Girl Growing Small: Overeaters Anonymous a.k.a. Church

girlgrowingsmall:

Someone recommended to me this past week that I look into Overeaters Anonymous, a sort of AA for food addicts. I figured, hey, why not. So I finally had the chance to do some research on them today.

Um… this is basically church. Their 12-step program:

The Twelve Steps of Overeaters…

I feel this.  I am in OA and it has helped tremendously, once I found the right meetings. I am also an atheist.  Generally we replace “God” with our Dream of a better life, the meetings themselves, or the universe in general.  I agree with your frustration.  The problem is OA is based on AA which was created in the early 40s, when it was assumed that this was a Christian nation.  I think you will find if you feel an attraction to any part of it, that, depending on your Geographical location, many many atheists, humanists, agnostics, pagans, ect. are part of the program.

But I very much sympathize, in the beginning this made me feel like an outsider, but I have learned to go with the OA motto, “Take What you like, and Leave the rest.”

Good luck wherever your journey takes you.