Over on advoc84justice, Grace is describing her experiences with OA and its version of the 12-step program. Re step 1 (We admitted we were powerless over food - that our lives had become unmanageable.), Grace writes:

Can anyone who weighs 350 pounds really believe they are in control of their eating? …
I was not in control of my eating and no matter how hard I tried, I simply could not control it. I was completely powerless over food.

One of the reasons that I only briefly dabbled in OA was that I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) get my mind past the first three steps. I might be willing to grant that I certainly appeared to be “powerless” at the current moment, and even that my life, like Grace’s, was nowhere near where I wanted it to be (given that I was 350 and then some).

But I also had dabbled in Rational Recovery, and though I couldn’t make my feeble mind make it really work, I couldn’t disagree with one of their basic principles, which was something like “we admit that we have considerable control over our hands and mouth.”

Debra talks about Albert Ellis and shoulds and choosing, and I tend to agree. A lot of my being “powerless” is really about my current choices. In my case, I think I was far more paralyzed by fear than I was powerless. In fact, I’ve described my weight as my equivalent of a toddler tantrum…I didn’t choose (sub-consciously) to give up the behavior, for I was using it desperately…it was my call for help, and I was waiting for someone to respond.

But back to OA. Though I’m spiritual, I’m most definitely not religious. I found that I couldn’t move from step 1 to steps 2 & 3, even with the caveat that this power greater than me could help (step 2) even if I was willing to make the decision to turn my life over to “the care of God as we understood him.”

So all this as a prequel, my intent here is not to ding OA. We’re all different, and there isn’t a single approach to weight loss or overeating that works for all.

That said, I personally think that the idea of having to admit to powerlessness is the psychological equivalent of the gastric bypass — it’s a step borne out of desperation, and frankly, I’m really sad that our medical community hasn’t made more strides in helping people find their way out of this struggle. I want more. I want something that builds me up from the get-go…not something that starts by inherently calling me weak and completely powerless.

I’m not sure this is the answer to the problem, but I have long wished that there was the overeating equivalent of Women for Sobriety. I much prefer their “steps” and their women-friendliness. In particular, I really like the tone of their first step:

I have a life-threatening problem that once had me. I now take charge of my life. I accept the responsibility.

I also like Charlotte Kasl’s 16-steps. Here’s her step 1:

We affirm we have the power to take charge of our lives and stop being dependent on substances or other people for our self-esteem and security.

And I like the steps that Gail Unterberger came up with in 1989 (I think I saw them in Ms. magazine). Here are the first three:

1. We have a problem that once had us.
2. We realized we needed to turn to others for help.
3. We turn to our community of sisters and our spiritual resources to validate ourselves as worthwhile people, capable of creativity, care and responsibility.

Alas, these don’t seem to be online in HTML, but you can find them as figure 8.1 in this PDF.

Anyways, I point some of these out partly just to log them here so I can find the pointers again. But I also thought these might be useful to those who want to do OA but, like me, just have problems with those initial steps. If your OA group is flexible (i.e., don’t expect flexibility at an OA-HOW group), working with one of these alternate set of steps may be possible.