Someone asked me recently about TLC's success rate. In other words how many of our clients stayed sober once they left the program? And how many failed while they were still in the program? I said that I didn't know, that we couldn't afford to track those kind of statistics.

The person then asked me if I became discouraged when people relapsed after all the effort we put into helping them. I repeated for him a story someone once told me. It was about a man who was walking along a beach covered with thousands of starfish that had washed ashore during a storm.

During his walk every so often the man would reach down and pick up one of the starfish and throw it back into the water. He repeated this for a half-mile or so of his walk. Finally, a man who was observing what he was doing stopped him.

"What are you doing?" The man asked.

"Saving starfish," the man responded.

"Yeah, but there are thousands of starfish on this beach," the questioner told him. "You're not going to make much difference."

"It'll make a difference to the one I threw back in the water," the man replied.

The point of this maybe apocryphal tale is obvious. If we can help even one person, then our efforts are not in vain. Early on I used to get depressed because it seemed like so many people were relapsing. But today I realize that the important thing is that we make the effort.

The results are up to God.