C.A. Online Service Area

History of C.A. Online

1994 – Two members of the 1994 Conference, Craig H. (Midwest Regional Trustee) and Jim S., a delegate from Northern California Area brought a motion to the Conference floor through the Public Information Committee. This motion was to obtain an internet domain (https://ca.org) and to put up a very limited web site on a server that Craig H. managed. The site was to be limited to the Preamble, the Self-Test and local telephone contact numbers. The “Escape Cocaine” billboard art was also used. This motion passed after considerable debate.

The domain ca.org was registered on October 20, 1994. The site was online shortly thereafter generating a small number of telephone contacts to CAWSO. There was no e-mail address. CA was the first 12-Step Fellowship to have such a web site—NA, AA and Al-Anon all put up sites during the following year.

1995 – PI brought a motion to the Conference floor to add certain specified information to the website, such as “What is CA?”, “…And All Other Mind-Altering Substances” and “To the Newcomer.” The motion passed with an amendment from to allow the PI committee to add Conference-approved information at its discretion.

Kevin M. undertook a redesign of the website. More pieces were added: a page on the Storybook, the PI Fact File, the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions, “Crack”, and some of the results of the PI Survey of the previous year and an opening page describing the Fellowship and its goals. There was still no e-mail contact listed.

This new version of the site went up, but it should have been reviewed and approved first by the WSBT and/or the WSOB, but none of them had Internet access!

1996 – The new website was formally announced at the Conference and made available for viewing by the fellowship. E-mail addresses for Public Information inquiries (pubinfo@ca.org) and for technical comments (webmaster@ca.org) were also created, and all of these addresses were listed on the web site.

Inception Design CA Website, circa 1996-1997

1996 – A motion was passed at the 1996 World Conference that any future substantive changes to the site would require Trustee or Conference approval and a motion was passed to translate the web site into French. The Montreal Fellowship translated the web site into French, and provided text and detailed information on how that text correlated to the English version, so that posting the French web site was merely a technical issue. The French version of ca.org went up August 1, 1997, with WSO approval.

2nd CA Website with French translation, circa 1997-1998
2nd CA Website English, circa 1997-1998

First Online C.A. Meetings

On February 1, 1997 the “Hope, Faith & Courage” (aka HFC) became the first online/virtual meeting facilitated through email.

Initially a speaker/discussion meeting patterned after AA’s “Lamplighters” online meeting, but soon changed to mostly a discussion format.

In time, the “speaker” portion of the meeting was replaced by inviting people celebrating a birthday to post their stories online. After a slow start, the meeting began to thrive. Due to the very low initial cost of operating the meeting, no 7th Tradition was taken initially. After some discussion, and a long talk with former Trustee Bob L, it was decided that the HFC meeting needed to take a 7th Tradition, as this was the only one of the 6 points regarding group status that HFC was not currently meeting.

1998 – In August, the second email subscriber meeting, “KISCA,” was started. By December of 1998, the online CA Groups were comprised of 200 members on 4 continents.

1999 – Two more email meetings were formed, “Sisters in Sobriety” and “The Study.”

1999-09-03 – The Conference approves the creation of an Online Service Committee and https://ca-online.org is registered on 1999-09-16.

2000-09-03 – The C.A. World Conference ratifies ca-online.org as a Cocaine Anonymous Online Service Area. OSA Delegates representing the OSA are: Michael C. (2 votes) and Alt. Del. Sherri H. (1 vote).

2001 “There is a Solution” meeting began.

2002 – “Steps On Line” meeting started.

2010 – Voice meetings were introduced.

2020 – Global pandemic starts and C.A. moves to the “ZOOM” platform. OSA experiences exponential growth.

Today the OSA has some 50 + virtual meetings with hundreds of members participating from countries throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.