From Question Marks to Milestones: The Growth of Overeaters Anonymous in Hungary

The first tries to start OA in Hungary began around 2009. Some fellows had been exposed to this 12-step program while living in the USA and upon their return to Hungary they decided to try and bring it over. There were many question marks around how it should work and there was no literature to rely on either. They contacted the local AA community and received tremendous help and support from them. The first sponsors were from AA too. Slowly, thanks to the persistence of the Hungarian pioneer fellows, more and more pamphlets and books were translated to Hungarian. The next milestone was in the mid 2010s when live meetings became regular and the membership slowly started to grow.

OA has come a long way in this small East-Central European country. Today we can proudly say that there are 7 meetings every week, out of which one is an OA HOW meeting. We hold one live meeting on Friday evenings in our capital city, Budapest. There is one intergroup in operation, called the First Hungarian Intergroup. Our business meetings are held every two months. We offer 10 pamphlets and 6 books in Hungarian for the newcomers and there are several more in the process of being translated, edited or printed.

The biggest challenges that we are facing right now are the number of fellows with strong recovery and thus the number of available sponsors. Also, we experience limited willingness in taking up service positions on group level and country level alike. We are also in the process of looking for a new venue for our Friday meetings because we have outgrown our current location.