On his personal problems and past injuries: "I had two discs removed from my neck, hip replacement, part of my left foot removed, compound fracture in my right arm, wrist reconstruction, broken sternum splice. Other than that, I was in horrible shape
I had a well publicized, by my own admissions, a career with alcohol and drugs did not help my situation. I had become so depressed that, not that I would have ever done it
I may have tried a couple of times
but suicide was something I thought about a lot.
"So depressed that I had blown my career
I could have been so much more than I was. Gone through three marriages, fathered eight children but wasnt a dad to any of them, I was too busy wrestling or being high. You start looking at yourself at that point and you hate yourself
I had a lot of shame, a lot of anger, a lot of freakin anger, basically I had given up. I didnt want to live. I had no hope. I had no dreams. I hope nobody out there gets to that point, but when you quit dreaming, when you quit having hope, its a pretty god dam horrible place to be. You dont care if you breath. You dont care about anything."
On his recent "Resurrection" through DDPYoga: "Dallas called me, asked how I was doing, I bullshytted and I lied, said I was getting through it, and he said, Man
you dont sound right? Well, man, it is what it is, I just dont give a shyt anymore. I buried my father, my mother was in poor health, a whole bunch of reasons to use and I sure took advantage of them. Id drink
because that was the only time I could forget where I was at. He said he wanted come see me and to send me some yoga stuff and I was like are you f---ing kidding me? Right, Jake The Snake is doing yoga! I may have been screwed up enough to play a snake, but I aint doing yoga dude.
"He said, if youll try
and you start losing weight
there might be something I can do for you, and it would be long term and would be an opportunity
to try something different since the bullshyt I was doing obviously wasnt working
so I did the food thing for like ten 11 days, didnt really think a whole lot about it, then one day I got on the scale and was like holy shyt Ive lost 14 lbs, what the hells wrong with me? I must be dying! That was the first time I thought this might actually work
a couple weeks later he came down
and was like, ok keep doing the good work, when you get down to 30 lbs, well move you down to Atlanta, and well get serious on this shyt
at that point I was still drinking too much, but well get to that in a minute."
On his recent inebriated appearance at an indy event: "When I got down to Atlanta, DDP was like OK, the first thing we need to talk about is your drinking
why do you drink? and I was just like Well, I like it
so Im like OK,OK,OK Ill play your silly f*cking game and I said well how about a couple of beers? So he agreed, well try sticking to two beers. Well that lasted about a week
"I went out on an autograph thing on Rhode Island. Did really well, didnt drink for a two or three days during the signing, and I spoke to a lot of people and they were just patting me on the back, saying how much better I looked with all the weight I had lost, saying damn Jake you havent looked this good in years, keep up the good work
well, you shouldnt tell a drunk or an addict these things. Like everything else in life, I use whatever situation I am in to get drunk or get high. In this instance it was man you deserve a reward.
"Man, Im not a god damn dog that did a trick, but thats the way I treated myself. The next thing I know, Im getting off a plane in Atlanta
and Dallas is there, I dont know why Dallas is there. We get back to the house and I find out I had been pretty stupid and ridiculous, and basically had gone through a four hour blackout. Blacked out. Didnt know what I had done, what I had said, who I had offended
thank god I wasnt in jail. I think if Dallas hadnt been at the airport I would have ended up in there.
"Next morning, we get up and Dallas is saying last week you did really well, then you go out this week and totally screw up
so heres the new deal. Absolutely no alcohol. And at that point Im like, you are absolutely right
because the shyt isnt doing you any good. Then he was like you should go back to A.A
so two days later I went back
but then I went to Dallas and was like I agree with the no drinking thing, but youre gonna have to help me
so we went to a doctor and got set up with something called anti-buse. Brother, if you drink alcohol with that stuff it will drop you like a gunshot. It will make you so violently ill, that you will not think about drinking. But its a crutch for me. Its a safety line, and being here with Dallas, hes making me change my way of thinking about things."
On his ambitions for the future: "Ive got a life man
Im dreaming again
it might take more than 24 hours to fix this shyt, so I just need to shut up, get in the car and go for the ride with [Dallas]
I have unlimited dreams. Im thinking about building furniture again, because I loved to build furniture. For the first time I got on a computer
here I am 57 years old and I dont even know how to turn a computer on. But now I want to do it, I want to accomplish these goals. Before I never wanted to do it
my mind is clicking again man.
"Im happy, I feel good about myself. Yeah Ive got a long way, but brother, Ive already been a long way
Ive already been a long way man. I never thought I would be in the shape Im in now, much less where Im going. Im calling my children, Im developing relationships, Im calling my mother again
Im gonna do this. I want to do this, I need to do this, because I know Im a good human being, Ive always been a good human being, Ive just been a disturbed human being. Im not letting the demons beat my ass anymore. Those demons have not got a chance.
"There is nobody that could hang with me in the ring in my heyday, can you imagine if I hadnt been screwed up? I would have left them so far behind, but thats OK man. You know, I retired from the ring two years ago. But you know what, Im going to go back in
for a short run. Just a few matches. That way, I can say goodbye the way I wanted to. Not 310 lbs, couldnt hardly get in the ring and look like shyt. I deserve more than that! I wanna get in there and stand with my head held high and say I am the f---ing man and Im a good man. Thats how I want to say goodbye to my fans."
