Leigh Steinberg, 'Jerry Maguire' and Free Fallin' Tom Cruise, as "Jerry Maguire," fiddles with the radio and finally finds a tune to sing to, Tom Petty's "Free Fallin." " He belts it out, celebrating what he thinks is a career turnaround. His free fall had just begun. In a case of life imitating art imitating an agent, Leigh Steinberg, the sports superagent who was an inspiration for "Jerry Maguire," recently filed for bankruptcy protection and is revealing more details about the alcoholism that destroyed his business and personal life. HBO's "Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel" returns on Tuesday at 10 p.m. Eastern, with the Steinberg story as one of its features. Preview clip here Bernie Wilson of The Associated Press wrote about Steinberg's troubles last month: Leigh Steinberg calls them "checkout days," when he would drink vodka from morning until night, often straight from the bottle. Divorced and living alone for the first time, he'd drink while sitting on his balcony overlooking Newport Bay or while in bed, sometimes half-conscious. Former client Drew Bledsoe tells Keteyian that Steinberg was drunk at Bledsoe's wedding, way back in 1996. "I had a handful of friends coming to me at our reception say, "Who's that guy?" I was, like, "Oh, that's my super-agent. That's the biggest agent in the sports world. And they're, like, "Wow, he's the drunkest guy at the party,"" Bledsoe said. Steinberg, who says he has been sober for almost two years, can now be another kind of success story: an example to others battling alcoholism.