LOUISVILLE, Ky. – March 8, 2008 is a date Lew Winstead will never forget. It’s the date he got sober. And when he did, he was able to find his passion again: dance.

As a young boy, Winstead was more than inspired by the movie “Staying Alive,” with John Travolta.

“I was 12, and I said that’s what I want to do for a living, and my parents are like, ‘what?’, and I was like, ‘I want to be a dancer,” Winstead remembered.

And that is exactly what he did. His first job was at Kings Island amusement park at 18 years old. Then he eventually worked on cruise ships, like Disney and Norwegian.

"Dance is who I am, for sure,” Winstead said.

However, dancing wasn’t the only thing consuming Winstead’s life. Alcohol and other drugs were also part of the routine. 

“Dance definitely enabled me,” Winstead told Spectrum News 1. “It’s weird because I’m doing something that I love to do. I mean I was just blessed to do what my passion was for a very long time, and, at the same time, that passion kept me from finding sobriety.”

Winstead said that as a male dancer, he was a hot commodity. There was always work, and dance was second nature to him.

“So I can rely on my body. Muscle memory, just to do whatever, and I have been hungover, high, whatever while I am dancing on stage because I can just kind of like, shut it off, and just do my thing,” Winstead said. “So it never hindered me.”

Eventually, dancing seven days a week, five shows a day, took its toll. An MRI revealed a knee injury, which halted Winstead’s dance career.

“When I stopped dancing, I fell really hard and fast in my addiction. I was depressed and lost and resentful and envious and all kinds of different emotions,” Winstead said.

His addiction got worse.

“I was isolating myself. I wasn’t hanging around people a lot. It was just kind of like me doing my own thing and not really caring,” Winstead recalled. He said he missed a lot of important events during that time in his life, including his mother’s 50^th birthday.

Then, he hit his rock bottom and knew he needed help. So at Thanksgiving in 2007, he confided in his sister. She helped move him out of Chicago and back home to Louisville. Before Christmas, he was checked into The Healing Place in Louisville, a no cost, nationally-recognized recovery center.

On March 8, 2008, he found sobriety. A date he’ll never forget, and it’s tattooed on his right arm.  

“I was tired of not being a stand-up person,” Winstead explained, adding, “Someone that my mother would be proud of.”

Winstead lived on the property for two years. He came in as an addict and in his second year he was a mentor.

“So I was on the property for a long time, and I was content slowing down because my life was always go, go, go here, go there. Dance, jump, leap,” the 48-year-old said. “So I never really had an opportunity just to sit down and take care of me.”

Those two years gave Winstead a chance to process who he was.

“I thought I was happy because I was dancing… but I didn’t find true peace with myself, and happy with who I am until I found sobriety,” he said.

When Winstead found himself, he also found dance again. He stopped by the Louisville Dance Alliance studio while he was in recovery to let the studio know that he danced professionally and could choreograph and teach.

“They kind of gave me a chance, and then everything just kind of fell into place after that,” Winstead said. “It was a blessing.”

He was no longer on the big stage, but in his new role as a teacher, he discovered a new passion.

“Now, in sobriety I am able to help kids dance and find their passion, which I didn’t do before. I was just kind of being very selfish about me, me, me, me,” he told Spectrum News 1.

Winstead said once he was able to find who he was without dance and alcohol, he could focus on himself and find happiness.

“Then once I could find that happiness I could give that happiness to other people,” Winstead explained. “So it’s led me back full circle, back to what I love to do, and I am able to do that sober, which is great.”