Introduction to the 12 Steps Part 1, Updated 2005
The Twelve Steps offer a simple plan for recovery. The plan is divided into twelve parts or steps. Each Step laying the foundation for the processes involved in the next.

The Twelve Steps of Overeaters Anonymous are the very same Steps used by Alcoholics Anonymous. OA changes the wording to reflect the nature of their compulsive eating disorder. In the mid 1930s, two alcoholics discovered they could recover from a hopeless state of alcoholism by helping other alcoholics to get and stay sober, one day at a time. This led to the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous. They also discovered that staying sober required much more than just not drinking. It required a profound change in the way an alcoholic approached life. A change they called “a spiritual awakening”. The 12 Steps are the guidelines that they developed that would produce these changes. The now famous 12 Steps to recovery are rooted in ancient spiritual concepts and the hard won practical experience of the early members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Though the Steps may be couched in terms that sound dated to some and overtly religious to others, the underlying principles of personal growth and healing have proved to transcend all bounds for those who are willing. In those early days of AA, they found the Steps could work equally as well for the ardent atheist as they did for the deeply religious. Each could stay sober and keep their belief systems about a supreme being, or lack thereof, intact. The Steps helped both men and women, rich and poor, gay or straight, the professional as well as the layperson, people with physical disabilities, and people with a wide variety of psychiatric illnesses.

There is a lot of ambiguity built into the Steps and that is part of their power. While working the Steps, an individual finds their own meaning as they progress. They come to terms with the principles of recovery in a very personal way. In effect, they grow as human beings in ways they never before perceived. A new life unfolds before them that is based on their continued willingness and their growing understanding and use of the principles in the Steps. The Steps are not a simple intellectual exercise. Results are based on honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. It is not the intellect, but action that leads to change on the deep levels necessary to heal and permanently change one's lifestyle. Yet these Steps are a gentle and non-judgmental tool with forgiveness and self-nurturing build right in.

The paragraph in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that comes directly after the Twelve Steps states: “Many of us exclaimed, ‘What an order! I can't go through with it’. Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.”

Reprinted from Alcoholics Anonymous, with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc

Recovery demands no adherence to dogma and in fact sets down suggested guides to progress, not rigid rules to some theoretical state of perfection. The Big Book speaks of the Steps as being principles for recovery. Principles are basic generalizations that are accepted as true that can be used as a basis for reasoning and conduct. It's important to note that it goes on to say that no member of their Fellowship is able to follow these principles perfectly. Yet, the success of countless individuals across the globe who utilize the 12 Steps for personal healing speaks for itself.

The founders of OA had the insight to view their compulsive overeating as a disease instead of a moral failing or weakness. They had the wisdom to apply the Steps to their obsession with food and dieting. They understood that obesity and compulsive overeating were but symptoms of a deeper set of issues just as the early AA’s discovered that drinking and drunkenness were only symptoms of a much broader disease—a disease of the body, mind, and spirit. This is why an alcoholic can rarely recover without help and so it is for people with Binge Eating Disorder (BED) and others who are trapped in a cycle of compulsive overeating.

Diets rarely work for long. All too often they lead to the self-perpetuating trap of more agony and disappointment called yo-yo dieting. Diets are a band aid approach to healing a compulsive eating disorder. They cover up and hide a symptom (obesity). They do not cure binge eating disorder; they tend to exacerbate it. Like recovering alcoholics in AA, members of OA attempt to heal those deeper reasons that keep them imprisoned by their eating disorder. Since they cannot change the past and can’t change other people, they give up blaming and begin to take responsibility for living in the solution instead of the problem. This is no easy task. The 12 Steps are not about going on yet another diet, they are about  the process of changing one's lifestyle—from the inside out.