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What is C.A Ireland?

The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using cocaine and all other mind-altering substances. We exchange phone numbers, and give and seek support from one another between meetings. We are not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution.

 

We do not wish to engage in any controversy and we neither endorse nor oppose any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay FREE from cocaine and all other mind-altering substances and to help others achieve the same freedom. We use the Twelve Step Recovery Program because it has already been proven that the Twelve Step Recovery Program works.

We are all on equal footing within the fellowship. There are no professional therapists offering treatment, and no one person “runs” any group. Everyone in these rooms is here because he or she has a desire to stop using cocaine and all other mind-altering substances. We are men and women of all ages, races, and social backgrounds, with a common bond of affliction and a desire to stay free from cocaine and all other mind-altering substances.

Our program, called the Twelve Steps of Recovery, is gratefully borrowed from the fellowship Alcoholics Anonymous, which has experience with substance abuse since the late 1930s.

 

Some of us may have first come in contact with C.A. while in a treatment program or seeking individual psychotherapy. Experience teaches us that a “newcomer” will almost certainly relapse without the ongoing support of fellow addicts and the program of the Twelve Steps.

Our Purpose

There are no dues or fees for membership. Our expenses are supported by the voluntary contributions of our members — we respectfully decline all outside contributions. We are not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution. Our program of recovery was adapted from the program developed by Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935.

 

Like AA (with which we are not affiliated), we use the Twelve Step recovery method, which involves service to others as a path towards recovery from addiction. We feel that one addict talking to another can provide a level of mutual understanding and fellowship that is hard to obtain through other methods.

 

The fact that an individual has recovered from their addiction, and is freely passing this experience on to the next person, is a powerful message for someone who is desperately searching for an answer to their own addiction. There emerges a bond among us that transcends all other social boundaries. We hold regular meetings to further this fellowship, and to allow new members to find us and, perhaps, the answers they seek.

Image by Chang Duong

History of C.A Ireland

In December 2006 after attending a convention in the U.K, it was suggested to us that we should start the fellowship of Cocaine Anonymous in Ireland. After our return back home we started to enquire about how we could make this possible. In a short space of time, twelve of us got together and this became the first twelve members of Cocaine Anonymous in Ireland. We then began to meet at a member’s house every Wednesday night; there we took up a service position each. We discussed ideas between the group for the format of our future meeting and decided on a suitable location.

After a short time, we found premises in the Carmelite Community Centre in Dublin, where on the 7th of March 2007 we held the first meeting of Cocaine Anonymous in Ireland. We each got great hope that night because fifty-five addicts attended the meeting. We then set out to open a second meeting, on a Thursday night, which we decided through our group conscience, should be a step meeting.

This was to happen a month later and so we began to grow. Members started to open other meetings around the city centre and the suburbs, so the time had come to start an area committee meeting. With the fellowship starting to expand, it wasn’t long before we had a meeting every night of the week in various locations around the Dublin area. The next thing we had to do was to form an H&I committee and from this, we opened four meetings in a number of different detox centres around Dublin.

We now have many meetings in Dublin detox centres through our H&I committee. We have Public Information and a 24-hour helpline number in operation. We of Cocaine Anonymous Ireland wish to help the worldwide fellowship to enable us to carry the message effectively to fellow drug addicts that have not reached the rooms of Cocaine Anonymous yet.

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