Columns and Suggested Topics for Connection Magazine

Ideas to get you writing for FA's magazine by food addicts for food addicts

Readers benefit from details and specifics about what you were like, physically, mentally, and spiritually before FA, how you found Program, and what you are like now, in recovery. The magazine currently contains six different sections. You may write for any of the sections. In general, articles are less than 1300 words.

Please review Connection Writing Guidelines.

Columns included in each issue of the magazine:

Qualification: Tell your story, just as you would tell it at a meeting. Often a Qualification is written as a timeline of the author’s life, including descriptive details about food addiction and The AA Big Book describes it as “what it used to be like, what happened, and what it’s like now.”
Feature: A Feature article is a theme-based article that focuses on a meaningful event that illustrates the pain the author experienced while eating addictively and/or an event that illustrates the use of the tools or Steps in recovery. A Feature article may also compare how you handled a situation or relationship before FA and how you handled a similar situation in recovery.
No Matter What: Write about a difficult situation and explain how you were able to get through it abstinently.
First 90 Days: Describe your first 90 days in FA. Help newcomers relate to your experiences during your early months in FA.
Lighten Up: Relate a humorous situation you encountered in recovery. These are typically short articles, often two or three paragraphs.

Because stories in Connection are meant to resemble "shares" from the front of an FA meeting room, submissions of poems, lists, commentaries, or letters will not be published, regardless of the quality.

Topic ideas

Being a newcomer

Becoming a member of your meeting / fellowship
How you discovered FA
Learning how to weigh and measure your food, grocery shop, etc.
Qualifying for the first time
Committing to three meetings every week
Sitting there during the break at a meeting not knowing anyone
Coming back to your meeting after having gained weight

Life cycle events/Living in Recovery

Birthdays, weddings, graduations, etc.
Having children/parenting in recovery
Dating/marriage in recovery
High school, college, graduate school in recovery
Traveling in recovery
Eating in restaurants—specific incidents pre- and post-recovery
Learning how to think beyond the bite
Addressing character defects in action
Learning patience and not interrupting everyone
Learning to identify with the term "addict"

Tools/Taking Care of Ourselves

Ways the FA tools have been helpful
Being quiet for an entire 30 minutes
Relationship with a sponsor
Setting boundaries around work
Feeling rested, at long last

Spiritual Awakening

A pivotal event that led to the realization of your food addiction
Development of your Higher Power
A description of your “hitting bottom”
Feeling like you had discovered a miracle

Consequences of Food Addiction

Legal consequences of food addiction – specific incident(s)
Physical (health) consequences of food addiction
Experiences with relapse and subsequent renewal of recovery
Getting caught eating