Michael Phelps' Final Turn

With his Olympics curtain call weeks away, the greatest swimmer of all time hopes to put his nightmares behind him and embrace life on dry land.

- Wayne Drehs

Snakes. For as long as Michael Phelps can remember, he’s hated snakes. As a little boy, he picked up a rock in his parents’ front yard and found a hissing, slithering snake. He was so traumatized that for decades the memory would replay in nightmares that left him shaking, sweating and unable to fall back to sleep. Friends and family weren’t even allowed to say the word “snake” in his presence.

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.