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What is CoDA Service Conference endorsed literature?
CoDA Service Conference, CSC, endorsed literature is written anonymously, by CoDA members, for the CoDA Fellowship. Members share their first-hand experience, strength, and hope about working CoDA’s Twelve Steps, and living The Twelve Traditions, describing how their lives have improved because of CoDA.
New CoDA literature is published after it has been endorsed by a group of international delegates at the annual CoDA Service Conference.
Why is CSC endorsed literature vital to the integrity of CoDA?
When Co-Dependents Anonymous (CoDA) was founded in 1986, we did not have our own literature. We relied on outside professional authors and materials from older Fellowships. Our first literature project, produced in 1989, was a set of pamphlets, one for each of the Twelve Steps. In 1999, the pamphlets were combined to create the Twelve Steps Handbook. Our basic CoDA text, Co-Dependents Anonymous, was first published in 1995. It continues to be a major source of guidance and inspiration for working the CoDA program.
As the Fellowship has grown in recovery, learning to rely on our Higher Power, The Twelve Steps, and The Twelve Traditions, the depth of our literature has evolved. Today, CoDA literature includes thousands of pages, taking many forms: books, booklets, pamphlets, and audio recordings.
Much of our literature has been created using the informed group conscience process by trusted servants in the CoDA Literature Committee. This process includes seeking guidance from our Higher Power, listening to all viewpoints, and then voting for the writing that best reflects our program. Patience and acceptance are integral to the group conscience process.
When choosing literature for a meeting, it is vital to support CoDA’s primary purpose: to carry the message of recovery to codependents who still suffer.
Our Twelve Traditions guide us
As we read in our meetings, “CoDA’s Twelve Traditions are the guiding spiritual principles of our meetings.” Our Twelve Traditions are deeply woven into the fabric of all CoDA literature. They can guide our choice of literature within our meetings.
“Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon CoDA unity.”
– Tradition One
Hearing the consistent CoDA message contained in our literature, affirms our connection to CoDA recovery, to each other, and to the foundational principle of unity.
“Each group should remain autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or CoDA as a whole.”
– Tradition Four
Reading and selling CoDA literature in our meetings supports the growth of the Fellowship. It ensures safety, encouragement, consistency of message, and unity across CoDA meetings world-wide, and CoDA as a whole.
“Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to other codependents who still suffer.”
– Tradition Five
Reading outside literature in meetings confuses and dilutes the CoDA recovery message. Whereas reading CoDA literature supports the essence of Tradition Five by carrying the CoDA message of hope to the still suffering codependent.
“A CoDA group ought never endorse,
finance, or lend the CoDA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary spiritual aim.”
– Tradition Six
The use of outside literature endorses its author, makes their work the focus of the meeting, and raises the question, “Is this a CoDA meeting or a book study session?”
“Every CoDA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.”
– Tradition Seven
The sale of CoDA literature supports CoDA financially. Using or selling outside literature deprives CoDA as a whole, including individual meetings, of financial support and autonomy.
“Co-Dependents Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.”
– Tradition Eight
As stated in Building CoDA Community: Healthy Meetings Matter, page 17,
“In CoDA, no one is paid to share experience, strength, and hope, whether at meetings, as sponsors, or in any other Twelve Step related activity.”
“CoDA has no opinion on outside issues; hence the CoDA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.”
– Tradition Ten
“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 all other public forms of communication.”
– Tradition Eleven
CoDA is a spiritual program of attraction, with a unique, collective voice. Literature written outside of CoDA, promotes the author or entity, their opinions, and gives them income.
“Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.”
– Tradition Twelve
Our literature is written anonymously, to avoid personal quests for power, prestige, or monetary gain. CoDA Literature evolves as CoDA grows.
“Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to other codependents, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”
– Step Twelve
CoDA is a spiritual program, inspiring many to serve the Fellowship through writing and editing. Our literature is a living, breathing expression of the knowledge and wisdom gained within our Fellowship.
CoDA welcomes the creation of new pieces of literature as well as revisions of existing literature, which we consider works in progress.
