Kurt Angle Candidly Speaks About Regretting Past Drug Use

The Joe Rogan Experience ah well throughout my career was there anything that I would change yeah well I we'll get into this topic I guess um after I broke my neck the second time the first time in WWE I was introduced to painkillers and um uh when I started taking them I really liked it I mean it it masked the pain I couldn't feel the pain it kind of gave me an energetic feel it didn't make me feel nauseous like it does a lot of people and I started taking I was taking one every four to six hours like I was told but after a while you build a tolerance and one doesn't work anymore then you have to take two then two led to four four this was extra strength Vicodin oxycontins are a lot more powerful than Vicodin but I was taking 65 extra drinks like it in a day whoa that's how out of control I got and I was hiding it from the company and and I mean it was I was in serious trouble and does that even make you high at that point does it just keep you from going in okay withdrawals it kept me from going through withdrawals but there were times where I passed out I mean the company knew um some of my friends knew um you know I'll give you an example I I um there was one point that this is how how bad it got um there was one point in my career where uh I uh my brother called me I was at a house showing on televise show for WWE was the night before I was gonna have the biggest match of my career with Brock Lesnar the next day it was an Iron Man match on Smackdown and um my brother calls me and says hey your sister just out of a heroin overdose and it it crushed me I mean I I was I was crying I was in such pain thinking about my sister who was only 40 years old dying from heroin overdose and the thing is I wasn't able to talk to her because I told her eight months prior if she doesn't get clean I'm gonna um I'm not gonna talk to you so I didn't talk to her for eight months and then this happens and I was so here I am I'm in the hotel room and I look at my pills I said [ __ ] it I took 20 of them threw them in my mouth chewed them up and swallowed them oh my God I didn't wake up till five o'clock in the afternoon the next day and I had the biggest match in my career oh my God so what time did you have to be to the arena and did you do it you had to be there at one but I didn't get there until 5 30. right yeah but um yeah I ended up doing it the wlb was trying to call me the whole time they were like they wanted to tell me that hey you can go home plan a funeral for your sister you don't have to do this match but I kept thinking I know my sister would want me to and and and I knew that I I wouldn't have to feel that pain of losing my sister at least for that hour yeah so I I went ahead and did it and it was actually one of my best performances of my career which is kind of crazy but uh that was that was a really rough time and the painkillers are the one thing that I do regret I did in the company I wish I was never introduced to them but do you think you had to take them I mean it sounds like you were in such excruciating pain all the time there were times I needed take them and there were times I didn't but I was so far deep into it that I had to I mean I'm not gonna lie to you I would go to sleep at night I would have 15 pills sitting on the desk next to me for when I wake up because I knew I was gonna have withdrawal when I got up I wake up sweating shaking and I grabbed those throw them in my mouth chew them up and swim 15 at a time 15 at a time wow wow yeah most people 15 at a time will kill you well it didn't show me I you know I took 20 at one time when my sister died so I've been really lucky I've been blessed I I honestly I don't think I should be here today how'd you get off of them okay uh well what happened was I left the WWE because they wanted me to go to rehab but I don't want to go so I ended up going to another company called Impact Wrestling and I I got my painkiller problem under control there because I got I found a doctor that got me on MS Contin there are two um morphine pills they're very tiny but they'll keep you from going through withdrawal so I would take one in the morning one at night and no more painkillers they were pain killers because they were morphine but they were high dose it was just two of them that I had to take well I started having anxiety about breaking my neck over and over again so they put me on Xanax so now I'm taking Xanax and then I switched to TNA Impact Wrestling and everybody drank there so I started drinking alcohol so I'm mixing having these cocktails and I'm I'm so out of control that I'm driving okay from town to town drinking a 12 pack of beer and I got four DUIs in five years I lost my reputation everything I worked for I was at lowest point in my life and uh I remember calling my wife from jail after my fourth DUI and she said listen I can't do this anymore you either go to rehab or I'm taking the kids and I'm leaving and I so I went to rehab because I want to lose my wife and my kids and I was scared in rehab I I literally thought I was so nervous the first of all the withdrawal was the worst experience I ever had I'll never go through that again because I'm never going to take another painkiller that was the worst thing I've ever done or drink another drop of alcohol that was the absolute worst thing I've ever been through and I forget what I was going to say though but so with the rehab do they how do they get you off of it they don't do it cold turkey right do you think they do yes they do I thought they were going to wee me off they put you in a room and let you sleep and they check on you every couple hours and uh about six days for me to go through the withdrawal symptoms it seemed like forever is you just in a room by yourself yeah just thinking yeah and you know what and you want to stay in there and they they start forcing you out you got you got to come move around you got to come out and talk to people you gotta you know live your life and you don't you you're so exhausted for the first two and a half weeks I didn't want to move I just want to stay in my bed but they were forcing me to get out of bed and and be in a Converse Converse or conversating with people and trying to you know go and eat and go to meetings and do all that stuff you do in rehab so it was it was really tough how long did it take before you felt normal um well I would say two weeks where I really felt normal but the the thing is the last two weeks because I spent a month in rehab the last two weeks I was so nervous that I was gonna [ __ ] up again like I I literally didn't want to leave rehab I was scared that I was going to go back to it right when I got out so many guys do you know that's why like I hear all these stories and I'm like oh it's gonna happen to you too man and uh you know but but the one thing that I kept going across in my mind was going through withdrawal I don't want to do that again and I know if I start taking them I'm going to have to experience that again and I don't want to it was that bad it was that bad what is it like like what is the control feel like okay you're sweating because you're hot and you're cold at the same time you're [ __ ] your pants you're throwing up um uh you can't think straight your body's shaking uh you're you're getting hot sweats cold sweats uh everything's you feel like you don't have anything inside to you no insides no organs nothing you feel like you're Hollow it's just the craziest thing it's the most painful thing I've ever gone through and you know I'm sure people have been in a lot more pain than that with certain things they've had done to themselves but uh for me that was the worst

Channel: PowerfulJRE

Views: 1,974,966

Keywords: Joe Rogan Experience, JRE, Joe, Rogan, podcast, MMA, comedy, stand, up, funny, Freak, Party

Id: u-eDY9YCrJg

Length: 7min 59sec (479 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 19 2023