Do you feel different from the people in your group and wonder if you really belong in OA?  You know you have a problem with eating, but those people in the meetings you’ve gone to don’t seem to be much like you?  Or, you’ve been in OA a long time, but the people in that new place you’ve moved to just don’t do it right?

Try reading one of OA’s more recent pamphlets, A Common Solution: Diversity and Recovery.  In 32 skinny pages it covers an amazing spectrum of diversity.  Here are stories about different ways of working the program – structured, unstructured, loners who connect by telephone, people living in foreign countries, etc.  Here are people with special medical conditions that dictate unusual food plans, as well as people with mental illness, and pregnant/nursing mothers.

The pages are filled with stories of anorexics, gays, people of diverse religions, blacks, Hispanics, and men.  It’s an impressive celebration of the many ways we differ from each other and yet come together for a common solution to a common problem.

D.B.