Gerald Perry Taking It One Day at a Time : Rams: Former Bronco deals with life with a new team and without alcohol.

Two months into his new life, Gerald Perry is trying to keep quiet enough, stay clean enough, and play well enough to forget everything that torpedoed his old one.

So far, through two games as the team’s starting left tackle, that is exactly what he has done.

But he is the first to say that his struggle with alcohol and his checkered past has to be fought for far longer than two months.

“This is a lifelong battle, it won’t just go away,” Perry said this week as the Rams prepare for Sunday’s game with the Green Bay Packers. “It’s going to be there all the time. But I’m strong.

“I’m not in a rush about things. I don’t feel scared about something that’s going to happen. It’s pretty cool here. I feel good here. I’m enjoying myself about as much as I personally can during the season.”

Perry went almost straight from Arapahoe County Jail in Colorado, where he served a 65-day term for sexual assault and violation of probation, to the Rams’ starting left tackle job, and made such a change of worlds seem natural.

He was acquired by the Rams in a draft-day trade with the Denver Broncos, who had wearied of his off-field problems. The Rams traded their fourth-round pick in 1991 plus running back Gaston Green for Perry and a 1990 12th-round pick.

Green, never a factor with the Rams in his three seasons here, is currently the sixth-leading rusher in the league. But so far, the 26-year-old Perry, especially in pass blocking, has indicated that he will be an anchor in the Ram offensive line.

“He’s an extremely talented person,” right tackle Jackie Slater said. “Really light feet for a big man. You know, he’s heavy but he doesn’t look like it nor does he move that way. He’s got those big, long arms that are tremendous weapons.”

But though Perry’s two months in a Ram uniform, and away from the Bronco-obsessed Denver media, have been tranquil, Perry agrees that both the public’s and his team’s attention will always be upon him.

“It’s not over,” Perry said. “I mean, I have scars from that. I’m just trying to live everyday life. I can’t sit there and go over it and go over it. Talking about it every day doesn’t let me go on with my life.

“You never know how long is sufficient to (erase people’s perceptions). I’m sure there’s still a lot of people still thinking about it. But I’m not going to sit there and worry myself about the way they feel. I feel good about myself, and I’m just going to go on and try to continue feeling good about myself and let the rest take care of itself.”

In Denver, Perry was charged nine separate times beginning Dec. 12, 1988 with assorted, alcohol-related crimes. He was convicted twice, and before his recent sentence, served nine days in February of 1989.

“I feel glad to be out of there, but I haven’t been here long enough to know that some big, huge change has really taken place,” Perry said. “Life still is life. It’s still challenging for me to deal with alcohol.”

Perry said he hasn’t joined an Alcoholics Anonymous group in the L.A. area, but plans to, probably once the season ends. The Rams are providing him counseling, he says.

But he does not deny that he still sometimes feels the urge to drink.

“Yeah. I mean, it depends what situation you put yourself in,” Perry said. “Alcohol is there . . . and it can be very, very tempting to me. That’s why it’s not a good idea for me to be in that situation.

“So I know these things: Lay low and stay away from those types of things.”

His Ram teammates have watched him for two months and say they have no cause for alarm.

“I think, for the most part, all of that’s behind him,” Slater said. “He’s just a regular guy doing regular things.”

Perry reported to the Rams July 29, just two days after his release from jail. He injured his right knee on his second day of practice, reinjured it later, then was pressed into service in the Rams’ victory over the New York Giants Sept. 8 after a wave of injuries to the offensive line.

“We’ve had some unfortunate things happen that have forced me into this situation, but that’s OK to me,” Perry said.

In consecutive weeks, Perry has dealt with Lawrence Taylor, Pat Swilling and Charles Haley, without disastrous results. His main problems, he says, have been mental errors, not physical mismatches.

Perry’s emergence is a major part of the Rams’ recent revamping of their offensive line. They traded left tackle Irv Pankey in large part because they knew the 6-foot-6, 305-pound Perry was the future at that position.

“Of course people are watching,” Perry said. “As far as people are concerned, those were big moves and key moves. But I’m not worried about different things. I’m going to take care of what I can take care of.”