He’s so desperate for a drink that after his wife hides all the car keys, he just wanders out into the garage. And fires up a 10 horsepower riding lawnmower. And he chugs eight miles down a Texas highway at like maybe five miles per hour just to get to a liquor store. I mean, it sounds like a scene out of a dark comedy.

Traditional honky -tonk music songs about heartbreak, drinking, and real -world suffering, that was the only language he knew for processing pain. Rockabilly felt like a cheap costume.

• How he somehow survived his own legendary self -destruction to leave just a monumental legacy
• George noted in his writings that his father drank heavily, yet never while working
• George allowed his own drinking to utterly consume his work, crossing the one line his father never did
• He acquires his famous nickname, Possum, while working as a DJ
• He stopped drinking. He married Nancy Sepulveda. And he slowly and painfully rebuilt everything