To get the meetings all over the Philippines Contact this number
CONTACT NUMBERS OF ALCOHOLIC ANONYMOUS PHILIPPINES
A lot of contact names and numbers and meeting times and places have changed since 2006. Here’s the link of the yahoo group of AA Philippines:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AAPhilippines
If anyone is interested please join the group. Once a member, you can access DATABASE where the List of meetings and contacts will be found. Metro Manila is under NCR. You may leave the group anytime you wish.
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) hotline# +632 896 5707. (Teena M.)
Email: [email protected] / [email protected]
When the high and mighty fall, the road to recovery begins with a public apology. If there is any redeeming factor that [tag]Mel Gibson[/tag] has given to the world is the media coverage of [tag] alcoholism[/tag] devastating consequences. In the Philippines, drunken men or women are a common sight in parties, fiestas or celebrations. Oooh, you can see them falling to the floor, slurring their words or being just an annoying loud mouth. The party drunk, the life of the party, right? The San Miguel Beer says it all. The multi-million ad portrays a festive atmosphere where beer overflows and sexy ladies sashay their bodies or flaunt their beauty. Such an ad conditions the mind of our vulnerable young kids to associate beer with lovely women and lure them to a life of fun-filled parties.
The effects of alcoholism are easily shown in the sensational section of the local TV news. How often do you see wives beaten up by their husbands? Or children being sexually abused by their biological fathers? What about that actor caught for drunk driving? Though I don’t have the statistics right now, I bet there are cases of drunk -related accidents or physical abuse.
Countless families are ruined and being ruined by alcoholism. Family members walk in eggshells as they pass by the pink elephant snoring in their living room. Not many know that alcoholics are just in the same level as drug addicts. It’s even harder for alcoholics to abstain from their addiction because alcohol is available everywhere. San Miguel beer ads often show a party atmosphere and that a party is incomplete without beer. Oh well, how else can they advertise right? Still they shouldn’t show bottles of beer on the table. Drinking alcohol is so much a part of our Filipino culture. In fact , it is “macho” if one can gulp a number of beer bottles. There is the issue that one is not an alcoholic just because the person is not rolling in the road or that he doesn’t drink everyday anyway. Does the person even know he is an alcoholic?
It was Alcoholics Anonymous who
was instrumental in again emphasizing the “disease concept” of alcoholism, the defining work was done by Elvin Jellinek, M.D., of the Yale Center of Alcohol Studies. In his book, The Disease Concept of Alcoholism, published in 1960, Jellinek described alcoholics as individuals with tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, and either “loss of control” or “inability to abstain” from alcohol. He asserted that these individuals could not drink in moderation, and, with continued drinking, the disease was progressive and life-threatening. Jellinek also recognized that some features of the disease (e.g., inability to abstain and loss of control) were shaped by cultural factors- source
I wasn’t aware that alcoholism is a “disease” until my friend confided that her husband was confined in a rehab center in Tagaytay two years ago. (I asked permission to quote her and changed some circumstances to protect their privacy. ) I thought only drug addicts get rehabiliated.
“Alcohol is a drug. Alcoholism is an illness, which is successfully treatable with a wide variety of interventions. It stems from a genetically mediated biological predisposition, and for those who are hardwired with the potential for alcoholism, drinking can prove to be a chronic, debilitating enemy.
My husband wasn’t a social drinker. His drinking bouts got to the point that he incurred so many absences from work . I felt he would lose his job anytime if he didn’t shape up. I didn’t want to wait till he had nothing left so I had him confined at Makati Medical Center upon the advice of a psychiatrist-friend. He experienced withdrawal symptons like any drug addict like “hand tremors and rage”. But don’t you know my husband was the only alcoholic among the in-patients? Even the Alcoholics Anonymous Philippines have very few alcoholics. In fact, most of its members are drug addicts. That does not deter him from attending weekly AA meetings for the past 2 years now. I am aware that he can relapse anytime.
The level of awareness that alcoholism can be treated is still not as widespread as drug addiction rehabilitation. Rehab cost is not cheap. One can spend up to 140,000 thousand pesos ($2800) for a 60 day program. But his life was at stake if he didn’t try to recover, right? So it was worth the expense. I am just taking it one day at a time. I too have my own recovery program because alcoholism is a family disease. Even if I am not an alcoholic, I imbibed some of his irritating habits. I am recovering. He is on the road to recovery thanks to AA meetings.
As we continued chatting, I immediately surfed and discovered that there is no [tag]Alcoholics Anonymous[/tag] (AA) Philippines website nor contact numbers on how to reach this group. But they are found in the PLDT telephone book. Look for “Alcoholics Anonymous”. , my friend added. A lot of alcoholics around the world have been saved by the AA program since 1935 but how many alcoholics in the Philippines even know that the group is active?
My friend continued
Word of mouth I guess. Psychiatrists even recommend it. My husband also attended an AA meeting in Boracay during our last summer vacation.
Alcoholics in the Philippines, there you have it. You can recover if you want to. AA is free so try that first.
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