Hello Everyone, my name is Bobby and I'm an alcoholic. It is my great honor, joy and gratitude to be given this unique chance to speak in this worldwide AA meeting online. Thank you so much for allowing me to share with you today the most precious gift I have received in my life - the gift of sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous. Before I begin, let me pray once again the Serenity Prayer: God, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
I was born in one of the Western Visayas islands in the Philippines called Panay Island. I grew up under the care of my grandmother since I was just 8 months old. I played a lot with kids my age, went to kindergarten school in the church of the town and went to public public schools. I made it pretty good studies, in sports as a basketball player during summer time and in religion as a faithful church goer. I belong to a good family, deeply religious and intellectually prominent in the town.
Like any other families, my family of origin has its own dysfunction which is that of alcoholism. Very sad stories of bitter lashes of alcohol wrecked my family like my young uncle was stabbed to death in a drinking brawl just few yards from our house, a 16 year old cousin met his death in a car accident while driving home with his friends from a town fiesta and another uncle, a priest in his 50's died of chlerosis of the liver. I took my first drink of alcohol when I graduated from high school as Class Salutatorian. At that time I was courting a girl who became my first love and girlfriend.
I was too shy to express my feelings to her that my brother suggested that I should drink a bottle of San Miguel Beer. I took that drink, went to our graduation dancing party and made my proposal and won the heart of the girl. I went to college after that and never took a drink. After one year in college I decided to leave my girlfriend and entered the seminary to become a priest. I thought of the seminary as an ideal place to be, but my first impression was proven wrong. There is a yearly alumni reunion of the priests who graduated from the seminary and we have to prepare the banquet and entertainment program to the homecoming priests.
During the course of the banquet, drinks were served and I saw gregariousness, hilarity and excitement in the crowd. I saw my classmates drinking with priests and getting drunk after the party was over. I did not yet drink with them at that time, so they talked behind my back. They were saying that I am not a real macho man because I am not drinking. This was told to me by a friend of mine who was drinking with them and he suggested that I need to drink to prove to our classmates that what they thought of me was wrong.
I remember exactly the day I started drinking and passed out, it was August 15,1978 when we both went to the city drinking place and drank together. We took a taxi home, quarelled with the driver, entered the seminary intoxicated with liquor. The next day my brother visited me and found me having hangovers and feeling very low. I continued drinking after that, especially during times when I have feelings of being rejected and feelings of resentments. Not long after I abused my time and my life as a seminarian by indulging in too much drinking and causing doubts in the minds of my superiors that I was sent out of the seminary together with my drinking buddy.
I went home to my hometown and to the surprise of those who knew me as a good and model student, I started joining friends to drink and getting drunk in marketplaces, in homes and even slept in the middle of the town plaza one night. Together with my drinking buddy, we continued our studies of Bachelors in Philosophy in Negros Island. I progressed with my drinking and encountered other strange experiences related to it. For that final year of finishing college, we rented a room, went to school in the morning, took naps in the afternoon and went out to drink in bars during the night.
I took a bar prostitute as a girlfriend and was baptized by her into the world of sex. During this period I lived a life of dishonesty and pleasure. I will go home to my parents and relatives and asked for money for my tuition fees using the same reason to all. So I collected more money than I owe to pay and used the rest of the money for my drinking and other fun seeking adventures. We both left that island when we finished college and went to Manila to ask the help of the Cardinal Archbishop there to give us recommendation to continue our seminary studies in Theology.
The Cardinal recommended us to proceed to Northern Luzon area and join a seminary there. We both brought along our drinking problem with us that at the end of the year after a drinking episode and fight with our fellow seminarians, we were again told to leave the seminary. That was a big blow in my life. I told my drinking buddy, it is time to separate ways and find our own individual destiny. I went home frustrated, in deep sorrow and defeated. At that time, my grandmother who took care of me got seriously sick and I stayed in the hospital for one month to take care of her. My brother got married early and he called up my parents that he needed help for someone to stay at their house. I volunteered to go and helped my brother in his need.
At the same time I applied to teach in a local college and got accepted due to my good academic record to teach Logic, Ethics and Sociology. As a college I developed the pattern of teaching in the morning, eating lunch in a nearby restaurant and drinking hard liquor the rest of the day. After a year, during the evaluation of the students and fellow teachers, the school administrator found out that I am a good teacher except that on several occasions I went to class smelling alcohol and was unable to control my anger to some students and teachers. So I was kicked out of my job and again I went home disgusted and failed. At that time, my grandfather in my mother side died and I stayed home for the funeral and even during the grief period of one year.
After that I decided to try it for the last time to re-join the seminary to finish my Theology studies. I was accepted on probation by a missionary group of priests and I began my theological studies. Through some mysterious intervention of God's loving providence, I was able to hit bottom. I experienced having black outs, deep feelings of fear and bewilderment. I took my last two shots of whisky the night before I got sober, prayed with my knees the day after for help and found my way to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in a hospital room in Makati City, Philippines. My ongoing journey of 20 plus years of AA recovery began. At first I just joined and sat at AA meetings.
My mind was too confused, bogged down and clouded by my 9 years of destructive and suicidal drinking. I laughed when all the members in the room laughed and I stayed quiet and wondering when somebody shared and cried. I hang around with my new AA friends for food and coffee after the meetings, got an AA sponsor and worked the steps seriously. I worked the 4th. and 5th. steps with my sponsor and I was so grateful for that. I then went on to work on my defects of character through the rest of the steps until I was able to make my amends to those I hurt and felt the deep sense of joy, freedom and serenity as a result of a thorough and courageous working of the steps of the program.
One amends I made was to the very Monsignor who sent me out of the seminary by the hospital bed. I went home for holidays and came to know that he was in the hospital. I took that moment both as a call and and an opportunity to make apologies to him. After 3 years of sobriety, my superiors found me worthy to be ordained a missionary priest. During my day of ordination my special visitors were my AA friends in Manila and around the Philippine Islands. At least 4 priest members of AA were there including my AA sponsor. For us, it was a great joy and victory that one of the seminarians who accepted the disease of alcoholism joined AA to recover from it and finally made it to the priesthood.
I was sent to do missionary work in Papua New Guinea just two months after that and I stayed connected with the General Service Office of Alcoholics Anonymous in New York via mails. I was able to attend AA meetings in the Galleys Restaurant in Port Moresby just before I went up to the mountains to work with tribal people there. I joined the Loners-Internationalist Meeting and the World Hello correspondent groups of Alcoholics Anonymous. I received and wrote tons of letters to fellow AA loners and homers and seafarers around the world during those years of my missionary life in the South Pacific. I also brought with me my AA meditation books like the 24 Hour Book, As Bill Sees It and TOUCHSTONES daily meditations for men.
In my isolated life as a missionary I will read my daily meditation in the morning or at night, write AA letters and lived a life of prayer and contemplation in the midst of the beauty of nature and the goodness of my tribal folks. That period made me developed my AA spirituality and it became a very important part of my day to day living until now. One of the most memorable AA events in my life there was when I joined our AA group members in Port Moresby for a week-end AA trip to Cairns, Australia in 1994. After 7 years of missionary life I decided to have a sabbatical for two years and went to Italy to take up a course on Spirituality as part of my updating in God's service.
I joined a very strict School of Spirituality and the Director was not open to my personal request of going to my AA meetings in the nearby city of Florence. So I continued with my AA correspondent groups using a mailing box of a friend by stealth. When I went back to the Philippines I got a new assignment as the Spiritual Director of our mission seminary. In the year 2001 I represent AA Philippines in the Asia Pacific Regional AA Service Conference in Seoul, Korea. It was a wonderful experience of meeting in persons other AA representatives from our regional zone and talking with the Manager and Secretary of GSO, New York. I resigned from my missionary congregation in 2003 and decided to venture and seek other good opportunities along the lines of ministry abroad.
I arrived in the United States last December 13,2004 and got a green card from the U.S. Immigration. I stayed in California and New Jersey for a while then moved over here in New Mexico last September 24,2005 to joined the Benedictine Monastery. I have an AA friend living in Las Vegas, New Mexico who knew about this monastery and who suggested that I try it out. When I arrived here I was so glad to know that there is one AA face to face meeting in the village every Thursday night. Later on in my stay here I was able to find AA meetings online in paltalk and I decided to join, do some service work and continue working on my AA program on a daily basis.
My Higher Power is so good to me that even if I am inside a monastery I can still join AA meetings online and hook up with new AA online friends around the world. In my drinking days, I have went to the limits of my human endurance just to find a drink. Today in my life in recovery I find myself going to any length and using any possible means just to get strength and hope from fellow AA members. Also, I have the joy to share with love and humility through doing online service work in AA my very own experience, strength and hope in living the 12 steps spirituality one day at a time in the sunshine of the Spirit. I still continue my membership with my AA correspondent groups and volunteer as the Chair of the Welcome Committee of the World Hello AA group.
My daily bread today is prayer and meditation to progress in my right relationship with God, to know and do His Will and to live a simple life in the serenity of the present moment even amidst any form of adversity as I face and live life on life's terms. I am still an imperfect human being living in this imperfect world, but I learned recently that all of us in this world are spiritual beings trying to be human. What a great discovery for me to know that all I need is to accept completely my life as it is, to wear it as a loose garment with deep and abiding joy and humbly walk the path of good living as a member of AA. Right now, I am preparing to leave again to another farflung corner of the world. I welcome this move with great faith as the new adventure and wonder of my sober life.
My flight will be on August 13,2007 and I will stay in Italy for one month, visit some places in Europe and then move down to Africa. In closing allow me to sum up what AA has done in my life. The very first thing is that AA gave me a deep and profound faith in God who works in mysterious, compassionate and loving ways in my life. Also AA gave me back my self esteem and confidence in making it through life and achieving some milestones of success along the way. AA gave me lots of true, sincere and supportive friends in my life's journey who helped me grow, mature and become responsible, happy and grateful today. In the process I have learned to love and be gentle with myself and in the spirit of true AA Legacies of Unity, Service and Recovery I tried to share the same gifts of love and gentleness with others especially newcomers.
I still remain an unfinished work of art of AA recovery in the hands of a loving God and very caring hearts of fellow members of Alcoholics Anonymous. I stay open minded, honest and willing to change even in other areas of my addictive personality. I am so glad and grateful to be able to speak the AA Language of the Heart with you today. Thank you for inviting me and for me a part of your sobriety today.
I pray that as we all trudge the road of happy destiny together that I may be able to meet some of you in person and give you a big, loving and warm AA friendship hug! And if ever we cant make to meet it here on earth, I hope and love to meet you all in our AA meeting in heaven. God bless you all and have a great 24 hours. - Bobby S.
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