FOUNDER'S CORNER
TRG and 2006

Although it seems yesterday was summertime, we are now in the last month of 2005 and the holiday season is here. I don't recall things ever being busier or having so many wonderful and exciting things on the horizon in The Recovery Group. I'd like to mention a few of them and as the weeks go by, you will hear more and more details.

WTS ~ WORKING THE STEPS
One of the most exciting, thorough and interesting Step Studies will begin January 1st with the First Quarter 2006 WTS Step Study. Shlomo is back again as the first WTS Step Leader of the year. What a treat. Whether you are brand new or just doing a refresher course on the Steps, grab your sponsor and join us.

OA ONLINE MEETINGS
The Meeting crew keeps adding more and more meetings and our goal for 56 Around the World Around the Clock has long been passed. Now we have added four new Newcomer "Ask It Basket" type Meetings along with our many Special Focus Meetings. What a wonderful way to begin or end our day .... or to do 30 in 30 ... or even 90 in 90. Be sure and add face-to-face meetings and you will have the best of both worlds.

THE AWESOME OA NEWCOMERS
If you could be a fly on the wall of the Newcomer's Loop, you would be overjoyed with these precious people. Such hopes and dreams they have! Old- timers who go there say that they are reminded of themselves when they began their 12-Step Recovery program and it makes them want to give back to them .... and to reminiscence about how things were when they for the very first time "got it."

OA Newcomers 2006 will be divided into four quarterly Orientation sessions led by twelve of the best Speakers imaginable .... Trusted Servants who know how to convey by their words the promises of what is to come for our newcomers. Each week will have a different orientation topic and the highlight of each quarter will be when the newcomers graduate and move on to a home loop. On November 15th, we graduated 400 Newcomers and they are now all settled in their three home loops - - Journey to Recovery, OA Recovery and OA Friends.

2006 GOALS FOR TRG
We have some goals in 2006. We want to begin the year with two Coordinators for each of our support groups. We'd like to finish the Recovery Meditations project and present them to you in book form. We have the goal of making a Big Book Web Site so that the whole Internet will know of our wonderful Big Book Study. We want to see our Strong Recovery, WTS, Big Book and Diabetes loops reach out to those who don't have access to anything like this and we must depend on TRG members to spread the word. We want to do something for and with obese children and know that there is a room in our community where boys and girls share their pain of being obese with their friends just as adults do. We have five new loops on the back burner ready to go.

TRUSTED SERVANTS
In 2006 we want every Trusted Servant in the Recovery Group to put aside our differences and focus on our similarities and, as a result of doing this, give back to those who enter our rooms what we have been so generously been given. We want to exemplify principles before personalities and if we can't do that, we may need to start an Orientation Group for Trusted Servants as well as Newcomers. Because we are a diverse group, it may be difficult to honor Tradition One at times ... but honor it we MUST. The OA 12&12 says "We express our own opinions honestly without belittling those who may disagree." In our beloved Recovery Group community this is how it must be. Sometimes there are those who want to reinvent The Recovery Group and have it done "their" way. We listen carefully but we equally as carefully listen to the voice of God in our Group Consciences and to those who are cognizant that the future has to be factored into decisions made in the present.

TALENT
As I look around each day, I am amazed at finding out what enormous gifts so many of our members have been given. Please don't hide it under a bushel. If you have a special gift, there may be a place at TRG to use it to benefit thousands.

L-SOFT
We are approaching one year of being hosted by the most efficient Listserv in the world. While it was a tremendous learning curve for many of us, we did it ... and are still doing it. Upon learning that the birthplace of The Recovery Group is closing down leaving over 700 loops, God blessed us by providing us with a place where our community can grow and thrive and serve others well into the future. How very blessed we are. Thank you, God.

I was praying today, thanking God for my abstinence, my peace of mind coming into this holiday season and reflected back upon my way of life before abstinence (and recovery). In the the old days at this time of year, I would be crazily cleaning, baking, and planning the "perfect" meal in the "perfect" home. I was a basket-case of nervous energy running around like a chicken with it's head cut off!

Today, I am happily and calmly putting the pieces in place. My house is clean and organized as a general rule, so there is no panic there, and my family likes the simple healthy fare of good, nutritious food, so I no longer have to spend hours in the kitchen making all the things that I actually prepared FOR ME!

My life is different today. I look forward to seeing my family and friends and will enjoy just being with them. I remember the year that I had to smash the imaginary pictures on the walls of my mind - the ones built around the table with all the food! In their place, I erected new ones of family and friends engaged in meaningful conversations and greeting each other with hugs! That was a life-changing action for me. Today, this is my auto-pilot, (my automatic thought process), but it took ten years to get to this point.

Thank you, God, for leading me to the solutions that have set me free. It began with abstinence, then working a serious step study - one day at a time.

Love and peace,

Pam from Auburn, MA

Gratitude: A popular subject at this time of year. Usually this is written by all of the administrators of The Recovery Group (TRG). This month, I've decided to write about my gratitude.

I've attended face to face (f2f) meetings for over 18 years. As soon as I got a computer, I started searching for contact with other recovering compulsive eaters. I found a few others on AOL and CompuServe, then one of them suggested that I join OAFriends. As with f2f, I started doing service soon after joining. I've been a loop coordinator, a division leader and now am an administrator.

I am eternally grateful to Overeaters Anonymous. I really believe that the program saved my life. The emotional, spiritual and phyical illness I was experiencing before OA would have surely killed me had I not found recovery. I am grateful to all my OA Friends, in person and online.

I'm grateful to Mari for having a vision and being able to carry it out in designing and maintaining TRG. I'm grateful for dedicated Trusted Servants who keep the loops, meetings and special services, such as sponsors and Telephone Angels operating.

And I'm grateful for my co-administrators, Nancy and Audrey. They put in many hours to keep TRG running and are great partners.

Mostly I'm grateful for all of you. I can log on to my email loops any time day or night and find experience, strength and hope of other recovering compulsive eaters.

Dodee
TRG Administrator

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JOIN THE TELEPHONE ANGELS

Alexander Graham Bell, born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1847, originally intended for his first two inventions: the microphone and "speech machine" to be an educational tool for the deaf.

Bell had high hopes for his invention though I would bet that he never dreamed that their development would eventually reach out to help those in isolation who are often silently clutched in grip of a cunning, baffling, disease.

Today, the compulsive overeater is coming out of INTENSE ISOLATION by use of the telephone!

Won't you consider becoming a part of our Recovery Telephone Angels today? Help someone to reinvent their health and life one day at a time by accepting phone calls from those who understand their struggle. Carry the message of recovery by sharing one-on- one over the phone.

The Telephone Angel Directory publishes upon the first of each month. There is no lengthy commitment required. You may cancel at any time or join again at another time.

Email Telephoneangels@yahoo.com. You set the terms for accepting calls by providing the following information for your personal "Telephone Angel" listing:

• Your name
• Email address
• What State you live in (this way people can find someone closer to them)
• Your phone number ~ area code and number
• Your time zone (like Eastern Standard)
• Best times to call?
• Should folks leave a message or not?
• And, any other info you want callers to know

~ MEET BERYN ~

Beryn comes to us from the isle of the UK. You may have seen her in our recovery meetings going by the wonderful nickname of "Destinie Waits".

Beryn went to an NA meeting to support a friend, and somehow felt that she belonged because of her addiction to food. Then, she decided to explore recovery for COE... and that is how she came to find TRG about a month ago.

"I felt as though I came home", says Beryn.

What has she most enjoyed? ".. the support, the friendship, and finding out that I am not abnormal", she says.

Even so, Beryn admits that she can be a little shy about sharing. Like most of us starting out, Beryn just wants "to get to a normal weight and stay there, and not have food on the mind all the time".

Beryn is a busy mother of 3. She admits, however, that despite having 3 teens (ages 18, 15, and 13) and 2 dogs, it is her hubby that is sometimes her biggest challenge. LOL (I am sure many of you ladies are smiling right now)

When not attending meetings, you might find Beryn off for a walk, or camping with her family in their camper/trailer.

~ FROM THE TWELVE-STEP LITERATURE ~

~~ FROM THE BIG BOOK ~~

"When we became alcoholics or compulsive overeaters, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What was our choice to be?

Arrived at this point, we were squarely confronted with the question of faith. We couldn't duck the issues, and the promise of the New Land had brought lustre to tired eyes and fresh courage to flagging spirits. Friendly hands had stretched out in welcome. We were grateful that Reason had brought us so far. But, somehow, we couldn't quite step ashore. Perhaps we had been leaning too heavily on reason that last mile and we did not like to lose our support."
c. 2001, AABB, page 53

MY SHARE...

How well I remember this day! I had given up the punitive and punishing God of my childhood long before and it was hard for me to start believing anything again though I'd studied other religions for many years. But like most of us, I arrived at these doors desperate for a change in my life. As I went to the first meeting, I was just amazed and awed at the shares of the members there. I could tell their spirits were lighter and happier and it seemed that most of them there were the same way. As I listened further, I found out that they were studying and learning the 12 Steps as well as the passages of this wonderful Big Book. All I had to do was follow in the footsteps of those before me.

I'm so much happier these days - calmer, more peaceful and not anxious to control the world like I used to be. What a concept! Rest and let a new Higher Power/God who is loving and kind - take over. I found many outstretched hands welcoming me and connected with cyberfriends from all over the world.

God either is or He is isn't! I choose to believe He Is!! I have a much better life now than I ever had before!!

Many blessings on your Path To Recovery and Happiness

Much Love in Recovery,
    Myrlene (Big Book and Recovery Group)

My name is Santa and I'm a compulsive overeater. I don't suppose this will come as a surprise to anyone especially when you consider all those mince pies I eat my way through every Christmas Eve. But I suppose the real give-away are my poor reindeer. Let me tell you a bit about them:

There is Dasher - He's always dashing about on Christmas Eve, eating on the run and under stress.

Then there is Dancer - He reminds me of the one thing he can't do very well. All that fat wobbling about. It's uncomfortable and I feel everyone is looking at me. I really wish I had joined OA earlier.

Then Prancer - Reminds me to hold my head up 'prancing about'. But I have to watch that people-pleasing with all those gifts people 'want' on their wish list.

And Vixen - Reminds me of this cunning and baffling disease of compulsive eating.

And Comet - The blinding light of each spiritual awakening.

Donner - (German for 'Thunder') the booming thundering inner voice that told me I was totally powerless.

And lastly Blitzen - (German for 'lightening') and the streak for lightening that lit up his inner spiritual awareness as I found I had finally come home.

The first 4 reindeer are earth-orientated steeds and remind me to keep my feet firmly on the ground as I work this program.

And the last 4 reindeer are sky-orientated and tell me that while my body is earthbound, my spiritual self can soar to unknown heights.

The Big Book tells me that "..we let God demonstrate, through us, what He can do." (P.68)

I would be complaining to my sponsor "I can't do it." I was looking for sympathy. I was feeling sorry for myself. My pride was bruised. I was feeling ashamed. I was beating myself up. After all, didn't I deserve that? I had a very strong internal message telling me that was what I deserved.

She would listen patiently and then tell me, "You're right. You cannot do it." There would be a pregnant pause and I was filled with rage. Here was someone else telling me I was hopeless! And then she would say, "God can." She would refer me to this entire page on how to deal with fear in relation to self reliance and the role that HP is to play in my life.

I would deflate like a balloon. Then peace would wash over me and I would be reminded that it is God's will I am trying to live, not Lanaya's will! There would be so much relief in knowing I could rely on infinite HP rather than my finite self.

Hugs,
Lanaya