WHAT IS COSA?

COSA is a Twelve Step recovery programme based on the Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions and Twelve Concepts of Alcoholics Anonymous.

COSA is for anyone who has been affected by compulsive sexual behaviour.

That compulsive sexual behaviour maybe by a spouse, a partner, a family member, a friend, a teacher, or a colleague. We may have been victims of sexual abuse, or grown up with a sexually addicted parent or in a sexualized home environment.

The ways in which we react to compulsive sexual behaviour may vary. Most of us have experienced grief and trauma, and may struggle to manage our distress in a healthy way. Some of us have engaged in compulsive sexual behaviour ourselves in an attempt to satisfy the cravings of another person in our lives, or to retaliate, or to cope with our own emotional pain.

Regardless of how we’ve been affected by compulsive sexual behaviour, COSA welcomes you.

COSA is a spiritual programme. We are not affiliated with any religions or organisations. COSA is not a counselling or therapy group. We are safe and anonymous.

 

 

The COSA programme consists of: 

Attending meetings:

Sharing our experiences and listening to others at meetings is key in recovery. We realise we are not alone. We suggest you attend six meetings before deciding whether COSA is for you.

Your purpose in attending a meeting is to work your own recovery. This includes sharing your experience, strength and hope at whatever point of your journey you are at. By attending meetings we learn how recovery works, we gain insight from listening to others and we carry messages of hope.

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Honouring Tradition Five:

Each group has but one primary purpose – to carry the message to those who still suffer.

 

Working the Twelve Steps:

Based on the Twelve Steps of AA, COSA Steps are the core of our programme. We use them to focus on ourselves and our own recovery.

The Steps are worked with a sponsor or in a step study group. A sponsor is someone who will guide you through the Twelve Steps. In a step study group you work the steps as part of a group.

 

THE TWELVE STEPS OF COSA
  1. We admitted we were powerless over compulsive sexual behaviour — that our lives had become unmanageable.
  2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
  3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.
  4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
  5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
  6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
  7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
  8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
  9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
  10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
  11. 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.
  12. 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 Twelve Traditions of COSA
  1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon COSA unity.
  2. 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.
  3. The only requirement for COSA membership is that our lives have been affected by compulsive sexual behaviour. The members may call themselves a COSA group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.
  4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or COSA as a whole.
  5. Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to those who still suffer. We do this by practising the Twelve Steps ourselves.
  6. 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.
  7. Every COSA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
  8. COSA should remain forever non-professional, but our service centres may employ special workers.
  9. COSA, as such, ought never be organised; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
  10. COSA has no opinion on outside issues; hence the COSA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
  11. 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.
  12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.
The Twelve Concepts of COSA
  1. Final responsibility and ultimate authority for COSA world services should always reside in the collective conscience of our whole Fellowship.
  2. The Annual Meeting of Delegates and the ISO Board of COSA has become, for nearly every practical purpose, the active voice and the effective conscience of our whole Society in its world affairs.
  3. To insure effective leadership, we should endow each element of COSA, “the Annual Meeting”, the International Service Organization of COSA and its service committees, contracted worker, and executives with a traditional “Right of Decision”.
  4. At all responsible levels, we ought to maintain a traditional “Right of Participation” allowing a voting representation in reasonable proportion to the responsibility that each must discharge.
  5. Throughout our structure, a traditional “Right of Appeal” ought to prevail, so that minority opinion will be heard and personal grievances receive careful consideration.
  6. The Annual Meeting of the board and delegates recognizes that the chief initiative and active responsibility in most International service matters should be exercised by the trustee members of the Annual Meeting, acting as the International Service Organisation.
  7. The Charter and Bylaws of the International Service Board are legal instruments, empowering the trustees to manage and conduct international service affairs. The Annual Meeting Charter is not a legal document; it relies upon tradition and the COSA purse for final effectiveness.
  8. The trustees are the principal planners and administrators of overall policy and finance. They have custodial oversight of the separately incorporated and constantly active services, exercising this through their ability to elect all the directors of these entities.
  9. Good service leadership at all levels is indispensable for our future functioning and safety. Primary world service leadership, once exercised by the founders, must necessarily be assumed by the trustees.
  10. Every service responsibility should be matched by an equal service authority, with the scope of such authority well defined.
  11. The trustees should always have the best possible committees, corporate service directors, executives, staffs, and consultants. Composition, qualifications, induction procedures, and rights and duties will always be matters of serious concern.
  12. The Annual Meeting shall observe the spirit of COSA tradition, taking care that it never becomes the seat of perilous wealth or power; that sufficient operating funds and reserve be its prudent financial principle; that it place none of its members in a position of unqualified authority over others; that it reach all important decisions by discussion, vote, and, whenever possible, by substantial unanimity; that its actions never be personally punitive nor an incitement to public controversy; that it never perform acts of government, and that, like the fellowship it serves, it will always remain democratic in thought and action.

The COSA fellowship is completely autonomous; it is not affiliated with any other organisations. We are self-supporting, sustained entirely by voluntary contributions and service from our members. We are anonymous and safe.

 

Keep coming back; it works if you work it. So work it, you’re worth it!

 

* The Twelve Steps, Traditions and Concepts of Alcoholics Anonymous have been reprinted and adapted with the permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (“AAWS”). Permission to reprint and adapt the Twelve Steps, Traditions and Concepts does not mean that Alcoholics Anonymous is affiliated with this programme. A.A. is a programme of recovery from alcoholism only – use of A.A.’s Step, Traditions and Concepts or adapted versions in connection with programmes and activities which are patterned after A.A., but which address other problems, or use in any other non-A.A. context, does not imply otherwise.