want* to do or *would like* to do. This opens the door to let G-d plan the day, b/c left to my own devices, I would just make an insane to do list that would require 24 hours of non-stop activity to finish! In an ideal world the following day's goal list would always include some activity to address the glitches from the previous day... but I don't live in an ideal world, and have to settle for progress and not perfection on some of these very long-standing character defects

of mine. The 10th Step truly allows me to grow & mature one day at a time, and re-minds me that persistence and consistency are key for my program. –Jessica F.

Part of Step Ten is admitting when I'm wrong. To my detriment, I don't always do that. The other day at work, I wish I'd said, "I'm sorry. You did say that, and I wasn't lis-tening very well." And another time, "That didn't come out right. Let me try again." I am grateful for all the times that I have been able to admit a mistake, like today, when my boss suggested doing something a different way and I agreed that her way was better. I said, "Because I'm new, I'm overly nervous, and I didn't do that well, but I'll get better - I'm more relaxed al-ready." She then said, "It's not the end of the world. Nothing is the end of the world." When I let go of my defenses, it frees others to be less fixed in their positions too. The space of time between being wrong and admitting to another person that I was wrong is sometimes long, like forty years, and sometimes short, like forty seconds or less. In that time, I have to 1) become conscious of what I did, 2) admit to myself I was wrong, and 3) overcome re-sistance to admitting it to someone else. Sometimes I might not admit a wrong di-rectly to the person involved "when to do so would injure them" (Step Nine). But I do tell someone else, as a spiritual practice. I believe by doing so I progress in my spiritual development. Still, just saying the words "you could be right" will open my mind a lit-tle. Becoming more open-minded is a gift of working Step Ten.

-- Elaine M., Berkeley, California USA - edited and reprinted from Lifeline October 2018

Voice of Recovery 3rd Quarter 2020 Page 3

We Welcome Everyone Who Suffer from Compulsive Food Behaviors

I identify at meetings as an anorexic/bu-limic/compulsive overeater, but when I came into OA in late 1994 I only identified as a bulimic; I was in extreme denial about my compulsive overeating, despite the fact that I was well over 200 pounds on my 5'2" frame in late 1994, and truly thought that I had never been anorexic be-cause I had never been thin enough (that tickles me today). Blessedly I found other people with similar experiences to mine, and my sponsor helped me work through my denial about all the various aspects of my eating disorder; I still pass the following onto others today to help them with feeling like they "qualify" for OA: Tradition Three says that all I need to be an OA member is a desire to stop eating compulsively, and • not eating at all is compulsive (or "not eating"

compulsively, which is one extreme of eating compulsively, compulsive overeating/food addiction being the other extreme)

• purging my food in any way (vomiting, laxa-tives, diuretics, compulsive exercise, cleanses, etc.) is compulsive, and involves eating compulsively

• chewing my food & spitting it out is eating compulsively

I also had great difficultly taking step one due to being anorexic/bulimic, and the following was very helpful to me: • if an alcoholic is powerless over alcohol, then

a person with an eating disorder is powerless over food

• if I can't eat, I'm powerless over food • if I can't keep my food down, I'm powerless

over food • if I have to purge my

food by laxatives, diu-retics, compulsive exer-cise, cleanses, etc., I'm powerless over food

• if I have to chew my food and spit it out, I'm

powerless over food • if the only way I can eat

at all is to exercise for

hours to make it ok, I'm powerless over food • and of course, if I can't stop eating, or eat

when I don't want to or intend to, I'm power-less over food --Jessica F.

Keep coming back…more will be revealed. I first came to OA because I knew I had an eat-ing problem. I overate and went on binges and was very secretive about my eating habits. I did not understand why OA meetings also wel-comed anorexics, bulimics, over-exercisers and other compulsive food behaviors. I kept coming back and listening to others. Before I got absti-nent, I did give thought to “as long as I did not binge or overeat, maybe I could give myself a head start and use laxatives…that always helped me before.” After many meetings of lis-tening to others, I realized (to my astonishment) that I was also a bulimic. While I did not purge myself by vomiting, I definitely did damage to my body over the years by purging via laxatives and I had other bulimic behaviors. This revela-tion stopped me in my tracks and not only fright-ened me, I was humbled and admitted that I was indeed powerless over more than one be-havior. Since then I treasure the saying: “It is weakness, not strength, that binds us to each other.” Thank you to all who share their personal truths in meetings which help me learn more truth about myself. Every person I meet in OA is a precious link to help my recovery in this pro-gram. – Jeanne H. When I introduce myself in OA meetings, I iden-tify myself as a compulsive overeater. More spe-cifically, I am a binge eater. When I was “in the food,” I binged on trigger foods until they were

gone, or until I was physically unable to swallow another bite. Before coming to OA, I joined a commercial weight loss program which had online discussion boards for sharing. It was there that I learned there was a name for what I was doing –

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Voice of Recovery 3rd Quarter 2020 Page 4

Greater Pittsburgh Intergroup Roster

Executive Board Chair Kristi K. chair@gpioa.org 412-780-7743 Vice Chair VACANT vice_chair@gpioa.org Treasurer Ruth D. treasurer@gpioa.org 412-337-9706 Standing Committee Chairs 12th Step Within Beth C-R. 12within@gpioa.org 412-403-9480 Professional Outreach Jessica F. pro_outreach@gpioa.org 412-334-3955 Public Information Monica F public_info@gpioa.org 724-729-4748 Speakers Bureau Elaine T. speakers@gpioa.org 540-383-2202 VOR Editor Jeanne H. vor_editor@gpioa.org 412-848-0360 Marathon Sheree C. marathon@gpioa.org 724-681-6195 Other Trusted Servants Region 7 Rep Tricia S. region7reps@gpioa.org 405-326-5588 World Service Del. VACANT wso.delegates@gpioa.org GPI Special Worker Jessica F. webmaster@gpioa.org 412-334-3955

Dates to Note August 15-16 Sponsorship Weekend

Fun Not Food Annual Picnic is cancelled. Check gpioa.org for the lat-est information on the events above and any other events in our region.

12th Step Within

binging. But I couldn’t find a solution. People on those discussion boards would talk about “fighting the binge monster,” which sounded shameful and frightening to me. At one of my first OA meetings, however, I found people who ate the way I ate. They understood that when I said “I ate the whole box/bag/carton/container,” I wasn’t lying or ex-aggerating. More importantly, they offered me understanding and acceptance. No one blamed or shamed me for my behaviors. No one asked why didn’t I just stop at one serving, or why I kept eating if I wasn’t hungry. They knew why. They un-derstood that the compulsion was a disease of the body, mind and spirit, and that I couldn’t stop eating through sheer human willpower. Even bet-ter – they had a solution! Here were rooms of compulsive overeaters, food addicts, under-eat-ers, compulsive exercisers, people who binged and/or purged, and they had found abstinence and freedom and serenity through the 12 steps of OA. And they were willing to share that with me!! What an amazing miracle! My suggestion to any-one who is unsure is to keep coming back to meetings and to read OA and AA literature. Listen for similarities rather than differences, and look for ways that you can relate to other OA members. And if you still aren’t sure if you have a food-re-lated compulsion, consider the suggestion on pages 31-32 of the book Alcoholics Anonymous and try some controlled behavior (eating, exercis-ing, whatever your expression of the illness may be). If you are honest with yourself, you will learn if you share our disease. And if you do, Welcome to Overeaters Anonymous, welcome home!

--Alison C.

Share Your Thoughts for the Next Issue

Share your experience, strength and hope for other compulsive eaters to read between meetings. For our next issue, we are looking for your thoughts on one of the following prompts:

a) Share your "Act As If" success stories. b) How do you define the three A's? Aware-ness - Acceptance - Action.

Please submit your contribution to vor_edi-tor@gpioa.org by Saturday, August 15, 2020.

OA and Covid-19

Don’t let the recent lack of face to face meetings keep you away. It is so good to hear all our fellows on the conference calls. Be sure to check the gpioa.org website for the current meeting list and join a meeting call you normally wouldn’t at-tend.