Online Service Area (OSA)

History of the Online Service Area

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.