Yet in October 2014, when instructed in art therapy to draw a fearful image from his childhood, Phelps drew that moment he could never escape. It was a testament to how far he had come at The Meadows, a psychological trauma and addiction treatment center about an hour northwest of Phoenix.

Phelps entered The Meadows five days after his second DUI arrest on Sept. 30, 2014. In those five days, he barely left his room, ate or slept. But he kept drinking. “He sounded terrible,” longtime coach Bob Bowman says. “Barely coherent.” Upon his arrival, Phelps texted his mother, Debbie, and Bowman telling them it was the most scared he had ever felt. He trembled at the thought of sharing his inner demons with strangers. Two years earlier in London, he’d cemented his status as an Olympic god, but at what cost?

Phelps’ issues centered largely on his complicated relationships with two of the most influential men in his life — the one who had been there for him and the one who pretty much hadn’t. Phelps’ parents divorced when he was 9, and he’d long felt abandoned by his father, Fred. The pool was his escape, and Bowman was a surrogate father of sorts. In the water, he pushed him to perform. Outside the water, he taught him how to drive and knot a tie. http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/16425548/michael-phelps-prepares-life-2016-rio-olympics

Eventually, Phelps realized that all the Olympic medals in the world couldn’t ease his pain — and instead made life more complicated. By 2014, he was approaching 30, lost, with no identity beyond that of a champion swimmer. He self-medicated and wondered whether his was a life worth living. “I didn’t give a s—,” Phelps says. “I had no self-esteem. No self-worth. I thought the world would just be better off without me. I figured that was the best thing to do — just end my life.”

But after his arrest, family and friends persuaded Phelps to get help. Here was his chance, they told him, to face the issues he had avoided for so long. That first day at The Meadows, he barely spoke to anyone. He ate alone and cried himself to sleep. But gradually, he opened up and began to understand his snake nightmares.

It actually all made perfect sense.

Look at how the life of Michael Phelps — including a complicated relationship with his father, Fred, his second DUI arrest in 2014, time in rehab and his connection with former linebacker Ray Lewis — has evolved Phelps into the person he is today.

ON A CLOUDLESS, sun-splashed January morning at the Mona Plummer Aquatic Complex at Arizona State University, Bowman stands under a canopy, the steam from his coffee fading into the air above. Nine months earlier, Bowman left the North Baltimore Aquatic Club to take the head-coaching job at ASU. On this morning, Phelps and nine other Olympic hopefuls push themselves up and down the 50-meter pool, their eyes set on the U.S. Olympic trials (which begin Sunday in Omaha, Nebraska) and ultimately Rio de Janeiro.

Phelps is a virtual lock to make the U.S. team for Rio and become the first American male swimmer to compete in five Olympics. If he wins gold at age 31 (his birthday is June 30), he would become the oldest gold medalist in Olympic swimming history. Ryan Lochte (32) and Matt Grevers (31) could join him in Rio. But Rio is about far more than Phelps adding to his legacy. It’s the next step toward achieving the same peace and balance on land as he’s had in the water.

This morning, Bowman pays only half attention to warm-ups as he tries to explain his relationship with Phelps over the previous two decades. It had all been a secret for so long; not anymore. The pair met in 1996, when Bowman came to North Baltimore on his way to veterinary school. Bowman planned to quit coaching after a pair of Olympic hopefuls left him before the Atlanta Games, but North Baltimore’s Murray Stephens offered him $30,000 to coach for one more season. That’s when he ran into an 11-year-old Phelps. Everything changed.

Even in the beginning, coaching Michael Phelps wasn’t easy. He was diagnosed at age 9 with ADHD and can be stubborn, hardheaded, isolated, unforgiving and ruthless. “I prefer complex,” Bowman says. But those are the same traits that can breed greatness. Bowman was equally dogged, the rare individual who refused to back down from Phelps, even if the swimmer was throwing a water bottle at his head or “MF”-ing him in front of the rest of the team. The dynamic was simple. Bowman pushed Phelps. Phelps pushed back. Bowman pushed even more. Eventually, someone snapped.

“They would go at it, and nothing would stop them,” says Allison Schmitt, another North Baltimore swimmer. “There was nothing you could do but watch. It was like a soap opera.”

The stories of their many fights are legendary. At the Meadowbrook Aquatic & Fitness Center, where Phelps trained, there’s still a massive dent in a door frame, courtesy of Bowman’s right foot after one of their arguments. A trainer has the cracked stopwatch Bowman once chucked at a wall in disgust. And no one will soon forget the time Bowman and Phelps both peeled out of the Meadowbrook parking lot in a testosterone-filled “Days of Thunder”-like rage, middle fingers fully extended.

“The way they handled themselves at times was embarrassing.”

– Debbie Phelps, on Michael and Bowman

“The way they handled themselves at times was embarrassing,” Debbie Phelps says.

In 2010, a screaming match in baggage claim at Baltimore-Washington International Airport ended with Bowman imploring Phelps to swim somewhere else. Bowman says Phelps didn’t go to practice for days. “I thought he was gone,” Bowman says. “Then he showed up like nothing happened.”

Bowman says training sessions often went one of three ways: Phelps would misbehave, undermine Bowman’s instructions or be so focused and dominant that he would demoralize everyone else. And god forbid Bowman show excessive attention to any of his other swimmers. “If there is anybody he thought I liked or might take one ounce of attention away from him, they were on death watch forever,” Bowman says.

Bowman tried to arrive at the pool before any of his athletes, often before 5 a.m. On weekends, Phelps would try to beat him. “And if he ever did, it was, ‘Well, I’m here before you — don’t you know the coach should be here before the athlete?'” Bowman says. “I’d be like, ‘OK, Michael. That’s Bob 5,028 and Michael 2. When you even it up, let me know.'”

Even today, the edgy banter remains. At one January workout, Phelps asks Bowman for his time after completing a set. Bowman doesn’t have it. “See the s— I have to deal with?” Phelps says, grinning. A few days earlier, Bowman missed a training session — a rare occurrence — because he was sick. He says Phelps texted him: “If I would have known you weren’t going to coach me I would have just stayed in Baltimore.” Bowman didn’t take it as a joke.

“Only he would do that,” Bowman says. “Everybody else is worried, ‘Oh my god, Bob never misses a practice.’ And that’s his message to me. And he means it. It’s kind of this egocentric thing.”