Al Unser Jr. Is Putting the Brakes on Alcoholism

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"When you won the race, they gave you champagne," he said. "Now, I wasn't a big drinker in my twenties and thirties, but, again, the disease is progressive. So, it progressed on me and ended up taking over my life, and I didn't even know it."

Unser Jr. first came to terms with his illness back in 2002, after an arrest for a domestic violence incident.

"I kind of looked back on the fact that any time I got in trouble, it was alcohol-related," he said. "So, I put myself into a rehab, and I learned about the disease. Prior to that, my wife, Gina, would say to me that I'm an alcoholic, and I would say 'no way.' But with her past knowledge of the disease -- meaning her mom was an alcoholic -- she knew what she was talking about."

Unser Jr. could also have looked to his own family history, since his mother's father died of alcoholism.

But his 2002 attempt at rehab was short-lived. After 56 days sober, Unser Jr. started drinking again.

"During those 56 days, I started to tell myself, 'I'm not an alcoholic,'" he said. "That I can have one drink and stop. I had so many plans, so many different ways to prove that I wasn't an alcoholic. That's the sickness of the disease."

Retirement from the circuit in 2004 only exacerbated things.

"When I retired, I ended up drinking even more," he remarked. "It was a never-ending cycle. But I had control of it -- I thought. And, in fact, it had control of me the whole time, which eventually got me in trouble again this last January."

This time, Unser Jr. was arrested in Nevada for driving under the influence -- an event he described as a rock-bottom turning point.

"I was a professional racecar driver that was arrested for DUI," he said. "I had never been arrested for anything of that nature before." That event "made me take a long hard look at my life," he said. "It made me admit 100 percent I'm an alcoholic. And I'm going to get control of this disease."

Since that time, treatment has meant reading as much as he can about the disease and talking with other alcoholics. Unser Jr. says he has not yet taken any prescription medications to help curb his alcoholism.