This was how Christian Rigor, 32 years old, started his sharing in front of more than 1,000 young people coming from 5 continents for a special convention held in Tagaytay. But first, let’s backtrack and see who Christian was before he arrived at that point in his life while always having, deep in his heart, a desire for greater things. Christian himself narrates his story.

I grew up in a loving home as the youngest of 4 children. I was blessed to have a comfortable life – more than enough food on the table, allowance for my needs and wants, family trips abroad, nannies to take care of us, and studies in expensive schools… truly the high life. Aside from what my family provided me with, I also had the brains to excel in school.

I consistently and easily topped my class every year. I received Latin honors in university as well as scholarships and pursued advanced studies in France and the UK. Everything went well for me. I definitely aimed high. Unfortunately, I also thought highly of myself.

The downward spiral: Christian’s gambling career…

My life started to spiral downwards when I first entered the casino at 20! I entered out of curiosity, for entertainment, but came out a few hours later with all my cash gone and my credit card maxed out. I discovered that playing casino card games gave me such a natural high that nothing else mattered, except for placing the next bet. Again… the wrong kind of high. My gambling career endured for 10 years- losing so much money (my own and my parents’), being fired from so many jobs, destroying so many relationships with loved ones and friends, undergoing depression, and losing the will to live!

I aimed high for the wrong reason…

Addiction is so cunning and powerful that nothing was off limits for me just to have money to gamble with – like stealing from my family and the companies I worked for or making up sob stories so friends and colleagues would lend me some money.

Aside from the natural high that gambling gives me, a big part of why I continued down the dark path was because I aimed high for the wrong reason… solely for myself. I felt so entitled my whole life and thought highly of myself that I felt I deserved to possess all the material wealth in the world, easily and quickly.

I felt so lazy to do hard work that I only longed to win big time in the casino. Yes, I would win at times, but no amount of money would really satisfy me and I would keep coming back every day, longing for more money. My luck would eventually run out and be left bankrupt, with huge debts I wouldn’t know how to pay.

Meeting the Farm of Hope and the turn-around of my life

After 10 years of hell, I surrendered myself and agreed willingly, at the suggestion of my mother, to enter Fazenda da Esperança, the Farm of Hope, a spirituality-based rehabilitation program for suffering addicts. During my 1-year program, I learned to look beyond myself… beyond my selfish, superficial worldly desires.

I learned to live for a higher purpose… which is, in fact, the highest purpose. I learned to aim high… but this time, it’s different. Simply put, I found God and learned to love. You might wonder what love has to do with it. For God is Love… so I learned to love… to love God, to love others, to love in everything I do at the present moment, even when it was difficult, painful, or full of suffering.

I learned to love God by deepening my relationship with Him. But in order to fully love God, I need to love others… my neighbors… the people around me and seeing Jesus in them. It wasn’t easy at all living with my fellow recovering addict brothers, especially since we came from different backgrounds.

I learned to see beyond our differences to what I could do to serve and love each of them – like sharing some of my food, which was not a lot to begin with, to my still hungry brother or lending a listening ear to a sad brother who misses his family outside, or cooking the food or washing the dishes even if it wasn’t my duty to do so that day, or lending my electric fan to a new brother without one even though it was very warm during the night.

On the farm, I also learned that to love God means accepting openly the ordinary tasks I needed to do and offer them to Him. By giving my best and working hard, no matter how difficult, physically demanding, boring, filthy, or unappealing the work may be.

In the farm, I experienced carrying 50-kilo sacks of rice on my back for transport elsewhere, shoveling and collecting smelly wet cow manure for fertilizer, clearing mounds of filthy garbage manually, harvesting rice under the scorching heat of the sun, fetching gallons of water from miles away, and cutting down huge trees for firewood among many others. My life on the farm took a 180-degree turn!

Soaring high the right way…

After everything I’ve been through, I started over. Though it seemed too difficult… too late… that the hole I dug for myself was too deep, it wasn’t.

It isn’t. I still fail many times. The mistakes never stop… But starting again should never stop either. As long as it takes. Now I discovered, and through the constant support of a spiritual family, that I am capable of truly soaring high, the right way! This means serving a higher purpose… to look outside myself and find that essential that I want to dedicate my life to.

Interview by Romeo P. Vital

In the meantime, Christian is now moving toward pursuing a new career with the end goal of being at the service of those who struggle every day but find new strength and light to turn their life around, just like him, at 180 degrees!