Help this page grow by sending in good quotes you hear at your local meeting. Also, these quotes can make great writing prompts.
“The only Step I must take perfectly is Step 1; that I am powerless over food.”
“When the weight came off I was convinced that all would be well. I thought I was done.”
“I knew I was crazy because the voices in my head were out to get me. I started to write down every good thing I did each day and also every bad thing I did. I started to realize that on balance I had about 10 good things and 3 bad things per day - and that actually I am a good person.”
“Step 10 is the most important Step of all - my sponsor told me that it's how I would learn to live in the 12 Steps and in recovery.”
“When it gets stale, God tells me, "Do something else." A new meeting, a new person to work with, change it up. Being willing to take that next step into an area where I may feel a little uncomfortable, believing that God will protect me as I do that new thing, is a re-commitment to my recovery. There is always something else that I can do or give for the person who's still struggling.”
“I don't think much of myself, but I was all I thought about.”
“When I came in, I wasn't committed to recovery; I was committed to a food plan --devoted and dedicated to finding a way to lose the weight. It was like breathing under water because I was miserable when I wasn't eating. I felt I needed to lock myself up in order to stop eating. Thankfully I decided to give "Real OA" a chance and stop doing my version of OA.”
“There are really no good binge stories as there are some good drinking stories. No nudge-nudge, heard-you-fell-off-the-barstool-last-night stories. There's only pain with the food.”
“My mind wants me eating. It will tell me anything, it will tell me a sack of lies. And the biggest lie that I ever told myself is that this would be the last time ever -- and therefore I needed to eat everything. You would think that after 30 years of this I would realize that it wasn't working.”
“When I'm running the show with food: do things get better, or do things get worse?”
“What does it mean to 'turn your life and will over to the care of God'? My will = my thinking. This process is about the shift in my thinking. Psychic change; tumultuous upheavals. What is my life? It = all of my actions. If a sponsor wants me to stay in Steps 1, 2 and 3 for a while, I find another sponsor. I need to move out of the decision Steps and start working.”
“Pray ceaselessly. ”
“God, come between me and this food before the food comes between me and You.”
“The Doctor's Opinion tells me that I have a double whammy. First I have an allergy to certain foods. Then I have an intense reaction, such that eating that food causes a mental obsession. The only way to be rid of that mental obsession is to work the Steps.”
“Surrender meant becoming willing to follow directions without conditions.”
“I was "hangry". I was like coming up for air after every diet - I would take that first compulsive bite and be off to the races.”
“I was heading to the kitchen to get some food. As I crossed the threshold I heard a voice say, 'Surprise yourself!' With that I turned right around and walked right out of the room.”
“I had to stop fighting and learn to float.”
“The feeling I get when I eat my trigger foods intensifies -- it never satisfies -- it intensifies.”
“The truth is going to set you free, but first it's going to piss you off.”
“Drunks don't like discipline.”
“Is there a Higher Power? Is he smart enough to take care of this? Do you think he will take care of this?”
“The sponsor has always been the key in the lock when I've had trouble with the food.”
“Isn't it about time you forgave yourself?”
“You deserve the way you're going to feel when you finish the 12 Steps.”
“I need to be reminded all the time that I'm strangely insane when it comes to this disease.”
“All of my problems can be solved through spiritual means.”
“Dear God, let this be enough.”
“Pray Before Every Meal.”
“No Thank You. I’ll take the love with which that (food) was made and pass on the calories.”
“My Action Plan is a present I give myself on every Holiday.”
“The other 364 days come after Thanksgiving.”
“I used to eat breakfast and think about lunch.”
“My instincts are God’s messages to me.”
“Holidays are loaded with family situations. We can always pause and pray and not engage.”
“Put on your God Glasses.”
“Food never loved me back.”
“Don't get jealous of people in the rooms. Say to oneself, 'This is for me!'”
“It's really important to stop telling ourselves lies.”
“Whatever your abstinence is today, hold onto it. It will get better. ”
“I weigh and measure and I find it a very spiritual practice. It just tastes better. It's how I admit that I am powerless. I don't say, 'Why me? Why am I a COE?' I say, 'Why me? Why am I in recovery?' There are so many people who are nicer than I am. But they're eating.”
“The action plan is not a To do list.”
“I keep on making wreckage, darn it! Thank goodness there are amends. ”
“It's much better to want what I have, than have what I want.”
“The recovery is not in the fellowship, in the rooms, in abstinence or in the tools. It's in the Steps.”
“Steps 7-9; take it away. Steps 10-12; keep it away.”
“Things for handling stress: playing. Swing/ slide. Buy bubbles. Nature. Library. Write a longhand letter. Go to a movie (comedy or tragedy). Pet pets. Nap. Go splash in puddles. Gratitudes. Choose not to stay there! Take my mind off problem. Say mantra.”
“I have to come out of myself - my mind can't focus on myself if I'm focusing on you.”
“Medicine now recognizes the correlation between food restriction and bingeing. A binge is the inevitable result of food restricting.”
“God is not our sous-chef.”
“I get better in the face-to-face meetings.”
“The reasons for the compulsion are unimportant; but, there is a solution in the Steps.”
“Weighed and measured food tastes better.”
“What do I need to do today to keep my recovery?”
“I am not a Big Book thumper. I am a recovery thumper.”
“I used to think my goal is to be happy. I was wrong. My goal in life is to be of service.”
“I discovered in the 5th Step that I was the author of my own misery.”
“The day I became willing to make phone calls was the day I became abstinent.”
“How did you keep your Program fresh for 36 years? I got a home group, do service beyond the group level, and do Step studies.”
“The more meetings you miss, the easier it becomes to miss. The more meetings you make, the harder it is to miss one. ”
“I will die with this disease, but I will not die from it, God willing. ”
“I was all dieted out.”
“The weigh-and-pays were my food police.”
“God-given abstinence is the most important thing in my life without exception.”
“The Obvious Symptom Award is obesity, but it's not the only symptom.”
“OA has ruined my relationship with food.”
“Recovery is in the Steps we take, not the meetings we make.”
“This is a family illness.”
“This is not a program of suggestions but a suggested Program.”
“I am feuding with a lot of people who do not even know we are feuding.”
“What are my motives?”
“Your relationship with food will change and it happens through Step work.”
“I have my Higher Power with me - it's the electricity that runs through this machine.”
“The Big Book has no pictures -- we are the pictures!”
“Amends: 1. What did I do? 2. What else do you have to say? 3. What can I do to make amends?”
“When you balk at Step work, especially Step 9, you are back at Step 1 and in serious danger of returning to the addiction.”
“I have body dysmorphia and character dysmorphia.”
“There is a difference between abstinence and recovery. If you think abstinence is good, recovery is about 100 times better.”
“My job is to become balanced - to become neutral. It no longer needs to have a magnifying glass to everything.”
“God, please replace my fear with faith.”
“Step 5 shows me that I have been the author of my own misery.”
“If we have done a Step correctly or adequately, we are itching to do the next Step.”
“Fear of Relapse -- how do I contribute to it?”
“The Steps are an ego adjustment.”
“People Pleasing -- fear of conflict; therefore, dishonest manipulation.”
“There's no treading water in this program.”
“It's about my thinking. It's about my thinking. It's about my thinking. It's about my thinking.”
“Anytime I start using "I" too much I know I'm in the wrong place.”
“For today, I can live in the present, in the now. Life happens in the now.”
“Insanity was what I did with the food before OA.”
“I am in the world to play the role that God assigns me.”
“Prayer is what transforms me. Prayer is for the person praying.”
“Fear keeps me doing the things I shouldn't be doing and keeps me from doing the things I should be doing.
“This entire process is a prayerful process of change.”
“Resentments give me the excuse to see relief (food).”
“It is impossible to "work" a decision. The way to effect a decision is to take action.”
“Any decision not followed up by action is fantasy and avails us nothing.”
“Am I willing to put aside my old conceptions?”
“Disease is a lack of connection with self.”
“When I change what I focus on, what I focus on changes.”
“When I'm connected to my HP, things get so much quieter and simpler.”
“It is not people, places, and things - it is my reaction to them.”
“The Program wears down my insanity and my disease.”
“I have to put God at the center and I have to do what He wants.”
“There are high spots and low spots in life. We are able to navigate them with the Steps.”
“I can't see the consequences of the substance; I can only see the relief I believe it will bring.”
“This is not an intellectual process. This is a transformational process.”
“Recovered = Free”
“Pray to God before each meal that it be enough and pray afterwards thanking God for the abstinent meal.”
“I decided I was not going to keep starting over. The number one thing for staying on track is to work the Steps.”
“What can I do for You to be of maximum service?”
“I do not make decisions about changing my food on my own since in the past it has led to relapse.”
“Giving up things does not cause me pain; resisting giving up things causes me pain.”
“Every morning I wake up abstinent. What am I willing to do to stay abstinent?”
“Just sitting in a meeting room will not get you recovery anymore than just sitting in a car will get you to California.”
“We are all special; so if one of us can recover, we can all recovery.”
“I can get two things in OA - relief or recovery. The Tools give us relief; the Steps give us recovery.”
“I don't have to like it, want it, or believe it; I just need to do it.”
“What keeps me out of the excuses is the Steps, as they give me a solution to any problem I might want to eat over.”
“When I hear the words, "I'm justified" in my head, a red flag goes up.”
“Food never made me feel better.”
“I had a history of looking for any solution other than God.”
“Selective Surrender -- where one surrenders to the substance as an addict, but does not surrender to life.”
“I try not to create more wreckage of the present.”
“The miracle isn't that I've not eaten chocolate for 33 years; the miracle is that I have not wanted it for 33 years.”
“What would my life look like without OA? I'm not sure I'd be dead, but I'm sure I'd wish I were dead.”
From someone with 33 years of abstinence: “What keeps my program fresh? I try new things and mix it up and sponsees.”
From someone with 27 years of abstinence: “How do I keep my program fresh? Meetings, meetings, meetings.”
“If you're a compulsive overeater and you make food an option, you will always turn to food. ”
“The first time around I worked the Tools. I relapsed. The second time around I worked the Steps.”
“Surrender means the war is over. I don't get in the ring with food any more.”
“I worry about how much the Tools are emphasized over the Steps in meetings.”
“Abstinence: first it gets good (pink cloud), then it gets bad, then it gets better, then it gets real.”
“If I am not accepting it, then I am trying to control it.”
“Bless them; change me.”
“I do not waste who I am by living in the dream of who I wish I was.”
“I have a disease that wants me dead. If it can't have me dead, it wants me miserable, for then I'll eat.”
“We recovery physically, emotionally, and then spiritually; we relapse spiritually, then emotionally, and then physically. Once we pick up, we're done.”
“Gifts of acceptance are people skills and a positive attitude.”
“I live OA - every day is a practice of God's will and acceptance.”
“Acceptance means welcoming and receptive, like a family reunion.”
“About service: if not me, then who?”
“My entire journey is about my conscious contact with God.”
“I pray to speak to serve and not to impress.”
“I don't want to fill the God-sized hole with anything other than God.”
“I never had a problem with food. I had a spiritual problem that I tried to solve with food.”
“I've had to expand my Higher Power over the years.”
“I'm living in the grey.”
“Recovery isn't something you can hoard.”
“When we give service to others, we let go of self.”
“Through sponsoring I get to recreate my spiritual experience.”
“The chapter is called "Working With Others" not Fighting With Others" or "Working On Others.”
“Breathe in God -- let go self.”
“Why worry if you pray - why pray if you worry?”
“Courage is fear that has said its prayers.”
“It's not a struggle if you don't put up a fight.”
“God, please direct my thinking today; keep me divorced from self-pity, dishonesty, and self-seeking motives.”
“Step 11 is a constructive process, not a destructive one.”
“Worry is my default, my hobby, and how I grind myself into dust.”
“What will God have me be?”
“Step 11 says prayer and meditation, not or.”
“God, take this obsession to eat away from me.”
“As long as I am focusing on self I will not be able to put food aside.”
“The Steps work us.”
“Step 10: the 4&4 -
4 things that crop up (selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, fear)
4 actions (Ask God, Talk to someone, Make amends, Turn our thoughts).”
“WADAT: Watch; Ask God to remove the defect; Discuss; Amends; Turn to help others.”
“Step 10 is a get out of jail free card, whether the jail is resentment, anger, selfishness, fear, or dishonesty.”
“My thinking mind will always take me back to where I think food is an option.”
“I used the food to avoid emotions and now i have to learn to live with these emotions. The Steps teach me to do this.”
“Abstinence is about living in reality.”
“Before this program, I would have stuffed it all down with something. Today I can just stand still and feel it. I get to feel my emotions.”
“The 9th Step creates a landscape for new growth and it's really worth it.”
“I walked in the room that first time and thought I must be in the wrong place. They were all so happy and I was the furthest thing from it..”
“The words that saved my life were, 'I need help.'”
“I have such entitlement around my character defects and such intolerance around others'.”
“I need to have people I know ahead of me on the path.”
“The job of a sponsor is to lead the sponsee to God, who will solve all of their problems.”
“The fear is poison to me. False Evidence Appearing Real.”
“The illusion is that it was only the food.”
“I have a sponsor and a sponsee. I am in the middle of the pack.”
“Easy Does It? I thought harder does it; striving does it; more does it. But it seems Easy Does It.”
“When I come to a fork in the road, what am I going to do to keep that fork from going in my mouth?”
“The strings of the past affect the quality of the present.”
“Move through the Steps quickly - why prolong the freedom?”
“The only freedom from this is to do a 5th Step.”
“Trust God. Clean house. Help others. Repeat.”
“It's not psychobabble. What's your part in it?”
“The things we're asked to look at in the inventory are things I like to bury under the food.”
“Sanity is the ability to see the truth.”
“You said guidelines and I heard God-lines.”
“We all came in to have a smaller ass, but none of us came in to get a bigger connection with our Higher Power.”
“Effortless weight loss and abstinence is only offered to first time customers.”
“Submission is putting my mission under God's mission.”
“I have to let go of expectations.”
“I am not the GPS - I just need to follow the Step-by-Step instructions.”
“My Higher Power is a GPS - tells me where to go and if I make a mistake it tells me how to correct it.”
“I am not a normal eater and will never be a normal eater, and that is okay as long as I'm abstinent.”
“Think of honesty as a Step and less as a virtue to describe me.”
“I have a sponsee that describes herself as a recovering self-reliant.”
“What if I stop doubting the power of God?”
“It's not the [your name here] show; it's the God show and you are in it.”
“It has nothing to do with the food unless I'm in the food. It's about me and changing my inner core.”
“I would have anaphylactic shock of the spirit if I put that substance in my body today.”
“God and I cannot both do it at the same time.”
“If I am always looking for the "why" then I am caught in the problem and looking someone or something to blame.”
“Instead of turning to food, I turn to God.”
“I ask God, 'Who would you have me be?'”
“I thought I had a problem with food. I had a problem with living.”
“If a problem isn't important enough to pray about then it isn't important enough to worry about.”
“Your job is not to be their HP; your job is to introduce them into a relationship with their HP.”
“The sponsor's job is to help the sponsee annihilate their own ego. If it's going to work, it's going to hurt.”
“Before OA, I was either on a diet or cheating on a diet. I didn't know about powerlessness.”
“I am grateful for the self-knowledge, but the 12 Steps have given me recovery.”
“I knew that food was the problem yet still thinking it was also the solution. The solution is spiritual.”
“Food was my problem. No, wait. I was the problem.”
“When I would look for the shortcut and the easy way out, my sponsor would say: We are not going to do it your way.”
“I weigh the words that come out of my mouth as carefully as I weigh the food that goes into my mouth.”
“If you want to witness recovery, go to a meeting. If you want to experience recovery, work the 12 Steps.”
“Take a walk with God. He will meet you at the Steps.”
“Steps 8-12 are action-oriented. They do not jive with my sloth character defect. They do not jive with my isolation defect.”
“Our real purpose is to be of maximum service to God and others. I thought it was about losing weight.”
“Sponsor: Did you take that problem to God, John?
John: No, I'm bringing it to you.”
“I have to be painted into a corner of pain and suffering before I am willing to take action.”
“The gift of desperation is a beautiful thing.”
“As your sponsor, I am not your therapist, your mother, your nutritionist, or your best friend.”
“In my relapse, I was lying.”
“Why? Why did I change my dinner from what I committed?”
“God does not call the qualified; He qualifies the called.”
“Act as if in order to drain the energy out of character defects.”
“I did not get my recovery until six months after I got my abstinence. The abstinence was my putting down the fork; the Steps gave me the miracle of recovery.”
“Surrender leads to victory.”
“About Step 4: Just because I don't like it, just because I'm angry, just because I'm afraid, doesn't mean it's wrong to do it.”
“Whenever someone in the fellowship shared something about themselves, I learned something about me.”
“Step 1 is the foundation of my program.”
“I knew I had failed again; I didn't know why.”
“The weight was so obvious, I wore my problem wherever I went.”
“Be an active part of the fellowship; do what is suggested and do what the people do who have recovery. That is the summary of it all.”
“When I feel anger or fear brewing, I know I'm in self-will and not God's will. I ask myself, What am I unwilling to let go of?”
“When you get rid of the defects, the assets are there waiting.”
“The phone has saved my bacon more times than I can tell you.”
“If you call someone when you are in a good place, when you are in a bad place someone will know your name.”
“I was a constantly growing woman.”
“I've learned to speak. I learned to speak in here so I can learn to speak out there.”
“I've had a lot of Godmothers in this program.”
“I will die with this disease, but I do not have to die from this disease.”
“The only person I can change is myself, but luckily that is the only person I need to change in order to recover.”
“I don't have to eat over sad. I don't have to eat over worry. I work the tools.”
“My sponsor loved me so much she did not give me permission to kill myself with a knife and fork.”
“There is always a happy ending in OA -- if you stick around long enough.”
“The tongue in our head talks, but the tongue in our shoes tell what we are really aligned with. They tell us where our feet are.”
“Step 10 is a virus software running in the background.”
“You need a big toolbox to persevere in this program.”
“If you allow your program to LAPSE, it could lead to a RELAPSE, which leads to a total COLLAPSE.”
“Get a Big Book; get a sponsor; do the work; do not hesitate. Once the food is removed, go quickly into the Steps so you can change the mind and relieve the compulsion and obsession.”
“If it’s out of your control, you cannot take the responsibility, the blame, or the credit.”
“Spirituality releases me from me.”
“Let go of my fear and trust my higher power.”
“The people who rub me the wrong way give me the opportunity to work my program and grow. I should be very grateful for them.”
“If I focus on what I don’t have, I’ll never have enough.”
"It is easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world."
"My will starts out easy and gets harder; God's will starts out harder and gets easier."
"Everything starts with feelings which come from our thinking; change my thinking to accept things as they are."
"Memory of an altered mood that says to me: 'I will feel better if I eat ___________.' There is always a thought process."
"Obsession: An idea that crowds out all other ideas. (e.g., It'll be OK this time; Justified behavior)."
"Obsession crowds out resolutions, commitments and worst is it crowds out the memory of my pain, and then I eventually give in."
"Compulsion: Out of control behavior."
"Turn my thinking and behavior over to the 12 Step Program/process."
"The 12 Step Program is learning to live life as it is."
"Align my will with the quiet inner voice of God's Will for me."
"Not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed unless it is faced."
"I'm in charge of actions. God is in charge of results."
"I am a co-creation of God."
"Anxiety is sometimes my worst fear."
"Let go of the pain I have from whatever I'm resentful of. Learn from it and move on with life or let it eat at you and make you miserable."
"The past is useful for nothing except learning. Give it up and move on."
"Working the Steps means opening myself up to receive Grace."
"Show God I am wiling to change. Demonstrate my willingness to change by living in the Solution."
"Unlearn a bad habit (e.g., resentment, anger, fear) and re-learn a good habit (e.g., the opposites)."
"For so long I fed my feelings – now I feel my feelings."
"Today is the day to start living."
"All life is change – it will always pass."
"Cooperate with the inevitable."
"What do I need to do to show God I am cooperating?"
"If the grass is greener on the other side, water your grass."
"What is, is. Deal with it."
"Step 10- keep it clean; clear it up quickly."
"Move a muscle – change a thought. Find something to be enthusiastic about."
"Recovery is fragile."
"Is there anyone you need to forgive but haven't, including yourself?"
"Punishing myself today for something I didn't know yesterday is a losing proposition."
"When I forgive myself or others I am free."
"You cannot forgive anyone else before you forgive yourself."
"Steps 6 & 7 are about unlearning bad habits and learning new habits."
"I act my way into right thinking and not think my way into right action."
"I am willing to change. I am in charge of actions but HP is in charge of the results."
"We become whatever we grow up with, but we can change."
"Forgiveness means letting go of the pain around the situation."
"Judging all the time affirms my superiority and keeps me isolated and apart."
"Every character defect is some sort of coping mechanism."
"If nothing changes, nothing changes."
"Every morning I have to renew my faith because my subscription runs out in the afternoon."
"We can change our feelings by changing the sentences that are going through our heads."
"Intergroup is a developmental ground for learning to get along. The traditions help with that."
Her: "I don't like to use the phone. I am not a phone person."
Him: "So what? Do it anyway. Change. Become a phone person."
"If you are not giving service and helping others, you will lose your abstinence."
"Do I have a clear and honest definition of my food plan or am I still debating?"
"The obsession crowds out all other ideas. The obsession is not reasonable. You cannot argue out of it."
"The thought always precedes the deed."
"The whole Program is in the Doctor's Opinion."
"You cannot think your way into recovery. It's a program of action. An accumulation of thousands of actions."
"I don't give a $%# if you don't want to do it; do it anyway."
"Perfectionism guarantees I will never feel good enough."
"I began to face and deal rather than whine and eat. I started growing up."
"Surrender is not giving up but deciding to cooperate."
"Hope empowers."
"I am not helpless over the footwork."
"Willingness often comes from pain, but it doesn't have to."
"Follow the damn instructions."
"Put down the food and change. If you are still fighting the food, you have not changed enough."
"3 ways to stay in fit spiritual condition: 1) Step 10, 2) meditation and prayer, and 3) working with others."
"True living is living by what we believe in and not living by other people's ideas."
"The prayers in the Big Book are preludes to Action."
"Even if all emotional baggage were solved and on an even keel, because we're compulsive overeaters, we will create a reason to eat: it's the insanity of the disease. The mental obsession kicks in and we succumb if we're not working the Steps and experience a psychic change."
"You can pretend to care but you cannot pretend to show up."
"Growing a soul is the most important thing for me these days."
"I will weigh my food: either before I eat it, or after I eat it."
"I am not learning how to react, but learning how to act."
"The OA definition of a perfectionist: A perfectionist is one who goes to great pains and is one."
"The pen eases the pain."
"After I eat a meal, I ask God, 'Please let this be enough.'"
"I make a gratitude list and I make a surrender list."
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