OCA Toronto

What is OCA?

Obsessive Compulsive Anonymous (OCA) Is a fellowship of people who share their Experience, Strength, and Hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from OCD. The only requirement for membership is a desire to recover from OCD. There are no dues or fees, we are self-supporting through our own contributions. OCA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution, does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes.
 
Our primary purpose is to recover from OCD and to help others. We choose to remain anonymous at the public level for several good reasons. Anonymity allows us to share our personal stories, knowing that they will remain in the confidence of those who attend our meetings. Anonymity also reinforces that it is the Program, not the individual, that is responsible for the recovery. We, as a fellowship , have found that together we can get well when separately we could not. Many of us have spent countless hours 'battling' our obsessions and compulsions, swearing them off forever only to find ourselves right back where we started.
 
There is a solution! The Twelve Steps, as originated by Alcoholics Anonymous, and adapted for OCA, can bring relief to our common dilemma. Most of us have found, that using the Program along with our friends in the meetings, we can reduce or eliminate our obsessions and compulsions.

(OCA description adapted with permission from OCA website).
 

The Twelve Steps

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Step 1. We admitted we were powerless over our obsessions and compulsions - that our lives had become unmanageable.

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Step 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

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Step 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood him.

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Step 4. Made a searching and a fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

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Step 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being then exact nature of our wrongs.

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Step 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

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Step 7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

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Step 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

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Step 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

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Step 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

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Step 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand God, praying only for knowledge in Gods will for us and the power to carry that out.

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Step 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to those who still suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

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*OCA Guideline #8: The Steps suggest a belief in a Power greater that ourselves. This can be human love, a force for good, nature, the universe, God, or any entity a member chooses as a personal Higher Power.

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(AA's Twelve Steps adapted with permission from A.A. World Service inc.)