Are you addicted to food? You’re not alone. You can find real support with Overeaters Anonymous.
Melbourne Intergroup together with Regional Victoria and Tasmania invite you to the Castlemaine Overeaters Anonymous Share-a-thon tomorrow Saturday March 21 at the Tea Rooms at the Botanical Gardens, Castlemaine.
A Share-a-thon is a day of meetings and workshops designed to help members recover from compulsive eating and food behaviours such as overeating, undereating, restricting, binge eating, over exercising, and other dysfunctional behaviours in relation to food.
The Share-a-thon is structured on the three aspects of compulsive overeating dysfunction: physical, emotional and spiritual.
Overeaters Anonymous (OA) is a welcoming, supportive group for anyone struggling with dysfunctional eating. OA is a Twelve Step fellowship, patterned after Alcoholics Anonymous, and is available in more than 75 countries worldwide.
No diets. No fees. No weigh-ins.
The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop eating compulsively. OA is not a diet club, and there are no hidden fees.
OA offers approximately 6,000 meetings globally—in person, online, by phone, and even through apps. You can find support in a way that fits your lifestyle.
One local member told the Mail OA has has been hugely beneficial for them and encourages others to reach out for support.
“My eating disorder started when I was about 13. I came home from school and found myself eating large amounts of breakfast cereal, then mystified by my behaviour, swore off eating anything for a week,” they said.
“This started a cycle of bingeing and starving that lasted over ten years. As the years progressed my ability to starve decreased and my bingeing increased. I’d eat for days at a time, closing the curtains, not answering the phone, watching television. I’d eat until I
couldn’t move: I didn’t show up to social events and I called in sick. Then, on a Monday, I would swear I would never binge again, I’d start exercising and I’d obsessively count calories. Eventually I would binge again – and fall into a state of extreme self-hate and shame.
“The worst thing was the constant thinking about what to eat, how not to eat, how much I’d eaten, how much exercise I needed to do to counteract what I’d eaten, what I needed to do to get my life back on track. I swung from euphoric highs (I’ve got this!) to abject lows
(wanting to cut off my fat, unable to look people in the eye, complete isolation).
“A friend introduced me to OA, and I started going to meetings, doing service, working with a sponsor. Eventually I was able to ‘put down’ the food (stop bingeing) completely. I ate three moderate meals a day, with nothing in between. The great gift was I stopped obsessing
about food too.
“OA, like AA, is based on the premise of one addict helping another. There is no external expert telling you how to get well, only other members sharing their experience, strength and hope one day at a time. There is authenticity in this, a profound understanding of the bizarre insanity of addiction (what sane person would keep repeating the same destructive pattern over and over again) and yet real examples of people who are now living without having to pick up their addictive substance of choice.
“OA is a spiritual program but it is not religious. Each member decides for themselves their definition of a Higher Power: it could be the group, nature, the universe, Good Orderly Direction, or God, Allah, Yahweh, or Kermit the Frog. Spiritual power comes from members
sharing one to the other, from accepting our vulnerabilities, listening for new ways forward and being inspired by others recovery. Agnostics, atheist and believers are all welcome in OA.
“There are many kinds of food action from constantly grazing, to bulimia and anorexia, or obsessive restrictions about what and how to eat. All of these can be address in OA.
“I went from living a life ruled by my addiction to food, to a deeply interconnected, fulsome life. I have not binged for over 20 years and have maintain the same weight (with a 20 kilo weight loss) for the same amount of time. I have developed a rich interior life and a humility born of experience and human fallibility. I also live a blessed life, able to accept the many good things that happen in it and accept that I have talents that I can add to the world. For a person so entrenched in self-hate, I now reckon I’m pretty alright!” they said.
The OA Sharathon will take place from 10am-4pm. Entry is $25 (or whatever you can afford). Newcomers are welcome. Stay for an hour, half day or the whole day. For more information call 0408 333 126.
