Michael Phelps has revealed the unlikely saviour that helped him through dark days

MICHAEL Phelps has revealed an NFL superstar and former double-homicide suspect is the unlikely hero that rescued him from his darkest days.

Pan Pacs at Southport Aquatic Centre. Photo of US super-star Michael Phelps training. Photo by Richard Gosling

MICHAEL Phelps is back on track these days, back swimming with a passion and not drinking anymore, living life to the fullest with the help of NFL Super Bowl champion Ray Lewis. But there was a time the Olympic hero didn’t want to go on anymore, he told Sports Illustrated in a revealing interview.

Phelps was hiding out in his Baltimore home, refusing to go outside for four days, after his 2014 DUI arrest for going 84 mph in a 45-mph zone with a blood-alcohol level of .14, nearly twice the legal limit.

“I was in a really dark place,” Phelps said.

“Not wanting to be alive anymore.”

Members of his family and his close friends pushed the idea of the 18-time gold medallist getting treatment for his alcohol issues (with a side of heavy gambling). At the forefront of the intervention? None other than his good friend, the former Ravens star who once was indicted in a double homicide.

“I gave him some harsh reality,” Lewis said.

“I said, ‘Bro, what are you doing with your life?’”

“He tore me a new one,” said Phelps, a Baltimore native and Ravens fan.

Ray Lewis has been a motivational figure for many.

Phelps says he has been reinvigorated by his 45-day stay at The Meadows in Arizona. Rehab was scary in the beginning, but it gradually improved.

“I wound up uncovering a lot of things about myself that I probably knew, but I didn’t want to approach,” he says.

“One of them was that for a long time, I saw myself as the athlete that I was, but not as a human being. I would be in sessions with complete strangers who know exactly who I am, but they don’t respect me for things I’ve done, but instead for who I am as a human being.

“I found myself feeling happier and happier. And in my group, we formed a family. We all wanted to see each other succeed. It was a new experience for me. It was tough. But it was great.”

Among the burdens Phelps tackled in therapy, he confessed, was a stilted relationship with his father, Fred, who divorced from his mother, Debbie, when Phelps was 9.

We can expect to see this again in Rio next year.

“I felt abandoned,” the 30-year-old told the magazine.

“I would like to have a father in my life, and I’ve been carrying that around for 20 years. That’s a long time. It does something to you. To a kid, especially.”

Phelps emerged from rehab with a renewed purpose in his swim training, setting his sights on another run at history in the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Gone are the morning workouts marred by hangovers, the indifferent practice habits that would see Phelps disappear from the pool for a week at a time.

Hard to believe coming from the most decorated Olympian ever, but Phelps said: “I’ve never really given it everything I have.”

Sports Illustrated reports Phelps is considered the favourite in three events — the 100-meter and 200-meter butterfly and the 200 individual medley — and would become oldest individual Olympic gold medallist in swimming history if he wins. Bowman has scaled back Phelps’ workload, and the one-time prodigy is more muscular and leaner — goodbye, booze weight — adding strength to make up for cardiovascular slippage.

In any event, a more stable and fulfilled Phelps plans to wed fiancee Nicole Johnson, a former ESPN intern (they met at ESPYs in 2007), following the Rio Games. He’s excited for what comes next, after out-swimming his demons.

“We want to have a family,” he said. “We want to have kids.”

Originally published as Michael Phelps has revealed the unlikely saviour that helped him through dark days