FAQs

OA has no specific guideline about mentioning food at meetings. Tradition Four gives each group the freedom to decide this issue for itself. If you or others in your group are concerned about this, ask the group to discuss the issue during a group conscience meeting.

Yes. There are no requirements for sharing at any OA meeting—face-to-face or virtual.

We gather around a table or in a circle of chairs. Our meetings follow a format (like a script) that a volunteer leader reads. The format usually includes reading the Overeaters Anonymous Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Other OA literature may also be read. The leader may ask “Is there is anyone here attending their first, second, or third OA meeting?” Members are asked to introduce themselves using first names only. The meeting may present a speaker or read from OA literature or the OA magazine. Then the meeting is opened for “shares.” These are often timed so everyone at the meeting who wishes to can share. You do NOT have to share, but you can.

Halfway into the meeting (most meetings are one hour long), we pass the basket for contributions to pay the rent and support OA and make announcements. Newcomers are encouraged to consider buying literature rather than contribute as you do not yet know if you are planning to join OA. Then the meeting opens for shares again. The point of shares is to talk about our issues and how working the Twelve Step program of OA is helping us recover.

The meeting ends with an OA closing and everyone who wishes to join hands in a circle does so. As the meeting breaks up, this is a great time to ask members questions you may have about OA and what you heard. A member may offer to call you to follow up and answer any more questions you have once you have had a chance to look at the newcomer brochure Where Do I Start? 

Listen to an OA meeting.

Contact your local service body to find out what is available in your area. Virtual meetings may be useful if there are limited options for assistance.

Within the OA Fellowship, there are members who have discovered they are more comfortable meeting with other members who share similar attributes. All OA members are welcome at these meetings. For a full list, see the Find a Meeting page.

Within the OA Fellowship there are many diverse ways of working the program. Specific topics indicate what you will share about in these meetings; the literature that will be read, what a speaker will talk about, if the members have a specific way of working their program. Each member—and subsequently each group—may adopt whatever method they choose to share their recovery as long as they meet the definition of a group. The best way to determine if a group is a registered OA group is to select it from the Find A Meeting search. 

Cross talk during an OA meeting is giving advice to others who have already shared, speaking directly to another person rather than to the group, and questioning or interrupting the person speaking at the time. Read more.

The designation of “with visitors” and “without visitors” meetings have to do with the level of anonymity the group has chosen.

If you think you have issues with food and are interested in exploring OA, you are welcome at any meeting—with or without visitors.

If you are interested in OA for another reason, like you are studying to be a nurse, doctor, or therapist, or are a concerned family member, we ask that you only attend meetings with visitors.

There are suggested formats for many types of OA meetings:

• Face-to-face
• Newcomer
• Telephone
• Step study
• Young people
• Lifeline

All meeting formats can be found in the Document Library under category “Meeting Formats, ” groups may decide to change the meeting formats to better meet their needs.

We recommend attending five different meetings to decide which one works for you. You can also listen to a recording of an OA meeting.

There are two ways of attending an OA meeting: face-to-face and virtually. Face-to-face meetings are where members travel to the meeting location and are in the same physical space while sharing and hearing what each of the members has to say.

Virtual meetings are newer and depend on technology to provide the location/space for the meeting. Telephone meetings, online meetings, video conference meetings, and meetings that use text or social media applications are all a part of the OA virtual world.

Specific-topic meetings are designed for a specific subject matter or format. It is still an OA meeting and it still means we use the Twelve Steps to recover from compulsive eating and compulsive food behaviors. All OA members are welcome at these meetings. For a full list, see the Find a Meeting page.