He's a Douglas County cop. Daily, he drives around, stopping to talk to kids, to adults, to criminals. He got into policing because, as he said, he wants "to help people."

Why?

At one time he was on the other side of the handcuffs.

He was a homeless guy, stopping to rest at East Colfax and High Street in Denver's Capitol Hill neighborhood. He just thought maybe he'd take in a little sun on a summer afternoon, he recalled Sunday from his living room.

But a Denver police officer, he said, wanted to know what he was doing there. Then when the Denver cop smelled the telltale alcohol on his breath, the officer said he was taking him to detox.

But, he said, he told the Denver officer he wasn't going without a fight.

Two more police cars pulled up, he said. The cops then pulled his jacket over his head, he remembered. And the beating began.

After all, who really cares about a drunk guy, hanging out on a street corner?

He looks up from telling his story, the once-homeless man now a cop.

"I care," he said bluntly. Because he does.

"I started drinking pretty early, you know, when I was a kid," he remembered, one leg pulled up underneath him on his leather couch.

He said he started sneaking nips off his parents' liquor when he was 13, maybe 14. But he didn't really think he had a problem.

Then, in college, he said he started to drink a little more.

"You know, it was just a really big party all the time," he said. "I knew that I liked alcohol."

But then, he said, his grades started to slip.

"You drink to get high," he said, noting that he chose Jack Daniels as his drink of choice.

He started to realize something was wrong.

"I stopped drinking because I knew I had a problem," he said. "I had this Jekyll and Hyde personality you know."

He sobered up, he said, because of his wife.

But that didn't last forever, he remembered.

"After about five years, I started drinking again," he said. "I ended up losing everything."

In those five years, he had gotten married, started an insurance business and had children.

"I'd go along for days, weeks without drinking," he said. "I would think to myself, '... This is no big deal.' "

He said he was sure he wasn't an alcoholic -- he could stop when he wanted to.

"Even I had that stereotype about what an alcoholic was," he said, adding that he thought an alcoholic was one of those vagrants, wandering around downtown.

Eventually, the weeks between binges turned to days, he said. Then the days turned to hours.

He said he would stop at the liquor store after work, pick up a bottle and head home for a night of drinking.

"That's all I would do," he said. "I quit functioning. It's like being married to the bottle."

Which, at the time, he said worked out because his real marriage was failing.

"After drinking my business into the ground, my wife took the kids and left," he said. "I wasn't thinking about anything but myself."

Eventually his creditors took his car too, he said. And, when he knew they were going to take the house, he just walked out the front door.

He traded his suburban digs for a now-posh address -- 20th and Blake Street downtown.

Now home to tony Coors Field, the street used to be lined with barely-used warehouses sporting plenty of loading docks to house the homeless. Viaducts carrying traffic over a nearby trainyard made the area dark, removed.

"It's lonely, you know. It's weird," he said. "Everybody out there is in survival mode."

In his two months on the street, he said he didn't befriend anyone. He would wake up and plan his day. He said he'd start by wandering around, trying to work off the morning chill. Then he said he'd head to a gas station to use the john and wash up.

Then he'd start scavenging. If you had money, he said, you drank early. If you didn't, he remembered, you waited.

He laughed about the "Golden Goats" that used to be in grocery store parking lots, exchanging cans for coins.

He didn't always sleep under the loading dock. He recalled the times when he had a little cash. He said he'd head to the YMCA at 17th and Lincoln. He'd crash in a real bed and do his laundry in the shower.

He knew when the shelters handed out meals.

Despite the despair and loneliness, he said he knew he would eventually get off the streets and back into life.

"At the same time," he said frankly, "I had serious doubts about whether I'd survive (on the street)."

He said he wasn't really a religious person. But, immediately after that statement, he started talking about miracles.

"People think a miracle is turning water into wine," he said shaking his head, not really seeing the irony.

Two months after he hit the streets, his brother handed him a $20 bill -- something his brother had done before. He spent $6 on food and was hoofing east on Colfax. He stopped in a familiar liquor store and looked up at the familiar bottle of Jack Daniels. And he looked at it. Then he did an about face, waltzing out of the store and onto a bus heading east.

"It's amazing, you know," he said, almost smiling. "It's like (watching) somebody else."

He didn't really have an explanation for what happened. It wasn't really a conscious decision, he said. But maybe it's why he started talking about miracles.

"Something strange happened to me that day. I saw myself turn around and walk out of a liquor store," he said. He remembered that he almost didn't get on the bus -- the 50 cent fare would reduce his drinking funds.

It's probably the best half dollar he ever spent.

The bus took him a handful of blocks to East Colfax and York Street where, in the spirit of the moment, he exited. His feet, he said, took him somewhere where he could get sober.

And he did.

A buddy he'd known from an alcohol treatment program gave him a place to crash. He got a job changing tires.

"I was working in that tire store and I worked my way up to manager in a couple of months," he said.

One day a friend -- a police officer -- watched while he successfully dealt with an irate customer. The cop was impressed with how, as a tire store manager, he could deal with people. The officer, he remembered, suggested he apply to a police academy.

OK, he agreed, but he'd only commit to two weeks. If he hated it, he said, he was out of there.

It's 10 years this July since he's had a nip. He's been with an area department for more than five.

Despite the success he now has, he said getting sober was the hardest part. There were the bills, for starters. His creditors hadn't forgotten him.

And then there was the business he'd lost. And the family that moved on while he was moving cans to cover the cost of whiskey. There was just the responsibility of dealing with where he'd been -- and where he needed to go.

He got into policing, he said before, because he wanted to help people.

While a lot of people say that, he truly means it.

Take this article for example. He was apprehensive about being the subject of another newspaper piece.

"I'm not sure I want to do this again," he said, looking at a newspaper clipping. There's a picture of him in the article, standing in a field in uniform, the setting sun lighting up one side of his face.

Then he relented.

"If it helps somebody, that's the point," he said.

Still, he chided, there's nothing super-human about his story.

"That could happen to anybody that stuff," he said, questioning the newsworthiness. "I just don't find it that amazing."

Then he talked about cases he'd been involved with. He mentioned his routine chats with Douglas County teen-agers, people he'd helped.

"Out on the street, I (get) to work with a lot of kids," he said. "It's fun."

And while he claims he doesn't see the extraordinary in his own past, he recently did seem awestruck to be invited to speak during a special ceremony honoring some kids. Awestruck that anyone would invite him -- someone who used to live on the street -- as keynote speaker.

Somehow, he has to know his story is at least inspiring, if not amazing.

"I have a lot of fun," he said, turning on a new demo tape of his band. He points out the lead singer's vocals. "I have a good life. I just don't drink."

Despite his bad experience with big city cops, he actually had more words of praise than criticism -- another key into why he got into the business.

"They were more into helping you than anything else," he said, recalling officers who, routinely, would stop to check on people living on the street.

While he was grateful that this article could be done anonymously, he said he's not bothered by the fact that people will read this, the details, and know who he is.

Like he's said before, he just wants to help.

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