Anyone every attend Overeaters Anonymous?

What are your thoughts?  Experiences?

It's a great place to unload without being judged and yet heard.  It lessens my stress because there are fewer things I have to carry around inside.  It helps to get me out of my own thoughts and find ways to make things better from the discussions after the meeting is over. Stick around after the meeting-don't rush away immediately, if you can.  Having a sponsor is awesome because I have a real person to help me stay accountable to my goals (take your time finding the right person).  At a time when i felt hopeless and friendless, I found both there.  If you live in an area where there are lots of meetings, be sure to go to as many different meetings as you can, you'll find some where you feel at home the instant you walk in the door, and others... well, not as much.  It's best to give it a try - say 6 weeks and see what you think for yourself.  It's helped me get to where I am, and helped make me who I am (much healthier overall) and I am so grateful for that.  Oh, and bring kleenex.

I do go to OA and it saved my life. If you check out my blog, you can see my experience. 

Www.sexyskinny*****wordpress.com

I went to my first meeting last night. I don't have high hopes since I'm pretty highly intrinsically motivated with an internal locus of control so the whole "giving it to God" thing is unfathomable to me. I'll give it four chances and see what happens. 

I shared your feelings about turning it over to God as well, - still sort of do - it's gonna take me a while to get past it, but after so many failed attempts at getting my eating under control, I felt like it was worth a shot to try it a different way. I had to come to the realization that my problem wasn't entirely an issue of self control or will power. I truly came to believe I have a disease of the body and mind. 

I'm glad it's working for you and your frequent posts about OA were one of the things that drove me to see if there was a local meeting.  I am hopeful that it'll be another useful tool in my belt and that I'll figure out how to make it work for me in the next three meetings I go to :)  Right now, I'm just not there.  But.. this is why I give things four chances.  

Gwen, the whole "give it to God" thing is totally up to you.  It's more about accepting that you don't know everything and being open to learn from a variety of sources that might seem unfathomable to you right now.  You can pick anything you choose to be your higher power and simply choosing an open mind is as valid a higher power as God.  Maybe try using "keeping an open mind" as your higher power.  Just like we come here to these forums to learn from others, our experienced OH friends are our higher power here - no difference at all.  Good luck!

I know that OA's literature all says that atheists are welcome, but it was hard to actually feel that way when my local OA group had three other people and the two who weren't n00bs referenced god, and "giving it to god" with every other sentence.  

I'm definitely super willing to learn from other people, but, for me, there's a difference between that and the idea that there are things I do which something outside of myself has control over.  I'm really big on taking responsibility for my own actions and, at my first encounter, that's not the vibe I got from OA.  

Like I said, though, I'll give it four chances and see how it goes.  It might be that future meetings will have more/different people and that will be beneficial for me.  Or I might find that I can tune out the higher power stuff and make the program work for me just being around people who have the same issues I have.  

That's all anybody can ask is just check it out.  I hope there are a variety of meetings where you live.  The differences between meetings can be night & day.The on line meetings are more diverse too.

I've looked at meetings near me but also can't figure out how God is susprised to help me. I'm not a believer and I don't care if others do but find it frustrating when a group of people I'm around want to thank, praise, give over and so on to God. To me I need medical talk and true numbers to help me. Maybe the OA is more of a mental therapy that will work with those who enjoy including God in their daily lives. I think I'd find it distracting.