Alcoholism

According to an article in Scientific American magazine more than 40 percent of people with opioid addiction reported some type of childhood abuse or neglect, much higher than the rate for the general population. Another study showed that among those with any type of addiction, at least 85 percent have had at least one adverse childhood experience, with each additional experience raising the risk. The link is most pronounced among those diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), characterized by flashbacks and other psychological disturbances that can develop in response to a shocking or terrifying event.

Just a few of these major adverse causes are: being a victim of extreme bullying, relentless daily stress in the home, "witnessing violence; losing a parent; or experiencing a life-threatening illness, accident, conflict, or disaster."

The shocking reality is that the vulnerable childhood brain is physically rewired. Growing up in a threatening and stressful environment can undermine this circuitry. Stress in early life also alters the nucleus accumbens, a part of the striatum that is key to addiction: it makes us want more of what feels good.

The victim is often in a frame of mind that is the antithesis of delayed gratification. Immediate relief by taking drugs or illicit sex is perceived as a better option than making wise, long-term choices. A positive future is too uncertain and unattainable. Overall, severe early stress can create a general sense of dread and pleasurelessness. So, if traumatized kids are exposed to drugs that amplify dopamine or activate the brain’s own opioid systems, they are highly susceptible to becoming addicted because the drugs offer the excitement and comfort they otherwise lack.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Some Christians are too quick to judge and condemn the millions of Americans who are in bondage to a number of destructive addictions. While repentance must clearly be emphasized, an understanding of how and why many get addicted will lead to greater compassion and possibly more effective ministry.

The term “deaths of despair” was coined in 2015 by Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton. The researchers were seeking to find what was causing the decline in U.S. life expectancies in the later part of the 20th century. They discovered the dramatic increase in death rates for middle-aged, white non-Hispanic men and women was coming from three causes: drug overdoses, suicide, and alcoholic liver disease. Deaths from these causes have increased between 56 percent and 387 percent and average 70,000 per year.

The researchers said, “The pillars that once helped give life meaning—a good job, a stable home life, a voice in the community—have all eroded.” Those pillars are certainly important, but another factor may have an even more detrimental effect.

Research suggests a potential cause of deaths of despair could be the decline in religious participation that began in the late 1980s. The researchers found “there is a strong negative relationship between religiosity and mortality due to deaths of despair.”

In 2010, country singer Jason Aldean released a song called “Church Pew or Bar Stool” in which he complains about how he’s stuck in a “church pew or bar stool kind of town.” He sings, “There’s only two means of salvation around here that seem to work / Whiskey or the Bible, a shot glass or revival.” That’s a crude dichotomy, but it appears to increasingly be the choice many Americans face. They’ll either find hope from a community of faith or the lonely despair that leads them to self-medicate with alcohol and drugs.

During the late 18th century, Thomas Thetcher was a much-respected soldier by his fellow grenadiers in England. He was so revered that when he tragically died, his fellow soldiers commissioned a gravestone to memorialize his untimely demise. His death was not only untimely, but very bizarre, as it was not by sword, or gun, or cannon fire, but a drink that killed the soldier.

In a corner of the graveyard belonging to the Winchester Cathedral, Thetcher’s gravestone marks his final resting place. It also features this inscription:

In Memory of Thomas Thetcher a Grenadier in the North Reg. of Hants Militia, who died of a violent Fever contracted by drinking Small Beer when hot the 12 May 1764. Aged 26 Years.

Here sleeps in peace a Hampshire Grenadier,

Who caught his death by drinking cold small Beer,

Soldiers be wise from his untimely fall

And when ye’re hot drink Strong or none at all.

An Honest Soldier never is forgot

Whether he die by Musket or by Pot.

Many years later in 1918, an American soldier stationed in Winchester visited the cathedral and came across Thomas Thetcher’s grave. The soldier, Bill Wilson, was deeply affected by the inscription that even years after returning from the war, it may have saved his life.

Wilson became a successful businessman shortly after returning home, but within a few years his life was controlled by heavy drinking. His drinking was so detrimental to his health that it was believed the only way to save his life was to lock him away. Against all odds, Wilson along with a fellow group of alcoholics found a way to achieve and maintain sobriety. He eventually wrote a book about his experiences, a book that is world-renowned, Alcoholics Anonymous. Wilson would go on to co-found Alcoholics Anonymous. He considered the gravestone to be a major influence on his own recovery.

Editor’s Note: There is debate among medical professionals as to the cause of Thetcher’s death. Some medical professionals have proposed that Thetcher’s death was the result of fainting when a cold liquid is consumed on an extremely hot day. Others say that it is most likely that he passed from cholera or typhoid from a contaminated beer. Regardless of the cause, his death inspired the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous which has saved thousands of lives worldwide.

In the early 1950s teenage Lyle Dorsett and his family moved to Birmingham from Kansas City, Missouri. They were outsiders, often labeled Yankees by peers. But one summer evening in 1953, Dorsett was walking to his house after work and decided to take a shortcut through the campus of then-Howard College (now Samford University).

He was immediately intrigued by the sight he saw: a large tent on the football field featuring a magnetic preacher. As Dorsett drew near, he could hear evangelist Eddie Martin preaching on the parable of the prodigal son, calling other prodigals to come home. Dorsett said, “I knew I was the prodigal and … needed to come home.”

Martin asked those in attendance to return the next evening. Dorsett came early, and this time was seated near the front. When the call came, “the evangelist led me through a sinner’s prayer. I confessed my need for forgiveness. While being led in prayer, I strongly felt the presence of Jesus Christ. I sensed his love and forgiveness as well as his call to preach the gospel.”

Shortly thereafter, Dorsett and his parents joined a local Baptist church. However, 18 months later, Dorsett’s family moved back to Kansas City. On his return, gradually he drifted. During his time in college, he embraced a materialistic worldview. He received a Ph.D. in history but despite professional success, he began to drink heavily and became an alcoholic. His wife, Mary, who became a Christian after their marriage, began to pray.

One evening, he stormed out of the house after Mary asked him not to drink around the children. He found a bar and drank until closing. While driving up a winding mountain road, he stopped at an overlook and blacked out. The next morning, he woke up on a dirt road at the bottom of a mountain next to a cemetery not having any memory of the drive.

Dorsett cried out to God, “Lord, if you are there, please help me.” At that moment, he recognized that the same presence he had met in Birmingham was with him in the car and loved him. The prodigal son had finally, truly come home. He said, “Although I made countless mistakes, the Lord never gave up on me.”

God then called Dorsett to full-time ministry, ordination in the Anglican Church, and eventually to the Billy Graham Chair of Evangelism at Beeson Divinity School, Samford University, where he had first heard God’s call to preach.

He concludes,

Over the years God has proved to be a gentle Comforter—like when Mary underwent massive surgery for cancer, and when our 10-year-old daughter died unexpectedly. Certainly, the most humbling and reassuring lesson is his persistence in drawing me to himself. And it was he who pursued me and sustained the relationship when I strayed in ignorant sheeplike fashion, doubted his existence, and then like the Prodigal Son deliberately moved to the far country. And it is all grace—unearned, undeserved, unrepayable grace.

By 2018, country artist Walker Hayes had gotten sober but then tragedy struck. He and his wife, Laney, lost their seventh child, Oakleigh, at birth. It's a moment he now recognizes as a "real test down here on earth." He described it by saying, "Just holding a lifeless child. It's indescribable. I can't imagine a worse pain." He admits that for a moment, his sobriety was in jeopardy. "I'd been sober for three years when we lost Oakleigh. I was ready to not be. As soon as that happened, I was like, this is why you drink."

The loss of Oakleigh is what Hayes credits with helping him find his faith. He said, “When we lost Oakleigh, I would have called myself an atheist.” Hayes said that he grew up in a Southern Baptist church but that as a rebellious child he did not connect with religion. He grew to resent it. But when faced with a kind of grief he'd never experienced before, things began to change. "I think I found out in a roundabout way that I was screaming at somebody. I would have called myself an atheist, but I was looking for someone to blame."

But it wasn't just one thing that suddenly brought him to church. Laney had befriended a fellow mom and that mom invited the family to her and her husband's new church. Hayes said that although he went in kicking and screaming, he suddenly felt the opposite of how he'd felt in church before.

But the final push came while reading a book late one night on his tour bus. "By the grace of God somebody recommended a book to Laney called Secrets of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Butterfield. This woman's testimony, it's exactly like mine except I hadn't surrendered yet … I wolfed this book down. I finished it by the time the sun came up.”

Hayes explained that he didn't "come to Christ" that morning but rather he bought a Bible and began to read on his own and learn. Slowly, his faith was restored. But he is confident that the catalyst for this huge awakening in his life was a direct result of immeasurable loss. He said, “I know for some reason losing Oakleigh led me to Christ. I would not know Jesus if I had not known the loss of my daughter. That's what it took for me.”

John Joseph shares his testimony of coming out of a life of drug abuse through the grace of God who gave him a new heart:

In high school, life revolved around sports and popularity. My life got further out of control with each passing year. The weekend parties of my freshman year became weeklong parties by my senior year, as casual drinking metastasized into alcoholism.

I began selling drugs and I (was) also introduced to cocaine. And cocaine stole my soul. Then I started selling cocaine. I became a monster—a liar and a thief. I used everyone and everything to serve myself. I didn’t care who I hurt.

I decided to make drastic changes, and I enlisted in the US Coast Guard. And although boot camp gave me some much-needed structure and discipline, it couldn’t change my heart. I fell back into the same way of living.

Then God put Art Thompson in my life. Art was a young kid who had just joined the Coast Guard. Art loved Jesus, and he loved me. He faithfully shared the gospel with me, always making a point to say, “Jesus loves you, bro.” He described how Jesus had changed his life. Art had a serious joy that I wanted in my own life. I just didn’t know how to get it.

In 2008, I was re-stationed (to California). And despite the change in scenery, the same problems with drinking and drugs followed me. But then I started attending church. The problem was that I still conceived of the gospel as a call to change myself through willpower. I stopped drinking and doing drugs and started exercising self-control. I had saved myself. And then the bottom fell out. While celebrating New Year’s Eve with some old friends, a round of casual drinking turned into an all-out binge. I was so drunk that I blacked out.

I drove home in a state of despair, convinced I could never truly change. Arriving back, I thought I would listen to a sermon to clear my mind. I had learned about a preacher named John Piper. Before long I found myself captivated. Piper’s preaching about God, sin, justice, and hell was unlike anything I’d ever heard. For the first time, I understood that I was guilty of more than doing “bad things”—I had sinned against God and deserved his judgment.

Two nights later, I listened to another Piper sermon, one on John 3:16. Depending on how we respond to it, he preached, we will either spend eternity with God in heaven or apart from him in hell. I distinctly remembering time slowing to a crawl as he said those words. I was replaying the last 10 years of my life: the lying, the drunkenness, the drug use—all my terrible sins against a holy God. I felt the crushing weight of it, and I knew I was going to hell. And then, I knew I wasn’t.

The burden of my sin fell off in an instant, replaced with the knowledge that Jesus was Lord and God had saved me. That moment led to an immediate and radical change, as God removed my heart of stone and gave me a heart of flesh. He had set me free from my sin.

Editor’s Note: Today John Joseph is lead pastor of Cheverly Baptist Church in Bladensburg, Maryland.

CC Sabathia was a six-time MLB All-Star and won the 2009 World Series, pitching for the New York Yankees. By outside standards, he spent those years living the dream. But inside, he was living a nightmare.

Sabathia opened up about his past in a recently published memoir entitled Till the End. He also spoke candidly with CBS This Morning about the personal struggles he endured during his career. Overwhelmed with grief from the loss of his dad and a cousin, Sabathia says he developed an addiction to alcohol during his playing years:

I would pitch, and then the next three days, I would drink. So, the day after, right after I came out of the game, I would need a drink and would drink the next three days, and I would take two days off, pitch and do it all over again. So, I kind of had a routine where I would normalize drinking for three days, like a bender, and would detox myself, be able to pitch — and do it all over again.

Apparently, his drinking became so common, he thought it was normal:

It was just part of my routine. So much so that when I went to rehab, I came out and I was thinking 'how am I going to do this without alcohol' because it had become so much a part of my routine that it was a part of my pitching.

Retired since 2019, Sabathia says he’s now been clean for six years, and is working to help others understand hidden dynamics around alcoholism and addiction in general:

I want everybody to be able to relate to it. And you can have all these things, all the money and all the stuff, but still struggle with mental health and be alcohol dependent. But you can get help. The toughest thing about dealing with alcohol dependency is reaching out and saying that you need help and that you can't fight this alone.

Possible Preaching Angle:

When we are honest with our struggles, we give others a chance to be the hands and feet of Jesus for us, just as we can in turn do for them. Addiction has the potential to rob us of our potential, but when we help others embrace wholeness and recovery, we help bring that potential into reality.

Dr. David H. Rosmarin, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School argues that “Psychiatry Needs to Get Right with God.” That’s the title of his recent article in Scientific American, Rosmarin writes:

Nearly 60 percent of psychiatric patients want to discuss spirituality in the context of their treatment. Yet we rarely provide such an opportunity. … Of more than 90,000 active projects within the National Institutes of Health, fewer than 20 mention spirituality anywhere in the abstract, and only one project contains this term in its title.

In the wake of COVID-19, Rosmarin observed our hunger for a connection with God and the church. In the early days of the pandemic, Jeanet Bentzen of the University of Copenhagen examined Google searches for the word “prayer” in 95 countries. She identified that they hit an all-time global high in March 2020, and increases occurred in lockstep with the number of COVID-19 cases identified in each country.

In the past year, American mental health sank to the lowest point in history: Incidence of mental disorders increased by 50 percent, compared with before the pandemic, alcohol and other substance abuse surged, and young adults were more than twice as likely to seriously consider suicide than they were in 2018. Yet the only group to see improvements in mental health during the past year were those who attended religious services at least weekly (virtually or in-person): 46 percent report “excellent” mental health today versus 42 percent one year ago.

Montee Ball remembers the day he could have changed the course of his career. The Denver Broncos' running backs coach, Eric Studesville, smelled the alcohol coming from Ball during practice, then confronted him kindly, in private. Ball later said, “He pulled me to the side and asked me if I needed any help, any resources. And I told him no.”

Alcoholism cut Ball's career short soon thereafter: He fell out of the NFL after just two seasons. Then in February 2016, he was arrested on charges of a felony battery against his girlfriend at the time. Ball said,

The straw that broke the camel's back was obviously the domestic-violence situation. When I landed in jail ... in my head I'm like, “Okay, I've never done anything like this, what is going on with me?” And that pushed me over the edge in a good way to go to therapy. For the entire part of my drinking life, I wasn't being honest with myself. But by being honest with myself, but reaching out for help, by sticking with my therapy, it feels that I am the most free, that burden has been lifted off my shoulders.

Six years later, he's working to ensure that as few people as possible miss the opportunity he did back then. Ball has become a key figure in programs dedicated to recovery and social work. He also hosts a podcast called "Untapped Keg" which highlights the experiences of people overcoming addiction and other mental-health issues.

CBS News reports that since its inception in the 1970s, the Human Intervention Motivation Study has given second chances to thousands of men and women in danger of losing their families, careers, and even their lives.

Eighty percent of HIMS participants never relapse at all, and of the ones who do, most only relapse once. Its sparkling record is indicative of HIMS' important role in maintaining the public's trust in its class of clientele, who are, first and foremost, human beings. But they're also airline pilots.

Pilots deal with a variety of emotional and psychological struggles that contribute to addiction, and the high-stakes nature of their work requires strict enforcement. However, the demand for their specialized ability created a need for airline officials and government regulators to alter their approach to substance abuse toward an emphasis on rehabilitation and recovery.

According to Dr. Lynn Hankes, who ran an FAA-approved rehab facility in South Miami, the secret to HIMS' success is twofold. Successful rehab requires a structured system in place, which often consists of a month in a rehab facility, and a minimum of three years of drug-related monitoring and testing.

But it also requires external motivation. "If you threaten a pilot with taking away his wings, it's like threatening a doctor with taking away his stethoscope. That's a lot of leverage. If they want to get back to the cockpit or the operating room, they gotta jump through the hoops."

This approach has not only increased safety for air travelers, but it's been a lifeline for pilots like Lyle Prouse, who was able to retire honorably after a previous arrest, a stint in prison, and entry into the HIMS program.

"I've gotten to live out more miracles than anybody I know," said Prouse. "I suppose without sounding preachy or evangelistic, the only thing I can attribute it to is God's grace."

Potential preaching angles: Second chances are always possible, leaders should aim to restore those caught in sin, those with greater responsibility need to be held with greater accountability.

In a 2015 interview with GQ, actor Rob Lowe admits he got sober through public humiliation. The pretty boy of the 1980s TV show Brat Pack, Lowe spent his early 20s enjoying fame and women. "In those days, the pre-sobriety days, it was, like, all good. You know: However I can get there … I was perfectly happy." But Lowe's career came crashing to a halt, he hit bottom, and entered rehab for his addiction.

He hasn't had a drink since. What's his secret? Lowe said, "For someone in recovery like me, the single greatest hurdle—the number one with a bullet that will make you drink—is resentment. You can't have it. People always say, 'How have you been sober 26 years? What's the secret?' Well, that's it."

Possible Preaching Angles: Rob Lowe is not a believer nor does he espouse a Christian worldview, but this quote does express a key biblical truth.

In a Christianity Today article, a 30-year-old Christian named D.L. Mayfield describes how her and her husband made a decision to abstain from alcohol:

Our first shock when we moved into [a low-income neighborhood] was the amount of substance abuse that surrounded us … I would go to get my mail and find a man blocking the stairs, passed out and unresponsive at 11 in the morning. We have neighbors who eat raw chicken when they are drunk and get terribly sick; others who suffer from alcohol-related psychosis and bang symphonies on the trees outside our window at all hours of the night … Empty vodka growlers line the living room of one… There are people in our building who die because of alcohol—cirrhosis of the liver, asphyxiation from their vomit, slow-sinking suicides everywhere we turn.

And suddenly, alcohol is no longer fun. Instead it is a substance that changes my friends and neighbors, making them unpredictable and unsafe … There are other neighbors here too, people who are in various stages of recovery … They shake their heads and tell me they don't touch the stuff anymore. They find that every sober day is a gift.

After a year of living among them, I gradually just … stopped. I dreaded going to the liquor store, imagining the faces I would see there. I saw my neighbors get off the bus with a 12-pack in each hand, and I was less likely to get a beer the next time I was out. Eventually, I realized I could abstain from alcohol entirely, that it could even be a spiritual discipline for me—a way to pray and identify with my literal neighbors, who could not stop … Since so many were caught in the cycle of stumbling and picking themselves up again, it became good for me to not drink, as a way to stand with the brothers and sisters I was learning to love.

In his book “Grace” Max Lucado writes:

Ever since my high school buddy and I drank ourselves sick with a case of quarts, I have liked beer …. Out of the keg, tap, bottle, or frosty mug—it doesn't matter to me. I like it.

[But I also know that] alcoholism haunts my family ancestry. I have early memories of following my father through the halls of a rehab center to see his sister. Similar scenes repeated themselves with other relatives for decades. Beer doesn't mix well with my family DNA. So at the age of twenty-one, I swore off it ….

Then a few years back something resurrected my cravings …. At some point I reached for a can of brew instead of a can of soda, and as quick as you can pop the top, I was a beer fan again. A once-in-a-while … then once-a-week … then once-a-day beer fan.

I kept my preference to myself. No beer at home, lest my daughters think less of me. No beer in public. Who knows who might see me? None at home, none in public leaves only one option: convenience-store parking lots. For about a week I was that guy in the car, drinking out of the brown paper bag.

No, I don't know what resurrected my cravings, but I remember what stunted them. En route to speak at a men's retreat, I stopped for my daily purchase. I walked out of the convenience store with a beer pressed against my side, scurried to my car for fear of being seen, opened the door, climbed in, and opened the can.

Then it dawned on me. I had become the very thing I hate: a hypocrite. A pretender. Two-faced. Acting one way. Living another. I had written sermons about people like me—Christians who care more about appearance than integrity. It wasn't the beer but the cover-up that nauseated me.

[So what] happened with my hypocrisy? First I threw the can of beer in the trash. Next I sat in the car for a long time, praying. Then I scheduled a visit with our church elders. I didn't embellish or downplay my actions; I just confessed them. And they, in turn, pronounced forgiveness over me. Jim Potts, a dear, silver-haired saint, reached across the table and put his hand on my shoulder and said something like this: "What you did was wrong. But what you are doing tonight is right. God's love is great enough to cover your sin. Trust his grace."

After talking to the elders, I spoke to the church. At our midweek gathering I once again told the story. I apologized for my duplicity and requested the prayers of the congregation. What followed was a refreshing hour of confession in which other people did the same. The church was strengthened, not weakened, by our honesty.

God gives his commands for our good. For example, God forbids drunkenness. Studies into drunkenness among college students provide a glimpse into the harm that comes to people who are intoxicated. Sharon Jayson writes:

Students in [researcher Laina Bay-Cheng's] studies described alcohol as emboldening and said it offers "liquid courage," a phrase other researchers also have cited.

Drinking allows young women to "act out being sexually assertive, carefree, liberated," she says, and can be an excuse for their sexual behavior.

"If you have sex, you're a slut, and if you don't, you're a prude—but drinking allows you to do both," she says. "You can go out, get drunk, have sex and the next day say, 'I'm still a good girl.'"

[One Ohio University student who was interviewed] says she has observed that sentiment on campus. "'I was drunk so I hooked up with that guy.' 'I was drunk so I missed my class this morning.' 'I was drunk so I got in a fight.' If it's something they're not proud of, it gives them an excuse."

An article from Wired Magazine explored why AA has been able to help millions of people recover from an alcohol addiction. The article begins by stating, "Despite all we've learned over the past few decades about psychology, neurology, and human behavior, contemporary medicine has yet to devise anything that works markedly better." The question is: Why does AA help so many people find and maintain sobriety?

This article focused on one factor: the power in a small group of like-minded friends who provide support, honesty, and accountability. The article described how honestly sharing problems with a small group of supportive friends has been shown to help people overcome their problems. As a few examples:

• In 1905 a Boston physician named Joseph Pratt organized weekly meetings for patients with tuberculosis. He was simply trying to teach them better health habits; surprisingly, he discovered that the groups also excelled at providing emotional support. He concluded that by sharing about their "common disease" they developed a "common bond."
• In a more recent study at Stanford University, a pair of researchers reviewed over 200 studies on group therapy and concluded that group members "develop close bonds with the other members and are deeply influenced by their acceptance and feedback."
• A 2009 study of those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder found that 88.3 percent of those who participated in group therapy no longer exhibited PTSD symptoms, versus just 31.3 percent of those who received minimal one-on-one interaction.
• There is also evidence that the act of confessing one's faults to a few safe people—enshrined in AA's fifth step—helps in changing addictive patterns. According to the researchers, "Revealing one's deepest flaws and hearing others do likewise forces a person to confront the terrible consequences of their alcoholism—something that is very difficult to do alone."

Conversely, some research studies have shown how friendships can also lead us to adopt negative behaviors. For instance, a 2010 paper published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that a person is 50 percent more likely to be a heavy drinker if a friend or relative is a heavy drinker. Also, a 2007 study concluded that a person's odds of becoming obese increase by 71 percent if he or she has a same-sex friend who is also obese.

Craig C. had been an alcoholic for more than a dozen years. He'd lost everything he had, including his wife and son, due to his selfishness and addiction. Things began to change after he gave his life to Christ, but he still fell regularly into his old habits. It didn't help that he'd lost his well-paying job and was clerking at a local grocery store that was well stocked with all his favorite drinks. After a few years of going back and forth between Christ and the bottle, he finally cut the ties, and, out of obedience to Christ, quit his job.

With no income and hope only in Christ, he was in desperate condition. After an interview with a sheet metal company down the street from his new church, he cried out to God. "God, if you give me this job I will give you my first paycheck." Surprisingly, he got the job.

He clearly remembers the day when he got his first paycheck. Stacks of bills needed to be paid. Penniless but determined, he endorsed it over to the church and walked it to the church office without waiting for the Sunday offering. That was the moment, he says, that changed his life because now he understood what it meant to trust God.

As of today, Craig has been sober for 25 years, he's a manager at that sheet metal company, and he serves as an elder at his local church.

In his book Finishing Strong, Steve Farrar sums up well the terrible price of sin:

"Sin will take you farther than you want to go,

Keep you longer than you want to stay,

And cost you more than you're willing to pay."

For 45 years, Pat Summerall's voice and face spelled football. He anchored CBS and FOX's NFL telecasts (often alongside John Madden) and broadcast 16 Super Bowls (and served as a CBS Radio analyst or pregame reporter for 10 more). This is the part of Pat Summerall's story that most people know. In the Christian sports magazine Sports Spectrum, reporter Art Stricklin tells the rest of Pat's story:

Pat was an only child whose parents divorced before he was born, leaving him feeling empty and alone. He became an alcoholic, living from drink to drink as his body broke down. During the 1994 Masters tournament—[Summerall also did voiceover work for high-profile golf tournaments]—he faced up: "I'd been getting sick a lot, throwing up blood—and I got sick again at 4 a.m. I looked in the mirror, saw what a terrible sight I was, and said to myself, This isn't how I want to live."

Pat spent 33 days in the Betty Ford Center in Palm Springs, California. This helped alleviate his alcohol problems but didn't address his spiritual vacuum. Then he bumped into [Tom Landry, his old football coach from his days as a star kicker]. [Landry] explained about [Pat's] spiritual need and connected him with Dallas Cowboy's chaplain John Weber. Pat's life was transformed, and he was baptized at age 69.

Art Stricklin closes his article with a few words chaplain John Weber offered to sum up Summerall's journey: "[Pat] was once the life of every party with a drink in his hand. Now he gets his power from another source."