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In fact if you substitute food and overeating for alâ€" cohol and drinking, you‘ll get a pretty good idea of what the international group By Howard Elliott Chronicie staff writer Do you eat when you‘re not hungry? Do you go on eating binges, feel guilty about eating, give too much time and thought to food, eat to escape from stress or worries or try unsuccessfulâ€" ly to diet? If some or all of those problems affect you, it‘s probable you have or are deâ€" veloping compulsive overeating tendencies, acâ€" cording to Overeaters Anonâ€" If that sounds like another wellâ€"known selfâ€"help group it‘s because Overeaters Anâ€" onymous is patterned after the policies and purposes of Alcoholics Anonymous. Overeaters Anonymous OA as it‘s called by members â€" is a group that meets to share problems _ A spokesman for the party‘s national headquarters OAâ€"the anonymous way to control overeating Do any of the four major political parties running in the Feb. 18 federal election have the answers to Canaâ€" da‘s problems? They claim to, but I rather doubt it. But wait... what‘s this? A fifth party has crawled out of the Canadian snowbanks and they not only claim to have the solutions, but they say they are already leadâ€" ing in all of the 147 ridings in.which they are fielding candidates for next month‘s election. .: Last May the Rhinoceros Party bagged 63,000 votes â€" primarily in Quebec â€" in 63 ridings. They beat the Conservatives in two Quebec ridings and the New Deâ€" mocratic Party in five‘ + f The Rhino Party, which takes its name from the ‘slow and cumbersome animal who likes a steady diet of homeâ€"grown grass," is running candidates in all provinces and territories with the exception of Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and the Yukon. In a novel attempt at saving money â€" their principal source for campaign funding is cashing in empty beer bottles â€" the party is recycling last May‘s campaign posters with the date crossed out. Eyal lt Well, our children are gone, and our children‘s chilâ€" dren. I can scarce forbear to tell you what a legacy they left us.. A flat wallet. A bow! of sunflower seeds. A guitar with a hole in the body. A telephone that defies the efforts of the repair men. A toilet that overâ€" flows. And so on. But all you need is love. As they say. Well, as I sit here remembering the Hades that is a Canadian bus terminal at holiday time, I am forced to wonder. Were all those crapulous old gentlemen and indigâ€" nant elderly ladies who kept screaming, ‘"What about me?‘‘ full of love? Or perhaps those boisterous teenagers who kept trampling the crapulous old men and the indignant elderly ladies? Since I don‘t even want to think about anyone under the age of 48 for at least six months, I‘ll leave ‘er lay. I won‘t even mention that my daughter got her suitcase on the wrong bus, and my son got himself on the bus, my daughter was not on, with all the rest of her lugâ€" gage. C‘est le bus business. No. I‘m sick of the young. I want to deal, in this column, with a couple of oldsters. One of them takes a very dim view of me, and the other takes a gleeful, healthy. look at life. * For years I‘ve been receiving Christmas cards from someone who signs himself Your TV Repair. It drove me a little nuts. The messages were always lively and saity and blunt. * This year, the TV Repair Man came out of the cloâ€" set. But not completely. Hestill wouldn‘t sign his Stewart Sutherland Bill Smiley and solutions regarding compulsive overeating. At this point you may be thinking OA is similar to Weight Watchers or other diet groups, designed for people who are overweight and sometimes obese. _And while some members of OA may want to lose weight, it is definitely not a diet group. A Waterloo county branch of Overeaters Anonymous was started by two univerâ€" sity women several years ago. The group was inactive for about two years before being reorganized by two local women. The OA group in this area isn‘t a big one â€" there are about 12 members â€" but it is still quite active. Meetâ€" ings are held weekly with members getting together at various other times for conversation and mutual enâ€" couragement. OA is unlike diet groups in many ways. One group member described the OA purpose as an attempt to Unlike diet groups and other similar organizations, OA is not governed by a cenâ€" tral group or area coâ€"ordinaâ€" tor. All branches of the group operate under two goâ€" verning doctrines, ‘"The ‘‘change our entire lifesâ€" Twelve Steps‘‘ and ‘"The said OA member and one of After a new member has tyles...our way of thinking‘"‘. Twelve Traditions‘". the local founders, Debbie. become accustomed to the While diet groups focus on The only requirement for (Last names are not used by group and starts to work in the physical aspects of overâ€" â€" membership in the group is the group to preserve the more detail on the steps to weight, OA members beâ€" attendance at a meeting and â€" anonymity of members.) recovery, a more exâ€" lieve there are three releâ€" a genuine desire to refrain . Unlike many similar perienced group member vant areas of equal imporâ€" from overeating. groups, there‘s no pressure . acts as a guide. tance. Those areas are â€" Overeaters Anonymous â€" on a person to join OA, or to _ The end result of all this is physical, emotional and was actually started in Los remain an active member that people with overeating spiritual . Angeles, California in 1960. once they‘ve joined. problems can come to OA All of those areas need It was patterned on the prinâ€" ‘"‘This is a long term thâ€" and discover they‘re not work if a person is to overâ€" ciples of Alcoholics Anonyâ€" ing...it‘s open to anyone at alone with their problems. According to OA and many medical doctors, many people in our society do have a tendency towards overeating. Literature used by the group defines comâ€" pulsive overeating as ‘‘an illness, a progressive illâ€" ness, which cannot be cured but which, like many other ilinesses can be arrested". _ All of those areas need work if a person is to overâ€" come their compulsion to eat. + in Montreal has described his party as ‘"Quebec‘s gift to Confederation.‘" He made his speech dressed in red pants and a striped jacket to emphasize his party‘s colorful platform and threw empty envelopes into the audience to show the party‘s support from letterâ€" writers across the country. / The Rhinos use a broom to symbolize their impendâ€" inpg sweep of Canada and they usually toss out rhinoâ€" cérosâ€"shaped balloons which represent their election The Rhinoceros Party, founded in 1963, uses elecâ€" tions to have fun...and nothing else. Actually, you can‘t get much else out of a Canadian election, espeâ€" cially a winter election! Its campaign will include dances in Peterborough and Vancouver and a threeâ€"day carnival in Montreal over Valentine‘s Day. What do they have to offer, you ask? You shouldn‘t have asked! Here‘s their stand on several of the key issues that seem to have the other political parties In the same mail, I received a copy of a long letter written to the editor of the Gazetteâ€"Reporter, Rivers, Man. Both letters dealt with a particular column I‘d writâ€" ten: Campanngzmmlgm gave the gentle reader a crossâ€"section of philosophy of Canadians. I‘ll print parts of them, sticking my own oar in whenever I dang well feel like it. Here‘s the TV Repair Man: ‘"Hello Smiley â€" Merry Christmas. It‘s that time so here we go again. You really shocked me with this year‘s Armistice Day coâ€" lumn. I have always looked forward to, and backward to, that column. To me, Armistice Day is the most imâ€" portant holiday except Christmas. "I lost a lot of close friends in both world wars. You said you thought you had said it all and then wound up with the best one of all. You have never said it all nor © Regarding the deposed Shah of Iran: Put him in the ‘"I have enjoyed your column for many years (thanks TVRM) so maybe you‘d like to wade through this. I won‘t take long and you can scrape your shoes when you‘re through. â€" ‘"First, I am an old man â€" 78 last month. (Hell, that‘s just a boy, TVRM). Second, I am no more TV repair man than you are auto mechanic. Third I am the richest man in the world, if you count friends. (Â¥es, man, I count friends.) I live alone in a shanty I built myself and have everything I need or want and enough pension that I can help people now and then that need it. ‘"‘Like yourself, I have grandchildren that are my pride and joy and opened up a whole new life for me. I taught them to swim, fish, skate, garden, you name it, and like you I am proud as hell of them. If that ain‘t happiness, forget it." That‘s a happy guy, the old TVRM. The other letter is full of cliches, bombast, and another word beginâ€" ning with B: "Sacrifices; terrible price; home and Overeaters Anonymous was actually started in Los Angeles, California in 1960. It was patterned on the prinâ€" ciples of Alcoholics Anonyâ€" mous. Now the group has spread to over 4,000 locaâ€" tions in the US and 50 branches in Ontario alone, though some are very small A typical OA meeting starts with one person being selected as the leader for that night only. That person leads the meeting in talking about their problems and soâ€" lutions to overeating. Someâ€" times group members listen to tapes of people discussing their problems, which enâ€" courages discussion at the ‘‘The whole aim of the program is to stop being compulsive about eating," Waterloo Chronicle, Wednesday, January 16, 1980 â€" Page 7 ‘"When you get involved (in sponsorship) you feel more a part of the group," one woman said. Unlike many similar groups, there‘s no pressure on a person to join OA, or to remain an active member once they‘ve joined. ‘"This is a long term thâ€" ing...it‘s open to anyone at all who wants to stop overeating,"" another group member said. Members are welcomed from all over Waâ€" terioo Region. To make new members feel more comfortable with the group, OA uses a sponâ€" sorship â€" system. _ Any member can qualify after 21 days in the group to sponsor another new member. As sponsor the person perâ€" forms some specific duties and generally makes the new member feel comforâ€" table and part of the group. Yes. I was shot down shortly after Arnhem. A paraâ€" troop doctor bound my displaced kneeâ€"cap. I met some of the Arnhems. They were a tough bunch of bastards, triumphant in defeat, undaunted. The ‘"heroes‘"" at Dieppe were a poor bunch of misled, misâ€" informed, undertrained kids led into an impossible atâ€" tack by stupid commanders. ‘"I saw teenagers, like the ones he is teaching now, die in the mud at Walcheren (misspelled) ... and their last thought was a yearning for home (Canada)." Well, Mr. C., I saw teenagers go down in flames, plunge into the ocean, and though I didn‘t have an ear to their chest, as you seem to have had, I heard their last thoughts, sometimes, on radio. ‘"Jesus. Mom. Help me. Mother! Help!" country ; fallen comrades."" Etc. Fallen comrades my bum. They didn‘t fall, Mr. G. Mathison of Harding, Man. They were killed. More of the same pap. ‘‘Where was Mr. Smiley when teenâ€"agers were dying on the beach at Benny Se Mer? I presume he means Beny sur Mer. Well, Mr. M., 1 was about five miles away, at Ste. Mer E‘glise, shooting and bombing the daylights out of the guys who were shooting at the guys who were dying on the soâ€"called beach. Some beach. ‘"Where was he when the children were coming out of Caen while it was being bombed, hungry children, alone, afraid and with nothing but a black sky full of cold rain to succour them?" Mr. M., after bombing Caen about eight times, and being shot to shreds in the process, I was in a jeep, visiting Caen, and giving those kids my chocolate rations and getting them out of that hellâ€"hole. sion Water Rats, the Red Devils of the First Division or the heroes of the Second at Dieppe?" ‘‘Does Mr. Smiley really believe that it is time to forget the paraâ€"troopers of Arnhem, the Third Diviâ€" Senate and he‘ll be sure to disappear. © Regarding the Canadian embassy in Israel: It should be moved to a delicatessen in Montreal or we should put up preâ€"fab embassies in Tel Aviv, Jerusaâ€" lem and Haifa to keep everyone happy. © Regarding interest rates: They recommend not taking an interest and the rates would drop. ®© Regarding nuclear energy : The Rhinos are promotâ€" ing nuclear toothbrushes and nuclear generators in every homeowner‘s basement. * f ®© Regarding Petroâ€"Canada: It should be bottled and sold in corner grocery stores. Actually, it‘s refreshing to see one political party with a platform that I can identify with, and I‘m realâ€" ly pleased to see one group of politicians taking the election seriously this time around. y Unfortunately, four Rhino candidates have run afoul of the law. The four, and their official agents, have each been fined $100 for failing to report their campaign expenses for last May‘s election. * > They‘re going to have to cash in a heck of a lot of beer bottles to cover court costs and fines. In the end OA hopes to promote a healthier lifesâ€" tyle by reducing overeating. There are no fees for memâ€" bership, though groups usually pass a basket around at meetings to collect whaâ€" tever funds are needed for the operation. People interested in joinâ€" ing or getting more informaâ€" tion about Overeaters Anonâ€" ymous in this area should contact the Community Inâ€" formation _ Centre _ in Kitchener at 18 Queen St.N. or call 579â€"3800. Information can also be received by writâ€" ing to Overeaters Anonyâ€" mous, P.O. Box 491, Waâ€" terloo, N2J 4A9.