Tex Sample is a respected theologian, author and emeritus professor at the St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Mo., where he taught when Steve was growing up. He said that he and his wife tried gentle love, tough love, counselors, special schools--everything they could think of--to help Steve with his problems, but nothing seemed to work. For 15 years, they lived in fear, waiting for the next call from a hospital or jail.

Steve had tried drug rehab programs before, but at age 28, his newly clean and sober fiancé convinced him to try again. Something connected when a drug counselor told him he needed to find a new "playpen" and some new "playmates" if he ever hoped to achieve sobriety. His determination to quit drinking and drugging and his love of motorcycles led him to an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) motorcycle club. Although more "traditional" AA groups hadn't clicked before, Steve thrived in this AA motorcycle fellowship, which combined members' love of riding with their commitment to Twelve Step recovery and service. This club, said Tex Sample, "became Steve's church," and his life changed dramatically as they "played and prayed together." Soon Steve was helping others just as he had been helped.

"This motley crew of about 30 or 40 men and women became his extended family and included us," Tex Sample writes in his new book, "Earthy Mysticism: Spirituality for Unspiritual People" (Abingdon Press, March 2008). "I can remember phone calls from members of the group just checking in to say how well Steve was doing and that they were all working together. They seemed like a mobile church. . . . I often wondered how Steve could have made it and what he could possibly have done to stay sober without the gift of this amazing group of bikers."

Tragically, Steve's life ended when he was riding with club friends and his bike was accidentally struck by a truck. But his family took comfort in the fact that Steve died sober, doing something he loved. The motorcycle club that had become such an integral part of Steve's life offered immediate solace and ongoing comfort to Sample and his family. At the funeral, rows of bikers in leather riding garb, many of them sporting colorful tattoos, led the filled church in the prayer they said at their AA meetings.

Compassion, fellowship, sobriety and service are not nouns that usually come to mind when we picture a motorcycle gang. Bikers are stereotypically linked with drugs, alcohol, crime, hard partying and hard living. The biker gang Hell's Angels is even credited with giving methamphetamine its nickname "crank," because they used to smuggle the drug into this country from Mexico in the hollow crankshafts of their motorcycles.

Yet, sober motorcycle clubs can be found throughout the country. For example, the X Winos (www.xwinos-mc.com), formed around 1977 with chapters in Minnesota and Kansas, claim to be the oldest sober motorcycle club in the world. They provide links at their Web site to 50 some other sober biker groups. Like the other sober clubs, the X Winos primary purpose is to stay sober and to help other bikers in need achieve sobriety. As their mission statement reads, "We've all lived the other life and found that life doesn't end after alcohol and drugs. . . It begins."

While many in recovery benefit from Twelve Step groups whose members have interests, occupations or lifestyles very different from their own, others, like Steve's, prefer meeting with those who share like interests or experiences. For example, there are groups for pilots, attorneys, gays, seniors, Vietnam vets and more. Whatever the group, there is, however, one shared purpose that surpasses any and all differences: to live clean and sober, one day at a time.

There's an AA group out there for anyone who has the desire to quit drinking. To find a meeting near your, visit www.alcoholics-anonymous.org and click on "How to find an AA meeting."

--Published March 3, 2008