I was invited to go to breakfast recently with a group of 12 Step program friends, most of whom were in O.A. They had just come from their early Sunday morning meeting. The discussion turned to the meeting’s group conscience vote that day to add O.A.’s definition of abstinence to the meeting format (they did).

The Overeaters Anonymous “Statement on Abstinence” as defined by the World Service Conferences of 2002, 2009, and 2011 states: “Abstinence in Overeaters Anonymous is the action of refraining from compulsive eating and compulsive food behaviors while working towards or maintaining a healthy body weight. Spiritual, emotional and physical recovery is the result of living the Overeaters Anonymous Twelve-Step program.”

Since Overeaters Anonymous lost the emphasis on food plans a number of years ago, it has struggled to deal with what some call a “watering down” of the level of recovery. Not as much now, but in previous years (the nineties, mostly), people would stand in front of O.A. meetings at a hundred pounds over a healthy body weight and take candles for years of abstinence. Long-timers worried – rightfully so – as to how this would be perceived by newcomers.

Luckily, through a certain amount of “Darwinian evolution,” that which did not work was not repeated and that which did was repeated. Newcomers naturally flocked towards those who were at a healthy body weight for sponsorship. Those newcomers later themselves got to a healthy body weight, sponsored others and so on. The people who were significantly overweight and “abstinent” eventually drifted away, realizing they could maintain that overweight condition without O.A.

There are still some, however, who continue to hold the idea that any definition of abstinence that they come up with is still abstinent. I think that is why the 2009 WSBC added “while working towards or maintaining a healthy body weight.” It seems to me like an attempt to break through the denial of some of those people. Whether it works or not is another story.

Our discussion then turned to “what is a healthy body weight?” I know I have always found it nearly impossible to hit the government charts for weight. I was told a long time ago by a doctor that for people like me, who have been very overweight at one point in their lives, that those charts set an unrealistic goal. Luckily for most O.A. members, the O.A. definition doesn’t say “goal weight” or “weight based on government weight charts” – it speaks of a “healthy body weight.”

Using myself as an example, I was until recently maintaining a weight of about 20 pounds over what I would prefer to be. Was I overweight by the government charts? Absolutely. Was I at a healthy body weight? I think I was. I ran about 5 nights a week, with a minimum of a mile and often 2 or more miles. That seemed pretty healthy to me. Still, I recently changed up my food plan and increased my exercise to try to lose some of those extra pounds – which is not easy at my age. I believe being at a lower weight is part of the 12th Step of my food program (which will remain unnamed) – to carry the message of recovery (on all three levels) to those still suffering.

In terms of Overeaters Anonymous, I believe what the WSBC was trying to do was to rein in what to many seem like absurd definitions of abstinence. People in O.A. meetings have heard “my abstinence is no chili cheese fries” as well as “my abstinence is no M&Ms.” This seems to me to have an A.A. parallel in “my sobriety is no Jack Daniels” or “just beer.”

In the course of our breakfast, I found myself more and more convinced by the people who felt adamantly about it, that O.A. meetings should add this definition of abstinence to its meeting formats. Almost all of the long timers I have known from O.A. are at a healthy body weight. Most World Service Conference attendees, from what I have heard, also qualify for that description. Perhaps both meetings and the membership of O.A. should be listening to them and not defining their own concept of abstinence.

There was a U.S. Senator named Daniel Moynihan, who was once debating someone. He said to his opponent, “Look, you’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.” Perhaps in the future, O.A. sponsors should start telling their sponsees, “you’re entitled to your own food plan, but not your own abstinence.”

I think what O.A. – with the addition of the wording in their Statement on Abstinence – is trying to do is to get people to be abstinent rather than just say that they're abstinent. If this definition is more widely adopted, it might prove a seminal change in Overeaters Anonymous itself.