Open Letter to Healthcare Professionals
Dear Medical/Mental Health Care Professional,
In your practice, you may occasionally meet with patients whose lives have been affected by compulsive sexual behavior. COSA, a Twelve Step recovery program, may be a powerful free resource for some of these patients or clients who are:
- People grappling with a spouse, partner, or parent’s infidelity
- People whose partners have given them a sexually transmitted disease
- Survivors of sexual abuse or sexual assault
- Partners of pornography addicts
- Parents of children who act out sexually
- Adult children of sex addicts
- People dealing with sexual harassment or surveillance
- Partners who feel pressured into sexual behaviors they do not feel comfortable with
- Anyone whose life has been affected by compulsive sexual behavior.
COSA is a diverse fellowship that follows a modified version of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. COSA members use these Steps along with other powerful tools in a safe, welcoming, and anonymous environment. Our members find healing from things like despair, obsessive thoughts, isolation, and paralyzing anxiety. They may also become aware of their own behaviors in relationships with friends, family members, and partners.
COSA is not a therapy group, nor does it replace psychotherapy or professional counseling. It is a Twelve Step program that can be a source of free, daily support and can encourage members to follow through with honesty while working with a professional. By using the program in this way, we have found that we are not alone.
As an international service organization, we have numerous local meetings available throughout the world as well as a secure, vibrant online and phone support community. We also have a wide array of helpful literature designed specifically for people whose lives have been affected by compulsive sexual behavior.
Please visit us at www.cosa-recovery.org
In Service,
The COSA Outreach Committee
The following questions (pg. 2) can be used to help identify unmanageable areas and “bottom line” behaviors. This is not a complete list of COSA experiences. While many COSA participants are currently in a relationship with a sex addict, this is not a requirement. In COSA, we recognize that our behaviors and belief systems are our own.
Do you…
- Believe you would be happy if only the sex addict would change?
- Sometimes look at other families, imagine that they are “normal,” and wish your relationship could be happy like theirs?
- Feel pressured to become sexual with partners before you know them very well, or have you done so repeatedly in order to avoid abandonment?
- Become physically affected as a result of another person’s compulsive sexual behavior — have stress-related illnesses, STDs, have a baby or an abortion to fix the relationship, etc.?
- Engage in compulsive, self-destructive, or depressive behaviors to avoid your feelings?
- Sometimes have a hard time separating the truth from lies when talking to a sex addict in your life?
- Feel immense shame about the sex addict’s sexual behaviors, that what the sex addict has done is a reflection on you or your family?
- Believe that if only you could help the sex addict with his or her pain, he or she would get better?
- Put the sex addict’s needs before your own?
- Feel happy when the sex addict is happy and doing well, and struggle when the sex addict is sad, angry, or struggling?
- Spend time worrying about where the sex addict is, who they might be with, what they might be doing?
- “Snoopervise” — Spend time searching for clues to the sex addict acting out? (for example: Check their cell phone, personal space, computers, cars, bank records, phone bills, laundry for clues to the addictive sexual behavior of the addict?
- Find yourself hyper-focused on the sex addict’s level of recovery?
- Avoid ever speaking with others (close friends, a professional counselor, or sponsor) about your sexual behaviors or feelings?
- Focus more on another person’s sexual attitudes, beliefs, or needs than your own?
- Allow sexual activities that feel unpleasant, painful, scary, degrading or shaming?
- Withdraw emotionally, have your mind on other things during sex, or feel empty afterwards?
- Have less interest in and awareness of your own sexual needs and wants, than the sex addict’s sexual needs and wants?