We are a fellowship of addicts who meet together to share our experience, strength and hope for the purpose of staying sober and helping others achieve the same freedom. Everything heard at our meetings is to be treated as confidential. There are no dues or fees of any kind. To be a member, you only have to have a desire to stop using and show up. We also exchange phone numbers, and give and seek support from one and other between meetings.
We are all on equal footing here. There are no professional therapists offering treatment, and no one is in charge. Everyone in these rooms is here because they want to stop using drugs and alcohol. We are people of all ages, races, and social backgrounds, with a common bond of affliction. Our program, called the Twelve Steps of Recovery, is gratefully borrowed from Alcoholics Anonymous. We don’t pretend to have all the answers, but experience teaches that a recovering addict will almost certainly relapse without the ongoing support of fellow addicts.
We welcome newcomers to C.A. with more genuine warmth and acceptance in our hearts than you can probably now imagine, for you are the lifeblood of our program. It is by carrying the message of recovery to others like ourselves that we keep our own sobriety. We are all helping ourselves by helping each other.
1
We admitted we were powerless over cocaine and all other mind-altering substances that our lives had become unmanageable.
2
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5
Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
1
Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon C.A. unity.
2
For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority — a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
3
The only requirement for C.A. membership is a desire to stop using cocaine and all other mind-altering substances.
4
Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or C.A. as a whole.
5
Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to the addict who still suffers.
6
A C.A. group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the C.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
7
Every C.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8
Cocaine Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
9
C.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
10
Cocaine Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the C.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
11
Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of all public media.
12
Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.
Cocaine Anonymous is not organised in the formal or political sense, There are no governing officers, no rules or regulations, no dues or fees.
However, the need for services to addicts throughout the world is very important to the Fellowship. Inquiries from both within and outside the Fellowship have to be answered. Literature has to be written, printed and distributed, and requests for help be followed up.
The main service body of the Fellowship is C.A. World Services, which is centred at the World Service Office in Los Angeles, California, where employees and service volunteers maintain communications with local Groups and with persons outside the Fellowship who turn to C.A. for information on the program of recovery. C.A. Conference-approved Literature and chips are prepared, published and distributed through this office.
The World Service Office, through its Board of Directors, is responsible to the World Service Board of Trustees. The Trustees, who serve as custodians of the Traditions of Cocaine Anonymous as well as interpreters of policies affecting C.A. as a whole, in turn are responsible to the World Service Conference.
The World Service Conference meets annually to the Fellowship as a whole and consider those actions which affect the Fellowship as a whole. Comprised of Delegates from all the recognized Areas of C.A., as well as the Trustees and the World Service Office Board, the Conference considers how best to carry the message of recovery from cocaine addiction to those outside, as well as inside, the meeting rooms of Cocaine Anonymous. Committees of the Conference cover various areas that affect carrying that message of recovery: Literature, Hospitals and Institutions, Public Information, Convention (responsible for the annual World Service Convention), and Unity. Other Committees address the internal functions of the Fellowship: Conference, Finance, and Structure & By-laws. All of the service structure of C.A. is based on our 9th Tradition: C.A., as such, ought never be organized, but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
The principal of consistent rotation of responsibility is followed by all C.A. service positions. Positions in the local Group are rotated according to a vote of the Group. Representatives to the local service organisation are voted on at the Group level according to a schedule defined by each Group. Officers of the local service organisation are elected based on the group conscience of that organisation.
In the spirit of Tradition Six, C.A. is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution.
