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WELCOME
TO EBONY
OA BAY AREA INTERGROUP OF
About
Ebony OA--The Beginning
The ultimate goal of
this website is to decrease obesity related deaths and deaths from
other eating disorders in black communities. The site is inspired by
the founding members of Alcoholic Anonymous who in those days knew of
the geographical limitations of outreach to those still suffering,
but
did not limit their vision of outreach and encouraged those eager to recover
to persevere... "So our fellow
worker will soon have friends galore. Some of them may sink and
perhaps never get up, but if our experience is a criterion, more than
half of those approached will become fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous.
When a few men in this city have found themselves, and have discovered
the joy of helping others to face life again, there will be no
stopping until everyone in that town has had his opportunity to
recover -- if he can and will." "...Still you may
say: 'But I will not have the benefit of contact with you who wrote
this book.' We cannot be sure. God will determine that, so you must
remember that your real reliance is always upon Him. He will show you
how to create the fellowship you crave."
AA Big Book, "A Vision for You" If you have happened
upon this website it may not be by chance. Thank you to all who have visited
this site and I hope it has helped in your recovery. History
of Ebony OA Meetings in the I’m
told sometime in the nineties black women and men in the Bay Area acted
on a group conscience possibly driven by a need to fellowship not only
with the big OA Family but also to form “…groups of persons who can
readily identify with fellow OAers with similar attributes” and they
not me coined the name Ebony
OA, my predecessors got these meetings going, not me! But
face to face Ebony OA
meetings began in After
releasing a substantial amount of weight I became a program of
attraction to a professor of black Health at one of the local
universities who approached me and suggested I start an Ebony OA meeting in The
meetings ebbed and flowed but today there are five successful special
emphasis meetings with an average attendance of six or seven and who
have released significant amounts of weight as part of a desire to stop
eating compulsively. I
later created the Ebony OA Website
around 1998 launching these special focus type groups into Cyberspace
and in so doing merely followed a trend that had well be established in
the area long before I came onto the scene. I’m
happy to see this trend currently manifested throughout other 12 Steps
Fellowships as evidenced by the excerpt below from AA’s Monthly
magazine, the Grapevine: In
AA, we submerge our differences to focus on alcoholism as our primary
problem. But this doesn't dismiss the notion that we come from widely
divergent backgrounds. Recovery seems to work best when it is culturally
relevant…AA members operated in the finest tradition of Twelfth-Step
work, meeting newcomers where they were at, not where we thought they
ought to be; helping them identify; introducing them to other AA members
with whose stories they might identify.
Today
there are many visitors to the Ebony OA Website seeking relief from their problem of compulsive
overeating-- daily directed to OA and maybe one day the ultimate goal of
Ebony OA will come to fruition, blacks will be equally represented in OA
meetings as whites.
Digging
our Graves with our Forks Her premature death in February of
2003 so disturbed my sister and an entire community that I had to know
why she was so vital. When
I inquired about this woman and what she meant to so many I was told
she had overcome several obstacles including substance abuse and had
passed her spirit of survival onto others in a most dramatic way.
However there lingered one last vice that my sister’s friend
survival prowess could not conquer the insidious, chronic disease of
obesity. It was indicated in one of her last
journal entries that the burden to get her weight under control at
over 300 pounds drove her to extreme means.
She envisioned herself in a normal body after stomach surgery.
However, she never realized her dream because my sister’s
friend died shortly after the procedure from complications from
surgery. How many countless others have
followed this path, struggled with overeating in a hopeless fog of
despondency, in the misguided belief that there is no alternative but
to give in to the urges or risk life and limb through dangerous
surgical treatment, or temporary fasts. Compulsive
Overeating is Treatable I believe that we as Blacks have, as
so many say, internalized racism, we really believe we deserve the
worst in life just as society tells us, that we are not worthy of
success and accomplishment. The tendency for us to sooth our
immediate discomforts with excess food is not unlike any other
addiction, we alter our current mood with some substance but are
unprepared to pay the consequences when the food doesn’t completely
satisfy and we are left with excess weight. We live in the belief that we cannot
have happy satisfied lives free of food addiction because our vision
is clouded by low-self image. We
live in a misapprehension of life that in order to be happy we need
excess food in an unbalance manner, which harms our bodies and
ultimately kills us. This
is an illusion, a lie; we deserve healthy bodies, which leads to long
healthy happy lives. Applying
Spiritual Principles Too often we liken sound normal
eating to “bearing with unbearable sorrow”, an “Impossible
Dream” but genuine joy comes from eating sanely and having a healthy
body size. Genuine joy is
long lasting and doesn’t expire at end of the last bite.
Genuine joy is achieved, accomplished and sustained when we
believe we are worthy of long healthy lives through non-destructive
habits. When we embrace this vision, we
increase our self-love and no longer are digging our graves with our
forks. To
find a local Overeaters Anonymous meeting in your area click
here. About Overeaters
Anonymous The
Twelve Steps | The
Twelve Traditions |Tools of Recovery What is OA? How did OA start? How do OA members lose weight
and maintain their normal weight? Who are OA members? How is OA funded? Who runs OA? The World Service Office is a service
center whose main function is to carry the OA message to the many
compulsive overeaters who still suffer. The World Service Office publishes
and distributes literature, maintains records on all registered groups,
intergroups, regions and national service boards, and issues meeting
directories. The World Service Office also acts as a public information
clearing house. For all meetings worldwide, you may
contact the World Service Office: Overeaters
Anonymous
In working Overeaters Anonymous'
Twelve-Step program of recovery from compulsive overeating, we have found
that there are a number of tools available to assist us. We use these
tools-a plan of eating, sponsorship, meetings, the telephone, writing,
literature, anonymity and service-on a regular basis, to help us achieve
and maintain abstinence. In Overeaters Anonymous (OA), abstinence
is "the action of refraining from compulsive eating." Many of us
have found that we cannot abstain from compulsive eating unless we use
some or all of OA's eight tools of recovery. As a tool, a plan of eating helps us to
abstain from eating compulsively. Having a personal plan of eating guides
us in our dietary decisions, as well as defines what, when, how, where and
why we eat. It is our experience that sharing this plan with a sponsor or
another OA member is important. There are no specific requirements for a
plan of eating; OA does not endorse, recommend or distribute any specific
food plan, nor does it exclude the personal use of one. For specific
dietary or nutritional guidance, OA suggests consulting a qualified health
care professional, such as a physician or dietician. Each of us develops a
personal plan of eating based on an honest appraisal of his or her own
past experience; we also have come to identify our current individual
needs, as well as those things which we should avoid. Although individual plans of eating are
as varied as our members, most OA members agree that some plan-no matter
how flexible or structured-is necessary. This tool helps us deal with the physical
aspects of our disease, and helps us achieve physical recovery. From this
vantage point, we can more effectively follow OA's Twelve-Step program of
recovery and move beyond the food to a happier, healthier and more
spiritual living experience. Sponsors are OA members who are living
the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions to the best of their ability. They
are willing to share their recovery with other members of the Fellowship
and are committed to abstinence. We ask a sponsor to help us through our
program of recovery on all three levels: physical, emotional and
spiritual. By working with other members of OA and sharing their
experience, strength and hope, sponsors continually renew and reaffirm
their own recovery. Sponsors share their program up to the level of their
own experience. Ours is a program of attraction; find a
sponsor who has what you want, and ask that person how he or she is
achieving it. A member may work with more than one sponsor and may change
sponsors at will. Meetings are gatherings of two or more
compulsive overeaters who come together to share their personal
experience, and the strength and hope OA has given them. Though there are
many types of meetings, fellowship with other compulsive overeaters is the
basis of them all. Meetings give us an opportunity to identify and confirm
our common problem and to share the gifts we receive through this program. The telephone helps us share on a
one-to-one basis and avoid the isolation which is so common among us. Many
members call other OA members and their own sponsors daily. As a part of
the surrender process, it is a tool with which we learn to reach out, ask
for help and extend help to others. The telephone also provides an
immediate outlet for those hard-to-handle highs and lows we may
experience. In addition to writing our inventories
and the list of people we have harmed, most of us have found that writing
has been an indispensable tool for working the Steps. Further, putting our
thoughts and feelings down on paper, or describing a troubling incident,
helps us to better understand our actions and reactions in a way that is
often not revealed to us by simply thinking or talking about them. In the
past, compulsive eating was our most common reaction to life. When we put
our difficulties down on paper, it becomes easier to see situations more
clearly and perhaps better discern any necessary action. We study and read OA-approved pamphlets;
OA-approved books, such as Overeaters Anonymous, The Twelve Steps and
Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous and For Today; and we read
Lifeline, our monthly magazine on recovery. We also study the book
Alcoholics Anonymous, referred to as the "Big Book," to
understand and reinforce our program. Many OA members find that when read
on a daily basis, the literature further reinforces how to live the Twelve
Steps. Our OA literature and the AA "Big Book" are
ever-available tools which provide insight into our problem of eating
compulsively, strength to deal with it, and the very real hope that there
is a solution for us. Anonymity, referred to in Traditions
Eleven and Twelve, is a tool that guarantees that we will place principles
before personalities. The protection anonymity provides offers each of us
freedom of expression and safeguards us from gossip. Anonymity assures us
that only we, as individual OA members, have the right to make our
membership known within our community. Anonymity at the level of press,
radio, films and television means that we never allow our faces or last
names to be used once we identify ourselves as OA members. This protects
both the individual and the Fellowship. Within the Fellowship, anonymity means
that whatever we share with another OA member will be held in respect and
confidence. What we hear at meetings should remain there. However, it
should be understood that anonymity must not be used to limit our
effectiveness within the Fellowship. It is not a break of anonymity to use
our full names within our group or OA service bodies. Also, it is not a
break of anonymity to enlist Twelfth-Step help for group members in
trouble, provided we are careful to refrain from discussing any specific
personal information. Another aspect of anonymity is that we
are all equal in the Fellowship, whether we are newcomers or seasoned
long-timers. And our outside status makes no difference in OA; we have no
stars or VIPs. We come together simply as compulsive overeaters. Carrying the message to the compulsive
overeater who still suffers is the basic purpose of our Fellowship;
therefore, it is the most fundamental form of service. Any form of
service-no matter how small-which helps reach a fellow sufferer adds to
the quality of our own recovery. Getting to meetings, putting away chairs,
putting out literature, talking to newcomers, doing whatever needs to be
done in a group or for OA as a whole, are ways in which we give back what
we have so generously been given. We are encouraged to do what we can when
we can. "A life of sane and happy usefulness" is what we are
promised as the result of working the Twelve Steps. Service helps to
fulfill that promise. As OA's responsibility pledge states:
"Always to extend the hand and heart of OA to all who share my
compulsion; for this, I am responsible." Home
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