Spiritual Principal: Honesty | |
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If you are thinking of taking your program to the next level, Ocean and Bay’s recovery journal is something you may want to purchase. This spiral-bound, 120 page journal spans a 60 day period and allows you to structure your day around your recovery from food addiction. It allows you to use the tool of writing in a very effective way. Asking questions like “Today was I resentful, selfish, dishonest?” It also helps to get to the root of our daily fears. It includes a gratitude list, a food log, and prompts like: “Something I like about myself.” There’s even check-off boxes for daily water consumption. It also includes a freedom from bondage prayer that you can actually participate in. It makes a great addition to support recovery!
To purchase a Journal, CLICK HERE
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Let's invite the world to rip us off
The Ocean and Bay Intergroup has created a beautiful outreach flier to carry the message and attract those who are sick and suffering from compulsive eating. Please consider doing service as suggested in our 5th tradition by taking a flier(s) and hanging it in your local community. Places you can post are the library, grocery store, your doctor’s office or anywhere that has a community bulletin board. Download the poster and print it out on your own printer. Please remember to cut the little tabs at the bottom so people can easily tear off that information. To view or download the flyer, click here. Also, you can have a poster sent to you by emailing your full name and address to: meetings@oceanandbay.org.
Thank you!
Nancy H, Chair of Ocean and Bay Intergroup
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Step One: We admitted we were powerless over food—that our lives had become unmanageable. | |
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I'm so grateful that as my time in this program lengthens, and my understanding of the Steps deepens, I understand myself to be more and more powerless. My powerlessness would have made me quite angry about a year and a half ago before program, but now I understand that it is a blessing for me to admit that I'm powerlessness. My admission is a strength, not a weakness, like the ego insists. I can now be free of this disease and all the other compulsive behaviors over which I am powerless.
The peace and serenity that the Steps bring are not possible if I'm insisting on being willful and able to handle life on my own, certain that with a little more effort on my part, I can get it right. When I am in a full-on willfulness mode, I'm trying to control whatever comes my way, but whatever that is inevitably keeps slipping through my fingers. Sometimes a big mess results, like if I've hurt or angered someone. When I'm trying to control people, places and things, I'm usually depressed and isolated, or I'm wrapped up spending time with people that nourish me or bring me joy.
The pain of feeling this off-center is always what brings me back to Step One. I never thought I'd say I was grateful for pain but I can honestly and exuberantly say that, yes, I'm grateful for the pain that keeps me heading back to Step One. This awareness becomes the foundation on which I stand to keep moving through these miraculous steps and keep striving for a life that is in alignment with my higher self/God/intuition/love.
- Anonymous
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PLEASE JOIN US IN CELEBRATING OA’s 63rd BIRTHDAY WITH AN OA TRIVIA GAME
WHERE: On Zoom and in person at YANA located at 770 Aquidneck Avenue, Middletown RI.
Any questions regarding attending in person should be directed to Jeanne at 401-835-2849.
WHEN: Sunday, January 8, 2023
TIME: 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM Eastern time. The Zoom room will remain open to 3:00 PM for fellowship
ZOOM INFO: https://zoom.us/j/87569085435
MEETING ID: 875 6908 5435
PASSCODE: 447099
DIAL-IN: 1 646 558 8656
Everyone invited to help create the event as well. Due date for submissions is December 10, 2022. Questions can be free-form, multiple-choice, or fill in the blank.Please also include answer and reference to OA approved literature.
Any questions and to send submissions: Email Susan at sharabi4@bezeqint.net
or call/text Carole at 916-730-9277
Birthday hats and costumes are optional
Click here to download the flyer PDF.
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NEW YEAR’S SOLUTION
We recover together or not at all. This is the “we” in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.
OA is not an “I” program. I tried the “I” program. It was all I knew; wasn’t I supposed to apply my will to problems and overcome them? But my food issues were impervious to my efforts. I was stuck.
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And I stayed stuck until I was brought to a place so desperate, I asked for help. I was willing to accept the help proffered, and though it didn’t really help despite all my efforts, I kept trying. I found solace in the Fellowship, companionship in the disease. Going through the Steps, particularly Step Nine, freed me from decades of guilt. I felt lighter than ever—I even lost my excess weight. But I found no serenity until I cast my net more broadly. I went to the phone meetings, and that’s where I found the OA-HOW Two-Hour format.
I felt attracted to the light and serenity I heard in people’s voices in those meetings. So, despite my doubts, despite my conviction that it couldn’t possibly work, I tried this OA format. Though it still makes no sense to me, I am still doing it seven years later. I don’t need to understand it; I just need to do it. With others. Every moment I do what we say we do in our meeting—every call, every meeting, every blog post—grants me recovery from active food addiction, one moment at a time.
When I’d been in the driver’s seat, there was an insane driver guiding my life with food. I had to step away and give up control to someone who could make sane food decisions for me. The OA-HOW Two-Hour Format showed me how to do this. It’s a shared solution that entails full surrender over food. My dietician makes my food choices for me. She decides how much and when and what I should eat. My sponsor witnesses my food before I eat it. Another sponsor who follows this format makes any in-the-moment food decisions for me when they arise. So, I’m just along for the ride with respect to the food I consume. As such, I live in abstinence—one moment at a time.
My OA-HOW meeting offers me serenity with food and the solidarity that comes from a shared solution: a Twelve Step program, for people powerless over food, that works for me.
— John-Eric R., Weybridge, Vermont USA
Source: oalifeline.org
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Happy MOO Year
Or, nature’s version of the “I put my hand in yours” prayer:
My friend is a dairy farmer. She helped a cow give birth one day, and although the calf was healthy, the mother was stressed and couldn’t get up. When sunset came and she still wasn’t rising, my friend put a blanket over her in the field and hoped for the best. She left the barn door open a crack in case the cow wanted to return to the barn with the rest of the cows during the night. My friend awoke early with concern for the cow and went outside when it was still dark, and found that all the other cows had surrounded it as a wall of protection against the coyotes.
I like to think that this story is God’s way of showing us what our main job in life is—to help each other and be there for each other. OA offers us a unique opportunity to support each other and, by doing so, fortify our selves against that first compulsive bite.
—Anonymous
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Now Rhode Island, Southeastern Massachusetts and Southeastern Connecticut OA fits into your pocket
We have a new website! It takes a lot of time to do this, thank you to all involved for your service and look forward to sharing the new look further down the road. The meetings are much easier to access from a cell phone as well.
Give it a try: https://oceanandbay.org/
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Ocean and Bay Intergroup Mtg
February 7 6:30-7:30 pm
ALL ARE WELCOME
Zoom Meeting Link
Meeting ID: 831 1095 1408
Passcode: 247365
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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.
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Twelvth Tradition
"Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all these Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.."
We appreciate your contributions which help support spreading the message of recovery.
Please mail donations to:
Ocean and Bay Intergroup
Attn: Treasurer
PO Box 2243, East Greenwich RI 02818
Note: Make checks payable to Ocean and Bay Intergroup
OR
Donate via Paypal
OR
Donate to our Venmo account:
@OceanandBayIntergroup
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SPECIAL FOCUS MEETINGS
You are welcome at any OA meeting, and we hope you’ll try many of the meetings on our Connecticut Intergroup and oa.org meeting lists! Some of our members find they also benefit from OA meetings with members who share similar experiences, so we are sharing this list of some of the special focus resources that are available in OA.
100 Pounders: Click Here
American Sign Language & Closed Caption – This meeting offers ASL interpretation Tuesdays at 8:00 pm Eastern: ASL Tues 8pm
Anorexics and Bulimics in OA – special focus meetings: Anorexics/Bulimics in OA
Asian-Pacific Islander OA Click Here
Atheist, Agnostics, Secular - special focus meetings: Click Here
Bariatric Surgery - Click Here
BIPOC (Black, Indigenous & People of Color) – special focus meetings: BIPOC Intergroup
Health Issues - Click Here
LGBTQ special focus meetings for OA: bit.ly/ckslist and Click Here
OAMen.org is dedicated to distributing information about meetings, resources, and support for men in OA: Men in OA
Young People in OA – resources for those under 30 who suffer from compulsive eating include Meetings for young persons and https://oa.org/young-people/
For more special focus meetings, you can go to OA.org:
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go to Find a Meeting
- select a type of meeting (face-to-face, online, telephone, or non-real-time)
- click on "additional search options" and select the desired special focus
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Mission & Vision Ocean & Bay Intergroup is dedicated to supporting individuals in need of recovery from compulsive eating (e.g.: overeating, bulimia, anorexia) through carrying the OA message and empowering all meetings within the Intergroup.
Strategic Goals
1. Help members strengthen their personal recovery
2. Increase the number of sponsors
3. Increase the number of newcomers
4. Increase the retention of newcomers
5. Help those in relapse
6. Inspire people to give more service
7. Increase outreach activities, including outreach to members and healthcare professionals
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Please note that every effort has been made to adhere to OA's policy for newsletter publications. Opinions and experiences expressed within are those of the individual writer and not OA as a whole.
SUBMISSIONS: This is your newsletter! We welcome your contributions of news items or commentary.* Deadline: 1st of each month. Example: Deadline 6/1 for June newsletter.
Please email : newsletter@oceanandbay.org
You are also invited to be one of the members who provides answers for a Q&A.
Again, just send us a note to: newsletter@oceanandbay.org
*May be edited as space allows.
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Ocean and Bay Intergroup
PO Box 2243, East Greenwich RI 02818
Note: Make checks payable to Ocean and Bay Intergroup
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