Beyond Our Wildest Dreams: A History of Overeaters Anonymous as Seen by a Cofounder  
Written primarily by Rozanne S 
Overeaters Anonymous, 1996
Note: this is considered OA-approved literature

OA’s first alternative Twelve Steps were created by Rozanne S shortly after she, Bernice, and Jo (a non-theist) had that first meeting on January 19,1960!

Rozanne had learned about Twelve-Step recovery from Gamblers Anonymous (GA). Having been raised Jewish, she struggled with the Christian language of the Steps which did not reflect her experience.

She did include, in Step Seven, “God (of our understanding)” but as a helper rather than as a controlling entity.

The Steps were:

1. We admit that we are compulsive overeaters—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Before embarking on this program we know that we must seek the aid of a physician of our own choosing, returning to him for regular check-ups. We know that he, and only he, can advise us regarding our own calorie allotments and wisest nutritional program.
3. We admit that we need help—that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to a normal way of thinking and living.
4. We must make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We have admitted to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our difficulties.
6. We are entirely ready to have these defects of character removed.
7. We humbly ask God (of our understanding) to help us remove our shortcomings.
8. We shall make a list of all persons we have hurt through our actions and willingly make amends to them.
9. We shall continue to take personal inventory, and when we are wrong, promptly admit it.
10. We shall set up a regular pattern of eating for ourselves, and this we pray we may maintain for the rest of our lives.
11. We must seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand Him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the strength to carry that out.
12. Having made an effort to practice these principles in all our affairs, we shall try to carry this message to other compulsive overeaters.

OA member three, Jo, liked Rozanne’s version.

Other people visited meetings, but did not return. It was a while before a member came and stayed: Barbara S.

Rozanne was five foot two inches, initially weighed 161 pounds/73 kilograms/11 and a half stone, and took the diet pills her doctor prescribed. Rozanne weighed and measured her food with a limit of 700-800 calories per day. In Beyond Our Wildest Dreams, Rozanne wrote, “By early June, 1960, I decided to stop the diet pills. I had lost 40 pounds and now weighed 121 pounds/54.9 kilos/just over 8 and a half stone.”

OA’s first sponsor was GA’s founder, Texas oilman / businessman, Jim W.  Jim W told Rozanne that the powers outside you had been doctors, fad diets, and pills. “Now, you have a meeting every week and you talk to someone every day. Don’t you see that these are powers outside of you, too?”

On Tuesday, November 29, 1960, after the Paul Coates television interview had been broadcast, 75 people attended a meeting where Rozanne shared her current weight of 113 pounds/51 kilo/ 8 stone. The next evening, she began writing OA’s first official literature, a four-page booklet. It was first published in  December 1960 and included this version of the Twelve Steps due to Jim W’s insistence to make them more like AA’s and GA’s:

1. We admit that we are compulsive overeaters . . . that our lives have become unmanageable.
2. We admit that we need help—that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to a normal way of thinking and living.
3.  We have gradually learned to place our complete faith and trust in this Power.
4. We shall make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We will admit to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our difficulties.
6. We are entirely ready to have these defects of character removed.
7. We humbly ask God (of our understanding) to help remove our shortcomings.
8. We shall make a list of all persons we have hurt through our actions and gradually become willing to make amends to them.
9. As we grow stronger within ourselves we shall willingly make amends to these people by changing our attitudes and actions toward them.
10. We will continue to take personal inventory, and when we are wrong promptly admit it.
11. We shall seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the strength to carry that out.
12. Having gained a spiritual awareness as a result of these steps, we shall try to practice them in all our affairs and to carry this message to other compulsive overeaters.

The booklet also included Rozanne’s Twelve Unifying Rules.

(Roseanne’s early tools in October 1961 were “weighing and measuring of food, counting calories every day, keeping a weight and calorie chart, doing grocery shopping right after a meal (on a full stomach) rather than just before a meal when hungriest . . . stripping our homes of everything tempting to us . . . Plan ahead.”)

By 1961 there was an influx of members with ties to AA. Rozanne’s sponsor, Thelma, was the wife of an AA member, and Thelma emphasized reliance on and surrender to a Higher Power.

For months, OA was caught between two factions that threatened to destroy what had barely been created. The San Fernando Valley groups supported the AA Steps’ religious approach while the Los Angeles groups advocated psychology.

The first Overeaters Anonymous area conference was held February 1, 1962, with nine women attending: five from the religion-focused San Fernando Valley groups, one from the Van Nuys (also SFV) meeting who liked the current view, two from the psychology-focused LA groups, and Rozanne, from the General Service Office, who wanted to preserve the new fellowship she’d created.

Some groups wanted to pull out of OA.

One member suggested a compromise. “Our main disagreement seems to be how we are going to print the Steps in our literature. You know, each group is autonomous and can do what it wants, but our literature should show a unified foundation. Therefore,” she went on, “let’s revise our Twelve Steps to read exactly like AA’s Steps. We’ll print new literature with the rewritten steps, the only substitutions being ‘food’ for ‘alcohol’ and ‘compulsive overeater’ for ‘alcoholic.’ Each group will still be free to interpret them and do what it wants.”

With this compromise, the OA Steps as we now know them were adopted.

—Arlene O, an OA

{Footnote: A bit of history may also shed some light on these issues. In the early 1960s the threat of nuclear war with Marxist-Leninist countries, which banned all religion, was real. Schools in vulnerable areas had regular “take-cover” drills in addition to regular fire drills. In that era, public schools still included Christian prayers with the reciting of the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance; non-Christians did not dare protest this.

The Pledge of Allegiance, which had been substantially the same since 1892, had been changed in June 1954 due to pressure from various religious groups, and with the increasing stress of the Cold War: the phrase “under God” was added.}

This collection includes about 20 versions of the Steps, and more than half are addiction-agnostic. Most of these steps are the basis for The Little Book, A Collection of Alternative 12 Steps, by Roger C, mentioned above, and include Buddhist, Islamic, Native American, and SOS Twelve Steps.

Los Doce Pasos Seculares: Una Breve Coleccion (Spanish translation of AA Agnostica: A Collection of Alternative 12 Steps, pdf, 17 pages)

The Proactive Twelve Steps is a book written by psychologist Serge Prengel focusing on mindfulness and includes secular versions of the 12 Steps.

The Proactive Steps

Tus Nua interview (18 July 2023) with Serge Prengle.

These Steps were developed by Jeffrey Munn, in his book Staying Sober Without God: The Practical 12 Steps to Long-term Recovery from Alcoholism and Addictions (© 2021). There is a free companion workbook as well: Staying Sober Without God: A Practical 12-Step Companion Workbook (pdf, 74  pages).

[Reprinted with permission of the author.]

The Practical 12 Steps
1. Admitted we were caught in a self-destructive cycle and currently lacked the tools to stop it.
2. Trusted that a healthy lifestyle was attainable through social support and consistent self-improvement.
3. Committed to a lifestyle of recovery, focusing only on what we could control.
4. Made a comprehensive list of our resentments, fears, and harmful actions.
5. Shared our lists with a trustworthy person.
6. Made a list of our unhealthy character traits.
7. Began cultivating healthy character traits through consistent positive behavior.
8. Determined the best way to make amends to those we had harmed.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would cause harm.
10. Practiced daily self-reflection and continued making amends whenever necessary.
11. We started meditating.
12. Sought to retain our newfound recovery lifestyle by teaching it to those willing to learn and by surrounding ourselves with healthy people.

While investigations are underway into accusations of sexual assault by Russell Brand, the SO Board has decided to temporarily remove his Steps from our website (25 September 2023).