My name is Marvin and I am an alcoholic.

I was recently challenged in my life. I have had the same best friend for twenty-five years. Two weeks ago, he went into surgery. They cut him open, looked, and sewed him back up. They gave him three months to live. He's forty-three years old. I have no idea how you guys deal with such a thing, but I decided to do what my sponsor taught me seventeen years ago and deal with it in prayer: Dear God, as You know, on a warm summer day in 1978, Doug "Animal" Raleigh and I took a ride in his white 1969 Camaro ... a day that would lead to a summer we'd never forget. It was the summer we turned on to Van Halen and Journey ... the summer we'd drink until we were blind, and it would be the day and the summer that led to a friendship that has lasted twenty-five years. Today, Animal let me know that his surgery didn't go well. To me, the friendship You've allowed me have with Animal represents all that is good about being young. We laughed together ... we cried together ... we fought side by side in the street together ... we lived as if our lives depended on each other. I thank You for this ... You gave me the best friend a man could ask for. You gave us both memories that have stood the test of time. How could we ever ask for more? I pray that in these final days of Animal's life, You would allow us to live without regret, and that You allow me the strength to stand by him as he has always stood by me. I pray that You would grant him mercy ... that You would see fit to take him from this earth without the endurance of great pain ... that you would respect his beliefs, and allow his soul to walk the Great Plains of the Dakotas with the soul of his grandfather's grandfather. You see, three months isn't very long, and we don't have time to fret, to worry, or to mourn. We're going to live it to the fullest to the end. We're going to do whatever it takes. I thank God for His help. Amen.