Fact Sheet for Professionals
COSA is a 12-step recovery fellowship for friends and family members of sex addicts, providing support to anyone affected by someone else’s compulsive sexual behavior. The program and its member groups support those who are working a journey of recovery from sexual co-addiction/ codependency. COSA follows the 12 steps and 12 traditions, adapted with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). This recovery program has helped COSA members become aware of their own co-addictive/codependent behaviors in relationships with friends, family members or partners.
COSA is NOT a therapy group or a prayer group, nor is it designed to replace therapy or religious practice. It is a 12-step program that, for some members, encourages them to follow through with honesty while working with a therapist and/or following their particular faith. By using the program in this way, we have found we are not alone. COSA cannot endorse specific therapists or treatment programs or religions, due its singleness of purpose as outlined in COSA’s 12 Traditions. But many COSA members seek professional assistance and religious guidance in addition to regular attendance at meetings, and many COSA members are sent to COSA by their therapists as part of their treatment plan, or by their religious leader.
COSA endeavors to have an interchange filled with cooperation and support with the professional community. We recognize that the professional community and COSA share one common goal: to help those who still suffer from the impact of another's sexual addiction on their lives. We hope to find ways to strengthen and expand our communication and cooperation with you, and welcome your comments and suggestions.
COSA has only one requirement for membership -
Each member of COSA has been affected by someone else's compulsive sexual behavior. COSA is a fellowship of relatives and friends of sex addicts who meet anonymously to share their experience, strength, and hope in order to solve their common problems; partners, spouses, parents, even co-workers can all find help in COSA. COSA is a separate fellowship from Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA), but cooperates with SAA. COSA is based on the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions adapted from AA, is non-professional, self-supporting, spiritually based, non-political, and welcomes all cultures.
COSA is a program based upon anonymity -
Anonymity means that the identity of all COSA members, as well as members of Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA), is protected. Since many COSA members live with shame and fear around their loved one's compulsive sexual behavior, confidentiality fosters a sense of trust and honesty. COSA meetings make special efforts to keep the focus on spiritual principles, not personalities, which leads to a fellowship of equals.
COSA members are helped when they:
- Attend meetings on a regular basis.
- Make telephone contact with other members.
- Read COSA literature.
- Have a COSA Sponsor.
- Apply the 12 Steps of COSA recovery to their lives.
- Become involved in COSA service work.
COSA meetings do not:
- Give advice. Many newcomers to COSA are fearful that they will be told to either leave their relationship, or stay in the relationship with the sex addict. COSA members are encouraged to find their own path on the journey of recovery.
- Indulge in gossip or criticism.
- Discuss members’ religious beliefs, or lack of them.
- Endorse or oppose any cause, therapy, or treatment.
- Provide support for problems other than the impact of sexual addiction.
There are several different kinds of COSA meetings -
Because anonymity is very important to our members, the most common type of COSA meetings are closed meetings. Those are meetings that are for those whose life is or has been affected by another's compulsive sexual behavior. There are also special population groups such as women's or men’s meetings, or for teens or parents.
In larger cities, where there are many COSA meetings, there are sometimes open meetings, which are meetings that may be attended by anyone interested in learning about the COSA program. At times, the International Service Organization of COSA has helped to organize introductory meetings, to introduce COSA at professional conferences specific to the topic of sexual compulsivity or sexual health.
COSA is self-supporting -
Through the voluntary contributions of members, there are no dues or fees for membership, and COSA does not accept any outside funds, grants, or donations.
Starting a new COSA meeting-
There is support through the International Service Organization of COSA for anyone wishing to form a new meeting. In fact COSA has a New Meetings Coordinator, who is available to aid anyone interested in forming a new COSA meeting. Our New Meetings Coordinator and our Connection Coordinators often have lists of individuals who have indicated they are willing to be contacted if a new meeting is formed in their area, and works with anyone interested in starting a meeting by connecting all those who are willing in a specific area.
COSA groups are not run by professionals, however a minister, doctor, or social worker can initiate the formation of a COSA group by obtaining the meeting format materials and offering to provide the meeting space, when experienced members are not available. After the group has started, professionals must turn the group over to members to operate the group. Professional participation should be limited to observing at Open meetings. It is preferable that COSA groups be started by individuals or groups of individuals who self-identify as having been affected by someone else’s compulsive sexual behavior.
Benefits of COSA meeting attendance-
People referred to COSA Group Meetings are relieved and benefit from learning they are not alone, through contact with others who have similar troubles, and through learning the facts about sexual addiction as an illness and how it has impacted their own lives physically and emotionally. COSA meetings can aid people in improving their own attitudes and behaviors through the study and application of COSA’s Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.
Making referrals to COSA -
A Formal Referral Is Not Necessary. In fact most newcomers to our fellowship were given only the COSA Phone Line number or web address by their helping professional.
It may be difficult for some individuals to reach out for help with this issue, as it is one that touches on such private matters. Many professionals have their client call the COSA phone line while the individual is in the office, which can give them an immediate opportunity to leave a message and reach out for help. The COSA Phone line is staffed by volunteers who return messages left on the phone line, giving some initial support and meeting information. The COSA phone line number is: 763-537-6904
Meeting information and a variety of literature for sale can be found on the COSA website at www.cosa-recovery.org, and individuals as well as professionals may contact the International Service Organization of COSA for help and information via e-mail at info@cosa-recovery.org.
COSA would like to make every effort to cooperate with professionals by providing speakers and access to literature for conferences, workshops, and meetings. Please feel free to contact the ISO for more information.
The 12 Steps of COSA
- We admitted we were powerless over compulsive sexual behavior -- that our lives had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
- Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
- Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
- Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
- Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.
- Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all areas of our lives.
The 12 Traditions of COSA
- Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon COSA unity.
- For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority--a loving God as expressed in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
- The only requirement for COSA membership is that our lives have been affected by compulsive sexual behavior. The members may call themselves a COSA group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.
- Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or COSA as a whole.
- Each group has but one primary purpose--to carry its message to those who still suffer. We do this by practicing the 12 Steps ourselves.
- A COSA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the COSA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
- Every COSA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
- COSA should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
- COSA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
- COSA has no opinion on outside issues; hence the COSA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
- Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, films, television, and other public media of communication. We need guard with special care the anonymity of all Program members.
- Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.
The excerpt from the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 83 – 84 and the 12 Concepts, the 12 Steps and the 12 Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous have been reprinted and adapted with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (A.A.W.S.) Permission to use this excerpt and to reprint and adapt the 12 Concepts, the 12 Steps and the 12 Traditions does not mean that A.A. is in any way affiliated with this program. A.A. is a program of recovery from alcoholism only - use of this material in connection with programs and activities which are patterned after A.A., but which address other problems or concerns, or in any other non-A.A. context, does not imply otherwise.