Life imitated art far too closely for Dan Spivey.

During the mid-1990s, Spivey wrestled for WWE as Waylon Mercy. The character was inspired by Robert De Niro's acclaimed portrayal of the heinous Max Cady in the 1991 movie "Cape Fear."

Spivey played the role to a tee with villainous tactics that belied his soft-spoken interviews tinted with a Southern drawl. But as creepy as Waylon Mercy came across, Spivey's behavior was admittedly just as degenerate outside the ring. His long-running battle with substance abuse led to a 2007 drunk-driving arrest and medical problems that almost killed him.

Now sober for 2-1/2 years after three stints in rehabilitation programs, Spivey is trying to help others through his own counseling service. Spivey also has regained the trust of friends and family members whom he had alienated by his actions.

"People enjoy being around me now," Spivey, 58, recently said in a telephone interview from his Odessa, Fla., home. "People aren't scared to come and talk to me. My family lets me come over to visit and play with the kids.

"I care about people now. I'm not out looking to screw anyone over. Back then, I was interested in what you had and what I could get out of you."

In a powerful testimonial on his Sober Choice website, Spivey admits that his drug troubles began while on the University of Georgia's football team in the 1970s.

"I would take speed, or black beauties, as we called them back in the old days, when I played," Spivey said in the interview, also mentioning that he became involved with organized gamblers during that time. "I was drawn to anything that was fun and always just did it too much. I went from one addiction to another."

Having failed to stick as a 13th-round 1975 New York Jets draft choice, Spivey branched into dealing marijuana and cocaine before finding a new calling as a professional wrestler in the mid-1980s at the age of 32. Spivey and partner Scott Hall were so determined to succeed that both worked on the grounds crew of a minor league baseball team (the Charlotte Orioles) while taking their lumps in training with Jim Crockett Promotions.

"We didn't have it as bad as others, but it was rough," Spivey said. "We ate a lot of tuna-salad sandwiches driving in my old 1971 pickup truck. ...

"If somebody told you, 'We're going to give you $50 and a six-pack for you to drive 300 miles each night and wrestle,' what person in their right mind would do that? That's insane."

Such hard work did pay off for Hall and Spivey, even if their American Starship tag team was short-lived. Both achieved pro-wrestling stardom, albeit through different paths.

Hall's big break came in WWE during the early 1990s as the bullying heel Razor Ramon. While he also wrestled for WWE and World Championship Wrestling like Hall, Spivey enjoyed his greatest success overseas.

He was a frequent tag-team partner of Stan Hansen for All Japan Pro Wrestling, a company that emphasized athletic, hard-hitting matches over cartoonlike theatrics. That rugged style suited the 6-foot-6, 310-pound Spivey.

After splitting time wrestling in Japan and the U.S., Spivey decided to retry his luck in WWE with the Waylon Mercy gimmick. But while WWE gave him a strong promotional push, Spivey was unable to capitalize and decided to retire in late 1995. Surgeries later followed for hip and knee replacements as well as neck fusion because of damaged discs, which increased Spivey's dependence on pain-killing medication.

"I wish I would have been given that character earlier in my career," Spivey said. "I really enjoyed doing it. It was the first time I got to be someone other than Dan Spivey. But I was in such bad shape. I was in a lot of pain."

Over the next 13 years, Spivey continued to battle addiction. One particularly harrowing incident came when Spivey was hospitalized when trying to quit taking alcohol and Xanax. Spivey remembers ripping the IV out of his arm and wandering outside from the intensive-care unit to smoke cigarettes "with blood squirting out of my arm. They had to tie me back down in bed for a day."

Spivey's subsequent involvement with Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous inspired him to try and help pro-wrestling peers with their chemical-dependence issues.

Substance abuse has contributed to the deaths of a staggering number of Spivey's peers. One of the performers possibly headed down that same road is Hall, whose frequent hospitalizations and disjointed performances at recent independent shows are reason for alarm.

Spivey said his last communication with Hall came one year ago. He declined to elaborate.

Spivey, though, can understand why what he described as pro wrestling's "rock-and-roll lifestyle" in the 1980s and '90s has contributed to so many fatalities.

"Drugs were everywhere then," he said. "It was just a way of life. ... By the grace of God, I was given a second chance."

Spivey has since expanded Sober Choice's outreach to those outside grappling. The service provides accompaniment and support for those traveling to and/or from rehab facilities.

"I figure God put me through 40 years of different aspects of addiction to learn what not to do and possibly help others."