Food Freedom: A Resource Manual for Secular Overeaters.
Secular Overeaters proudly offers the first edition of a complete guide to living free of food addiction.
Other than Food Freedom, there is currently no dedicated secular 12-Step literature available for compulsive eaters, but there are many secular books for other addictions that we’ve found helpful.
We’ve also created a document with translated versions of the “God” questions from The Twelve Step Workbook. Feel free to adapt these as you go, or create your own version of the questions!
Despite the heavy god-talk, all members of Overeaters Anonymous (OA) are encouraged to read The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous, Second Edition ($15, plus shipping). There is also an accompanying workbook, The Twelve Step Workbook of Overeaters Anonymous, Second Edition ($13.50, plus shipping). Both are available from the OA Bookstore.
The secular branch of OA recently published thirty secular stories of recovery and published them here in a free PDF titled My Own Understanding and an Epub version here. This literature has been locally produced and approved by the Secular Service Board. The content reflects the experience, strength, and hope of our constituent members and may be used in meetings with the specific focus “Atheist/Agnostic/Secular”. (Note: This literature is not OA Conference- or Board-approved yet but is possible to be used by OA meetings with specific focus Atheist/Agnostic/Secular as locally produced literature.)
Other
Below is a list of books that our members have found helpful. If there’s a secular book you’ve found helpful, let us know!
Please check Community Resources for other literature in non-book formats.
Step Books
The Alternative 12 Steps: A Secular Guide to Recovery
Martha Cleveland and Arlys G.
AA Agnostica, Second Edition, 2014
Meet Martha, alcoholic, and Aryls, co-dependent. These two atheists have written a wonderful book on how to work the Steps using a secular approach, including a set of secular Twelve Steps. Both women had led lives full of pain and joined Twelve-Step programs searching for recovery. And, each felt out of place with the god talk and noticed that, “Some of us become so uncomfortable with this [god] language that we reject the whole program” (page 6). Anyone else been there?
In The Alternative 12 Steps, Aryls and Martha help interpret the Steps, chapter by chapter, in a way that helps non-religious people understand how to use the Twelve Steps as a framework for recovery. I’m working the Fourth Step, again, and I appreciated all the different “doorways” they’ve suggested: important events; personal attributes, assets, and liabilities; relationship between feelings and behavior; single behaviors; single relationship; current situation; balance of lifestyle; and conscious versus unconscious messages. It’s great to have so many good suggestions for how to work the Fourth Step.
Even though the book is published by AA Agnostica, all addictions are covered, and there are examples of stories by compulsive eaters. The authors do talk about spiritual power, which, they say, “comes from whatever gives us peace, hope, or strength and enhances our humanity.” So, the ocean, a #BLM protest, or volunteering at a homeless shelter all count. This is truly an inclusive book, and easy to read and work. On the atheist trigger scale, a zero!
—Jenne M, El Cerrito, CA USA
The Little Book is a celebration of the many ways people are today adapting and interpreting the original 12 Steps in order to achieve a “personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism”. Available in paperback or Kindle. The Little Book: A Collection of Alternative 12 Steps
The Proactive Twelve Steps by psychologist Serge Prengel is my new favorite secular 12-Step book. The writing is not poetic, but Prengel’s explanations are insightful and to-the-point. Most chapters are only a few pages long. A short set of standard questions to be applied to each Step are included at the beginning of the book (page 10), and the second half deals with mindfulness and learning active listening. Best of all, you can get a FREE pdf of this book: https://proactive12steps.com/zug/Proactive12steps-Book.pdf
In addition, for personal use, this free copy can be used at unregistered OA meetings.
–Jenny, SF Bay Area
Staying Sober Without God: The Practical 12 Steps to Long-Term Recovery from Alcoholism and Addictions
Jeffrey Munn, 2019
Staying Sober Without God is a practical, no-nonsense, psychology-based approach to sobriety that is rooted in down-to-earth principles and actions. You can get sober without adopting the belief in God that is often pushed in AA, NA, OA, and other Twelve-Step meetings.
This book (2020), by Jamie Marich, PhD, provides a trauma-informed approach to working the Twelve Steps. There is also a daily reader and a workbook. Recommended on the Secular Overeaters Facebook group.
Twelve Secular Steps: An Addiction Recovery Guide
Bill W. (not that Bill W.)
Beowulf Press, LLC, 2018
Though its target audience is alcoholics/addicts, I find it easy to apply the book’s offering to my life as someone who suffers from compulsive overeating and compulsive food behaviors.
The back cover says, “The intertwining of religion with recovery [in traditional Twelve-Step programs] . . . presents itself as a hindrance to many addicts and alcoholics when they are initially introduced to Twelve-Step programs and literature. This theological entanglement traces back to the evangelical origins of the Twelve-Step recovery in the 1930s. Yet generations of alcoholics and addicts have simply sidestepped religious features and successfully recovered through the practical, self-help side of these programs. This book is meant for those who choose that path.”
I have yet to read the entire book; however, I already find the content useful as it is really meant to complement the traditional OA Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Thankfully, I don’t have to abandon my OA building blocks. This book has given me a secular bridge (interpretation) to understand the more God-heavy Steps so I DON’T struggle to personalize/implement my OA recovery program. So far, I’ve found pages 6 (the Twelve Secular Steps) and 70-109 (articulating those secular Steps) the most useful in my recovery. Maybe some of you will find it interesting, too.
—Ashley L, Greenbelt, MD USA
We’re Not All Egomaniacs: Adapting the Twelve Steps for Alcoholics with Low Self-Esteem
Beth Aich
Book Baby, 1st edition, 2021
I have found this book to be revolutionary in its suggested approach to working the twelve steps. The author’s description of ego trampled addicts coming into AA and being bombarded with more shame by being told they are selfish, self-centered, and egotistical hits home for many of our secular OA members. This book can provide us with an opportunity to deal with trauma, low self-esteem, and similar emotional conditions within the context of OA and enhance lasting recovery from food obsession.
Don’t Tell: Stories and Essays by Agnostics and Atheists in AA
Edited by Roger C.
AA Agnostica, 2014
Roger C. founded AAAgnostica.org, one of the key resource websites for us secularists in Twelve-Step programs. He also wrote A History of Agnostics in AA in 2015 and Do Tell: Stories of Atheists and Agnostics in AA in 2017, all three from the same publisher. Don’t Tell helped open my eyes to the presence of other atheists like me in Twelve-Step programs. After thirty years of struggling with the religious nature of Overeaters Anonymous, it allowed me to identify more with OA and thus have an easier abstinence. It also led me to help build the secular community in OA. Don’t Tell is the best book to start with of the three since it combines personal stories, useful guides on how to work the Twelve Steps without god, the history of secular AA, and reviews of other useful books. Do Tell is a larger collection of personal stories. A History provides just that in more detail. Inspired by all of this, I have already registered for the third International Convention of Secular AA in October 29-31, 2021, here in my home town of Bethesda, Maryland, USA (www.aasecular.org.) Several of us will lead a special session at that Convention on growing secular communities in OA and other Twelve-Step programs besides AA.
In this book, psychiatrist Anna Lembke explains how dopamine works in the brain, how the pursuit of pleasure leads to pain, and what this all means for people suffering from addictions.
This book (published in 2022) by Leonard Mlodinow covers what current science tells us about emotions. It includes a section on the role of emotion in motivation and pleasure that provides insight into addiction.
50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food
Susan Albers
New Harbinger Publications, 2009
Susan Albers, Psy.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist who has compiled a list of strategies and tips used by her real-life clients who have found alternative ways under her guidance to comfort themselves without food.
The fifty soothing techniques are grouped into five categories: mindfulness techniques, strategies to change thought patterns, strategies to calm the body, finding distractions, and gaining support.
The book outlines the usual relaxation methods that most food addicts will be familiar with: call a friend, take a nap, go for a walk. However, the book does list some unique, advanced strategies that are explained in an accessible way such as compassion meditation and radical acceptance.
It also includes some helpful checklists for working out the difference between emotional hunger and physical hunger.
Albers stresses that while individualized coping strategies are important, they help up to a point. They are not a substitute for peer or community support, but they can help stem an urgent, food craving until it passes by itself or a loved one becomes available to listen.
—Georgie B
Any and all of Geneen Roth’s books really catapulted my abstinence and set me on a steady path. The first book I read was not secular so I will skip it here. Her other books like When you Eat Pull Up A Chair really impacted me. Her basic approach is to take a few weeks and give yourself permission to eat whatever you want and enjoy it and don’t judge it. She personally ate cakes and ice cream for a few weeks.
That was a new concept after years of looking at certain foods as bad and hating myself for eating them. I learned the concept of food is just food and I am not immoral for eating cake. I have a new relationship with food today. I do eat cake but not all the time. The majority of the time I eat veggies, fruit and protein.
For me, as Geneen showed me, giving myself permission to eat anything made it easier to eat healthier. I will often turn down junk food because I would rather have a salad but just knowing I could have junk food relaxes me. It takes away the stigma. I no longer fight the urge to eat “trigger foods” because I no longer see any foods as “trigger foods.” I have learned that my emotions are my triggers and those I deal with by dealing with my feelings. I don’t eat over my feelings because I have accepted that sometimes I will feel icky, or sad, or mad or happy etc. I can sit with my feelings and I know I am not going to die.
I can tell you that when I read that first book of Geneen’s, I literally thought she was crazy and I would gain a few hundred pounds. I didn’t. I am okay today. I have a new relationship with food.
Thank you for letting me share. I have about 4/5 years of abstinence and went to my first OA meeting in 1989.
—CJ B, Los Angeles, CA USA
This book by Janne Oestergaard Hagelquist is primarily for mental health professionals, but it has examples and exercises that can apply to one’s own life. It takes a deep dive into the concept of mentalization and how it relates to trauma and how to use it to help cope with life’s challenges.
This book, by Sara Best, is about how the brain drives habits like emotional eating and overeating, and provides practical tools to help you reprogram and rewire those patterns. Recommended on the Secular Overeaters Facebook group.
Waiting: A Nonbeliever’s Higher Power
Marya Hornbacher
Hazelden, 2011
A Woman’s Way Through the Twelve Steps and accompanying workbook by Stephanie Covington.
This compilation of a diverse group of real women’s voices and wisdom illuminates how women understand the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and offers inspiring stories of how they have traveled through the Steps and discovered what works for them. The book can be used alone or as a companion to The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous .
