WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (AFP) - There have been two turning points in the life of President George W. Bush: giving up drinking at the age of 40 and the September 11 attacks a few months into his White House term.
Turning his back on alcohol saved his marriage. His response to Osama bin Laden's attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 transformed his presidency.
Bush, who is only the second son of a president, after John Quincy Adams 180 years ago, to become president, makes no secret of his attitude to life before 40: "When I was young and irresponsible, I did things that were irresponsible."
He has admitted to heavy drinking, carousing and reportedly once almost came to blows with his father, former president George H.W. Bush. The younger Bush was arrested when he was 30 for drunk driving.
After a hard-partying 40th birthday, Bush quit drinking, a struggle he has credited to a religious awakening he frequently cites to explain decisions he makes today.
"I was a drinker. I quit drinking because I changed my heart," the born-again Methodist said at a campaign event in Louisiana this year.
Bush was born July 6, 1946 in New Haven, Connecticut.
Young George and his mother, Barbara Bush, were close, and the death of his three-year-old sister from leukemia, when he was seven years old, deepened that bond.
After private school in Massachusetts, Bush went to Yale University where he received his degree in 1968.
What followed is one of the most controversial periods of his life.
Bush went into the Texas National Guard as a pilot, enabling him to avoid combat in Vietnam. He was grounded for failing to show up for a medical examination.
Critics charge Bush did not meet training requirements, the White House notes he was honorably discharged. Reams of documents from his file leave open questions about where he was in 1972-1973.
Bush went on to receive a business degree from Harvard in 1975, moving back to Texas to seek his fortune in the oil industry and make his first run for elected office.
Three months after meeting Laura Welch -- a 30-year-old librarian -- in 1977, the two were married and traveled together as he waged a tough but fruitless campaign for the House of Representatives.
Bush's wild times earlier in his life returned to haunt him late in the 2000 election race when it emerged he had concealed a 1976 drunk-driving arrest.
After initially saying he had kept quiet to avoid embarrassing his twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, Bush blamed the disclosure on "dirty politics".
But Bush also uses self-deprecating humor about his past.
In a June 2001 speech to Yale students, Bush joked: "To the 'C' students I say: You, too, can be president of the United States."
He also drew laughter with a thinly veiled quip about drinking to excess, saying: "If you're like me, you won't remember everything you did here. That can be a good thing."
If Bush was already a changed character when he was sworn in as president in January 2001, the September 11 strikes defined his time in the White House and turned Bush into a "war president".
Chaos in Iraq, the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and the loss of 800,000 US jobs over the past four years may yet doom Bush's efforts to win a second four-year term.
But the president is banking on the war on terrorism to power him to victory over Democrat John Kerry.
The strikes led Bush to abandon a "humble" foreign policy, disinclined to foreign intervention, in favor of unleashing wars in Afghanistan in late 2001 and the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists," Bush declared nine days after Al-Qaeda hijackers flattened the World Trade Center towers.
Once mocked as a dilettante largely ignorant of foreign policy, the former Texas governor came to office promising to unite a divided United States, enact the largest tax cuts in a generation, revamp education, and vowing not to deploy US forces overseas aggressively as his predecessor.
"If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us; if we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us," Bush said during one debate in the 2000 White House race.
Soon after taking office, Bush pushed a 1.65-trillion-dollar tax cut through Congress and rallied even prominent opposition Democrats behind his sweeping education reform plan dubbed "No Child Left Behind."
But he also clashed with Democrats on the environment, on judicial appointments they said were too conservative, and over funding for the education law.
Global support for the United States fissured over Bush's determination to remove Iraq's Saddam Hussein without explicit UN approval.
After an easy invasion, US forces face deadly attacks by insurgents and extremists in Iraq. Bush acknowledged in August interview having made a "miscalculation" about post-war violence.
Bush's sky-high post-September approval ratings have come back to back to earth, now hovering around the 50-percent mark.
The president and senior aides bristle at charges of a go-it-alone foreign policy, pointing to the coalition in Iraq and citing US-backed multilateral diplomacy over the North Korean nuclear crisis.
Bush, who could not name Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in 2000, now counts him among steadfast allies against extremism.

10/31/2004 02:33 GMT - AFP