OA's 12 steps to food control

Do you eat when you're not hungry, or not eat when you need to?

Go on eating binges for no apparent reason, or until you feel sick? Do you reach for food when emotions are intense?

Do you eat sensibly in front of others, then make up for it when you're alone? Do you feel guilty, ashamed, or embarrassed about the way you eat?

Fantasize about how life would be if you were a different size or weight? Do you lose weight after dieting, only to be followed by bouts of uncontrolled eating and/or weight gain?

Would you drive far in the middle of the night to satisfy a craving? Eat stale, frozen, or burnt food? Maybe dig it out of the garbage?

Do you spend too much time thinking about food, arguing with yourself about whether or what to eat, planning the next diet or exercise cure, or counting calories? Do your eating patterns affect your health, and the way you live your life?

The more “yes” answers to these questions, the greater the likelihood of a compulsive or over-eating problem. It can feel irrational and destructive, helpless and horrifying.

Overeaters Anonymous can help.

OA's Twelve Step program is similar to the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous; members have sponsors (like mentors) and attend meetings — all free. An international fellowship of more than 54,000 individuals support one another, confidentially, compassionately, honestly and without judgment. There is a chapter in Kootenai County, as I learned when one local OA member, who is also a prominent member of the community, asked me to write this column.

OA includes eating plans and helps define a new way of eating which acknowledges the challenges (food, unlike alcohol or other addictions, can't be entirely avoided). OA offers guidance toward recovery, honest accountability, and acceptance. Of who we are now. Who we were before. Who we may become. It supports, and empowers.

More than three-quarters of adult OA members are college-educated, from all walks of life, ages, and professions. Most are female, but 13 percent are male, and that percentage may increase as stereotypes fall. About 66 percent also receive some kind of counseling; this disease is at least as much mental as physical.

While most members are adults, two-thirds say food became a problem before age 16. Relationships with food begin in childhood. As OA's brochure “A New Plan of Eating” states, developing and practicing a new way of eating is an emotional, physical, and spiritual journey away from the need to eat in excess. Away from feeling like a prisoner to compulsion.

For more information, including a self-diagnostic quiz and online meetings, see OA.org. Local, weekly meetings include Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m. in the Kootenai Health cafe and Saturdays at 8:30 a.m. on the third floor of Kootenai Health's heart center when you enter through the emergency room doors; Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. at St. Pius X Catholic Church in Coeur d'Alene; and Wednesdays at 1:30 at Church of the Nazarene in Post Falls. Potential new members are welcome to come by.

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Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Contact her at Sholeh@cdapress.com.