READINGS IN MEETINGS
Most meetings include repeated readings to set the tone and remind us of why we are here. There is a specific opening - the Preamble. Meetings close with a reading and an OA prayer selected from those below. These are included here in a format where you can change the size and also download each.
OA PREAMBLE
Overeaters Anonymous is a Fellowship of individuals who, through shared experience, strength, and hope, are recovering from compulsive overeating. We welcome everyone who wants to stop eating compulsively, There are no dues or fees for members; we are self-supporting through our own contributions, neither soliciting not accepting outside donations. OA is not affiliated with any public or private organization, political movement, ideology, or religious doctrine; we take no position on outside issues. Our primary purpose is to abstain from compulsive eating and compulsive food behaviors and to carry the message of recovery through the Twelve Steps of OA to those who still suffer.
CLOSING READINGS
We end most meetings with one of the following closing readings:
A Vision For You (p. 164 Big Book)
Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come, if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the Great Fact for us.
Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of you past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.
May God bless you and keep you -- until then.
Acceptance (p 417 Big Book)
...acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person,place, thing or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake...unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy.
I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.
The 9th Step Promises (p 83-84 of the Big Book)
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.
Suggested Closing Reading (p 106, "The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous")
We who began working the steps in order to recover from compulsive eating now find that through them we have embarked on a lifelong journey of spiritual growth. From the isolation of food obsession we have emerged into a new world. Walking hand in hand with our friends and our Higher Power, we are now exploring this world, using the great spiritual principles embodied in the twelve steps as the map to guide our way. We gratefully follow in the footsteps of many others who have walked this way before us, and we're gratified to be making footprints of our own for others to follow.
Those of us who live this program don't simply carry the message, we are the message. Each day that we live well, we are well, and we embody the joy of recovery which attracts others who want what we've found in OA. We're always happy to share our secret: the twelve steps of Overeaters Anonymous, which empower each of us to live well and be well, one day at a time.
Pause (p 87-88, Big Book 4th Ed.)
As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day "Thy will be done." We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily,. for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.
It works - it really does.
CLOSING PRAYERS
The OA Promise (also known as Rozanne’s Prayer and the Unity Prayer):
I put my hand in yours, and together we can do what we could never do alone. No longer is
there a sense of hopelessness, no longer must we each depend upon our own unsteady
willpower. We are all together now, reaching out our hands for power and strength greater than
ours, and as we join hands, we find love and understanding beyond our wildest dreams.
Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity to
Accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And the Wisdom to know the difference.
Prayers from the Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous)
3rd Step Prayer—page 63
God, I offer myself to thee-to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt.
Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will.
Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy
Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life.
May I do Thy will always.
7th Step Prayer—page 76
My Creator, I am now willing that You should have all of Me, good and bad. I pray that you now
remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to
You and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do Your bidding