Comedian Tracy Morgan still looks up to his late drug dealer father, insisting his dad offers him spiritual guidance from beyond the grave.

Jimmy Morgan left home when Tracy was a child. When the actor tracked him down as a teenager, he discovered Jimmy was dying of AIDS. Morgan Sr. lost his battle with the disease when Tracy was just 17, but he insists he learned a lot from his father in the short time they had together.

The 30 Rock star says, "My father was my god, he is my god. He's my spiritual guidance right now. I lost him twice. I lost him once when I was six. He came back from Vietnam, picked up some bad habits and my mom was raising four of us by herself and she said (to him), 'You gotta go.' I understood that later in life and he was a man about it."

"When I finally found him he was diagnosed with AIDS so I pretty much lost him twice, but before he left he gave me knowledge of self and told me that was the key to the universe and I've always kept him with me. I always feel his presence around me."

Tracy, who suffers from diabetes, struggled with alcohol abuse for years and was ordered to wear an ankle monitoring bracelet in 2007 after violating the terms of his probation for DUI arrests in 2005 and 2006.

Morgan credits his legal woes with putting him on the path to sobriety and he has not had a drink for more than a year. And the actor and father of three is thankful he was forced to quit the bad habit before it could take a serious toll on his health.

He says, "Thank God I didn't hurt nobody, and thank God I didn't hurt myself. It might have been a blessing in disguise because it threw me in the right direction... I didn't know how serious diabetes was until then."

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(This news article provided by World Entertainment News Network)