The #Recovery channel is the virtual meeting room for members of The Recovery Group who meet and share their experience, strength, and hope related to recovery from compulsive eating. Our members come from 53 different countries and from all walks of life. When we discussed where we wanted our recovery home on the net to be, the choice was awesome. We knew we had a state-of-the art ListServ for our 35 recovery loops and we had a beautiful noncommercial website but we wanted the third part of our organization, the home for our several dozen weekly meetings to be equally efficient, wholesome and wonderful. We decided Starchat would give us that, and they certainly have.

While The Recovery Group is not affiliated with Overeaters Anonymous ("OA"), many of our members are also members of that organization. The focus of the meetings on the #Recovery channel is on the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions applied to our compulsive eating. Meetings held on the #Recovery channel follow the same guidelines as those established for traditional OA meetings. Each of our Starchat meetings has an experienced host, a meeting leader whom we call a Trusted Servant. So that our meetings continuously run smoothly, each of the Recovery Meeting Leaders are made Starchat Ops. Everything the Recovery Group does is for the benefit of those with eating disorders. Our services are many. Compulsive eating is an addiction related to food that takes many forms. Many, perhaps most, members consider themselves compulsive overeaters. As such, we abuse food in the same way, and for essentially the same reasons that an alcoholic uses alcohol. Once the compulsion to eat is triggered, we are unable to stop eating. Our ability to control the intake of food through diet and willpower is nil. Hence, conventional diets and weight loss programs do not work for us. Many of us have lost weight, sometimes 100 pounds or more, only to regain that weight when our willpower succumbs to the compulsion to eat. Even while overeating, most compulsive overeaters are deeply concerned with weight, diet, and appearance. We want to cease our overeating, to lose weight, but are powerless to stop this insane behavior. Others have become bulimic by learning to control their weight through exercise, purging, a binge-diet cycle, or use of laxatives and diuretics. Still others have dealt with the fear of fat and weight gain by eating little or nothing, wasting away to dangerously low weight levels.

For each of us, the obsession with weight, food, diet, appearance, size and the scale controls our lives. We are seldom able to fully participate in life because our thoughts are what, when, where, and how much we are going to eat, exercise, and weigh. Many of us excel in other areas of our lives. However, under our other accomplishments there often lies self-doubt about our worth and concern that the world will see through our fragile facade.

It is in this state - defeated by life and our compulsion with food - that many of us arrive seeking help with our addiction. For increasing numbers, the first exposure to recovery is on-line either at the Recovery Group or through the #Recovery channel. Many members come with no knowledge of recovery, and fearful that this, too, will fail. Others have heard of 12 Step programs or even belong to other fellowships, but have no OA experience. Additional members are active in OA in their home communities. Some have tried the program in the past, become discouraged and left, only to return to recovery through the Recovery channel or the Recovery Group e-mail loops located at http://www.hiwaay.net/. We are very proud of our website. Two webmasters and web servants keep it up to date with many different resources for our members and visitors. Internet visitors in the past nine months numbered over 70,000. This means that we have carried the message of recovery to those who stop along the way to read what we're about. All of our recovery loops, our studies, our sponsor program, our meetings and all of our other services are described in detail on this website.

The program of recovery has no membership requirements. Our meetings, our loops and our studies are open to anyone with the desire to stop eating compulsively. If you are a compulsive overeater or have an eating disorder, you will be welcomed here with open arms. You will find an acceptance that you may not have felt anywhere else. Here are others who know the pain and despair that is created by an eating disorder. We have struggled to fit in, all the while fearing the judgment of others and the compulsion with food. Whether in meetings or one-on-one you will find people who understand and who have "been there." Meetings are held throughout the day on the #Recovery channel and the schedule for the day is posted in the channel header as well as to all the loops daily and on the website. All meetings are focused on a recovery topic. Some are focused on a specific area of recovery such as meditations based on the OA meditation book, For Today, the 12 steps of recovery, and topics of special interest, such as Abuse and Recovery. Members of The Recovery Group host the meetings. Our meeting leaders do not govern but are instead Trusted Servants of our program. In addition to the regular meetings, there are also open chat sessions where members may gather to discuss or share what is going on in their lives.

The Recovery Group was created when our founder, Mari, began sharing her personal "Journey to Recovery" with those who wanted it. This has expanded to include approximately 35 loops and almost 30 weekly meetings on the #Recovery Channel. In addition to general conversation loops, the e-mail loops include several areas of special focus. Examples are Working the Steps which studies a step each month with study questions, Heavyweights on the Journey which is for people dealing with severe weight problems, COKIDS which is for children with eating disorders, as well as specialty loops for individuals with specific issues. Specialty loop areas of focus are Abuse, Anorexia and Bulimia, Diabetes, Disabled, languages such as Italian, German and Spanish and many, many others. Eating disorders are no more limited by age, health, social distinction, employment or nationality than are alcoholism or drug use. Anyone, at any age, or in any country can experience an eating disorder. If you are having a problem with food, compulsive eating, weight, self-image, anorexia or bulimia, we invite you to join us. We welcome all who wish to recover from their compulsive overeating. We offer a safe environment free from judgment or criticism. Since we follow the OA tradition of anonymity, you do not need to reveal your full name and are free to use a nickname if you so wish. To learn more about our program for recovery, please visit our web site at http://recovery.hiwaay.net/, join one of our recovery loops or attend one of our newcomer sessions on the #Recovery channel at 8:00 EST on Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays.

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