Three routes, three different asks. Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous wants you to define your own bottom lines and work steps with a sponsor. Co-Dependents Anonymous looks at how you relate generally rather than at one person. Therapy asks you to pay, to wait, and to check the credentials yourself, because in the UK nobody is checking them for you.
SLAA
The widest scope of the fellowships in this area, and the only one that also covers the opposite pattern.
The ask is unusual and worth understanding before you go. SLAA does not hand you a definition of sobriety. You write your own bottom lines, which are the specific behaviours you are stopping, and you do that with the help of somebody further along. That suits people whose situation does not fit a standard template and frustrates people who wanted to be told.
Its published [characteristics list](https://slaauk.org/characteristics-of-sex-and-love-addiction/) carries no clinical authority. It is a fellowship describing itself, and it is unusually good at recognition. It also names avoidance as its own pattern, which it calls anorexia and describes as ["not doing something. Not trusting, not committing, not surrendering."](https://slaauk.org/anorexia-sexual-social-and-emotional/) If you recognised yourself in the withdrawal rather than the chasing, that is the half most writing leaves out.
Meetings are free, and UK regional coverage is the best of the fellowships here.
CoDA
Co-Dependents Anonymous looks at the pattern rather than the person. Where SLAA is organised around behaviours you are stopping, CoDA is organised around how you relate generally, across relationships, including the ones that are not romantic.
[Co-Dependents Anonymous UK](https://codauk.org/) describes itself as "a fellowship of people whose common purpose is to develop healthy relationships". Free, and the only requirement for membership is wanting that.
**One practical warning.** The correct UK address is `codauk.org`. The hyphenated version, `coda-uk.org`, is an expired domain now serving casino spam. Do not go there and do not trust a link to it.
**And one honest caveat about the vocabulary.** Codependency is a contested construct. It ["has never been included in any version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders"](https://cdspress.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Kimberly-A.-Calderwood-Anne-Rajesparam.pdf), the concept "lacks an empirical basis and lacks consensus about a definition", and, in the same paper, "Labeling people, mostly women, as 'codependent' increases their grief and guilt". Plenty of people find the rooms genuinely useful. Take the room without taking the diagnosis.
SMART Recovery
The secular option, and the one with a completely different model. Groups are run by trained facilitators rather than sponsors, the method is cognitive and behavioural rather than spiritual, and it explicitly rejects powerlessness as a starting point. Its own line is that ["The power to change addictive behaviors resides within each individual."](https://smartrecovery.org/about-us/)
[SMART Recovery UK](https://smartrecovery.org.uk/faqs/) is free and non-religious. It does not run relationship-specific meetings, so go for the method rather than the topic. The number is **0330 053 6022**.
Therapy, and the thing nobody tells you
Here is the fact that changes how you shop. In the UK, ["psychotherapists are not regulated by law, but can choose to join an Accredited Register"](https://www.professionalstandards.org.uk/practitioners/psychotherapist). "Counsellor", "psychotherapist" and by extension "love addiction therapist" are not protected titles. Anyone can use them.
Which means credential checking is your job, and it takes about five minutes:
- **Ask which register they are on**, and then check the register yourself rather than taking the logo on the website as proof.
- **Ask what model they work in.** A straight answer is a good sign. A vague one about being integrative and holistic without specifics is not.
- **Ask what they think this is.** If somebody tells you confidently that you have love addiction and quotes you a recovery timeline, they are ahead of the evidence. There is no such diagnosis and no established prognosis.
- **Ask about cost, frequency, and how it ends.** Open-ended arrangements with no review point are worth asking about.
The NHS has no service for this specifically. A GP is still worth seeing if the low mood, sleep or anxiety underneath it is significant, because that part is treatable and does have services attached.
What nobody can tell you about which one works
No trial compares these routes for this problem. Not one, and that is not a gap somebody is about to fill, because the underlying construct is not agreed. A 2023 systematic review of this area screened 102 articles and ["included five"](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37139461/) studies.
The nearest evidence comes from alcohol, and it does not transfer cleanly. Cochrane found ["high quality evidence that manualized AA/TSF interventions are more effective than other established treatments, such as CBT, for increasing abstinence"](https://www.cochrane.org/evidence/CD012880_alcoholics-anonymous-aa-and-other-12-step-programs-alcohol-use-disorder). Two things about that. It is [disputed](https://academic.oup.com/alcalc/article/56/4/377/6034029), and Cochrane itself separates manualised Twelve-Step Facilitation, which is a professional intervention, from simply attending meetings. That result is about a different behaviour, a different population and a formal programme, so do not carry it here as though it settles anything.
What can be said neutrally about the fellowships comes from a government guideline rather than from the fellowships themselves: twelve-step fellowships ["maintain independence from professional bodies and make sure they remain led by people in recovery in a volunteer capacity and do not accept funding from external sources"](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/clinical-guidelines-for-alcohol-treatment/6-recovery-support-services-and-lived-experience-initiatives).
How to choose this week
Three questions, honestly answered.
**Do you want a room or a person?** Rooms are free, available most nights, and full of people who recognise the thing. A therapist is one relationship, costs money, and goes deeper into your particular history. Many people do both.
**Do you want to be told or to decide?** SLAA asks you to define your own bottom lines. Some people find that liberating and some find it destabilising, and knowing which you are saves you three wasted weeks. If you are not sure what your bottom lines would even be, [what you are actually reaching for](/guides/love_relationship/what-you-are-actually-reaching-for) is a useful hour before your first meeting.
**Is the problem the pattern or one specific person?** CoDA and therapy both handle the pattern. If the immediate problem is one person and the practical business of stepping away, [no contact and how to actually do it](/guides/love_relationship/no-contact-how-to-actually-do-it) is more use this week than any of these routes.
Go to three meetings before deciding about a room. The first one tells you almost nothing except how you feel about walking in.
If what you need is safety rather than a fellowship
None of the routes above is the right first call if you are in danger. If they control your money, track you, threaten you, hurt you, or you are managing their temper to stay safe:
- **National Domestic Abuse Helpline** (run by Refuge): 0808 2000 247, 24 hours a day, every day.
- **Men's Advice Line**, for male victims including trans and non-binary people: 0808 801 0327, Monday to Friday, 10am to 5pm.
- **Galop**, for LGBT+ people: 0800 999 5428, Monday and Tuesday 9.15am to 8pm, Wednesday to Friday 9.15am to 4.30pm.
- **Samaritans**: 116 123, any time.
- In an emergency, 999.
Common questions
**What is the difference between SLAA and CoDA?** SLAA is organised around specific behaviours you are stopping, defined by you. CoDA is organised around how you relate across relationships generally. Some people attend both.
**Is there NHS treatment for love addiction?** No, because there is no recognised diagnosis. A GP is still the right route for the depression, anxiety or sleep problems underneath it, which are treatable.
**How do I find a decent therapist for this?** Check the accredited register yourself, ask what model they work in, and be wary of anyone who offers you a confident diagnosis and a timeline for a condition that is not recognised.
**Are these meetings religious?** The twelve step fellowships use spiritual language and are not aligned with any denomination. SMART Recovery is explicitly secular. If the language is the obstacle, start there.
**What if I try a room and hate it?** Try a different one, or a different night. The variation between individual meetings is larger than the variation between fellowships, and one bad room says very little.
Sources
- [Characteristics of Sex and Love Addiction, S.L.A.A. UK](https://slaauk.org/characteristics-of-sex-and-love-addiction/), and the [anorexia pattern](https://slaauk.org/anorexia-sexual-social-and-emotional/). The fellowship's own scope and self-description.
- [Co-Dependents Anonymous UK](https://codauk.org/). The fellowship's own description of its purpose.
- [Calderwood and Rajesparam, on the codependency construct](https://cdspress.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Kimberly-A.-Calderwood-Anne-Rajesparam.pdf). Never in any edition of the DSM, no agreed definition, and the labelling harm.
- [Professional Standards Authority, psychotherapists](https://www.professionalstandards.org.uk/practitioners/psychotherapist). That psychotherapists are not regulated by law in the UK.
