Resources

We’ve gathered tools and resources to support OA members and help meetings remain strong, safe, and welcoming places for recovery.

OA Conference Approved Literature

OA Literature is available at some meetings. You can also order at the World Services Office Bookstore.


Guidelines for Screen Sharing of OA Literature

The OA Board of Trustees recognizes that many OA groups continue to meet virtually and seek ways to carry the message by using our literature. With this in mind, the board has updated its guidelines and issued a Revised Instructive Letter, establishing clearer protocols for how OA literature may be shared on various electronic platforms. If your group meets virtually, use these guidelines to share limited OA literature appropriately, while protecting OA’s copyrights for the good of the Fellowship as a whole.


The OA Promise

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. © OA


Serenity Prayer

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.


The Third-Step Prayer

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! (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 63)


The Seventh-Step Prayer

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. Amen. (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 76)


Been Slipping and Sliding? A Reading and Writing Tool

For members who want to stop “slipping and sliding,” download  the Been Slipping and Sliding Tool?, which contains 30 questions for use in daily writing and/or discussion with a sponsor. The questions are also recommended for those in relapse who want to recommit to their OA program.


Service as Recovery

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—that helps reach a fellow sufferer adds to the quality of our own recovery. Members who are new to OA can give service by getting to meetings, putting away chairs, putting out literature, talking to newcomers, and doing whatever needs to be done for the group. Members who meet the abstinence requirement can give service beyond the group level in such activities as intergroup representative, committee chair, region representative or Conference delegate. There are many ways to 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.


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.”  (Tools of Recovery. © 2011 Overeaters Anonymous, Inc. All rights reserved.)