I didn't read about it. I lived it.

I drank and I drugged for most of my adult life — at least a half gallon of Jack a day by the end. At 43 I finally crashed and burned. I destroyed my marriage and my business, and I lost my home and my property.

I'd been sitting on my porch crying for months, every night saying I wanted to quit. Then I'd wake up with the withdrawals and the dread and the anxiety, and I'd drink again. When my marriage failed, I got on the phone with a friend of mine named Beba and she said, "Bubba, you need to quit drinking." I said okay. I poured out two half gallons of Jack Daniel's. It's like I just needed somebody else to tell me to stop. Like that's all I needed, I guess — I'd been in so much pain.

Then I detoxed on my couch for a week, not knowing if I was going to die. No sleep, or an hour of it, nightmares, the sweats, the body cramps, the aches on the inside, not knowing if my body was shutting down. I told God I didn't want to die, but if I did, it was okay. I don't recommend anybody detox off alcohol alone. It can kill you. Get medical help. I got lucky.

After about a week I got my mobility back, a little at a time. I could walk without sliding my feet. I quit hallucinating. And I knew I had to get into the gym. I'd worked in fitness for 13 years — it wasn't new to me, I'd just stopped as the drinking took over.

At 43, I wasn't in there thinking I'd build some great physique. I went so I wouldn't go crazy. My mind was running a thousand miles an hour with the anxiety and the wreckage of my past. Some days I was in there one to three times. I had no job, no money, no business. I was completely broke, lost and broken. The gym is what kept me from picking back up and kept me from losing my mind. So I worked out, and I worked out, and I worked out.

A couple months sober I came across Jimmy Queen's content online, and it lit something in me. Day to day, he showed me I could rebuild my life and become a man again. He's also the reason I wanted to start putting out content of my own one day, so I could help somebody else the way he helped me. It took me almost three years to work up the courage to get in front of a camera — but I finally did it, and it's the thing that truly fulfills me.

I got into a 12-step program, which helped me more than I can say. And most important of all, I surrendered to God. I'd hit my knees in my house alone and talk to Him, and yell, and purge the pain out of me. I was by myself, but that's where God needed me. He stripped me naked, figuratively speaking.

Then, for the first time in my life, I took 100% accountability for where I was and how I got there. That gave me a foundation to build on. I started working on myself, and after a while I could look at the man in the mirror and have a little drop of respect for him. Slowly, my self-worth came back.

I had no idea my body would end up looking like this. The gift I had was that I already knew how to do the work — and for the first time in years, I had the willingness to show up every single day.

My marriage didn't survive it. A year after I sobered up I got the chance to move to Phoenix, and I went into business with a friend of mine named Daniel — we started an electrical company, B & D Electric.

Understand something — it was not fast. It took three and a half years, and people look at it and say that's quick. It wasn't. It was second by second some days. Then minute by minute, hour by hour, week by week, month by month.

And it is not easy. It's very hard. Not every day is rainbows and sunshine. I had to dig myself out of the trenches as a 43-year-old man. There's no mama. Nobody's patting you on the back telling you "come on boy, you can do it." I got up when I didn't feel like it, every single day. I worked a labor pool taking odd jobs just to make enough money to eat. I started at the absolute bottom.

Nothing changes if nothing changes. I finally got willing, because the pain got great enough — that's what they call the gift of desperation. All I wanted was to be a likable, desirable man again. To be a man again.

Today I'm 47. I'm an online fitness coach, I co-own B & D Electric with Daniel, I co-own a peptide company — PrimalGenix USA — and I've got a merch brand coming. I built a life I look forward to waking up to every day. And somewhere along the way I fell in love with the journey itself — there is no destination. I live a life beyond my wildest dreams. I'm an extremely blessed man, and I owe every bit of it to God.

I rebuilt my life from the inside out. I built the man first — the life is just the evidence. That's the part I can teach you.

I built the man. The life is evidence of it. If I can come back from where I came from, you can too.

— Billy Marks