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The 12 Traditions

Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon OA unity.
For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority — a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
The only requirement for OA membership is a desire to stop eating compulsively.
Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or OA as a whole.
Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to the compulsive overeater who still suffers.
An OA group ought never endorse, finance or lend the OA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
Every OA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
Overeaters Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
OA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
Overeaters Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the OA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, films, television and other public media of communication.
Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all these Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

Voices of Recovery

We walk together on this path of recovery. We follow the footprints in the sand of those who have walked before us, and we leave footprints for those yet to come.

Voices of Recovery (p. 105)

Every time I give service without counting the hours I give or looking for any reward, I am filled with freedom, friendship, joy, and abstinent recovery.

Voices of Recovery (p. 284)

Why is it necessary to attend OA? Surely part of that answer is in the word ‘Fellowship.’ In the OA Fellowship, face-to-face with others who have shared our suffering, we find the power we need to recover.

Voices of Recovery (p. 325)

A life well-lived requires that I continue to change, grow and clean up the wreckage of my past–and my present. If I do that, my life is better than I could have ever imagined.

Voices of Recovery (p. 68)

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