WWE Hall of Famer “Road Dogg” Brian James appeared on Insight With Chris Van Vliet, where he discussed a number of topics including being sober for 15 years now.
Road Dogg said, “I’ve been sober for 15 years now. I did it to save my life. When I got sober, I was just done. I was done living literally. I wanted to kill myself, but I was scared my kids were going to find me with my brains blown out in the lawnmower shed. That was real. That really went through my mind a lot. I thought about that a hundred times. I was on a vicious cycle of waking up and doing drugs, waking up and doing drugs, waking up and doing drugs. And it was like, ‘Oh god, I don’t want to live this way anymore. This ain’t how my mom and dad raised me.’”
On being at his rock bottom:
“I didn’t see a way out. No, I didn’t know there was one. At that point, I thought, ‘One of these handfuls of pills is going to kill me. When is that going to happen?’”
On when he knew he had to turn his life around:
“I don’t know what happened, but finally, my brother and I were on a drive coming back from a show. I was hammered on Xanax, and he just talked to me. I broke down and cried. The next day, I called this company [WWE] — I wasn’t working for them at the time — but I knew a certain lady to call. I called her, and the next day, I was in rehab. That was 15 years ago.”
On going into rehab:
“It was hard. I remember going back out and trying to find the Xanax I had thrown out in the parking lot. I didn’t want to — it’s not that I didn’t want to get sober — I just didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t think it was possible. I had been drugged up and living in a fog for so long that I didn’t know any other way to live.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
