Jon Moxley opens up about what led to him entering rehab

[Chris]

source: f4wonline.com

Jon Moxley has opened up about returning from a stint in an alcohol rehabilitation program.

Appearing on an episode of The Sessions with Renee Paquette released on Thursday, Moxley said that wrestling again after returning from rehab "felt strange."

"When I first wrestled again, I came back in January and it was weird. Just being in the ring was weird, it felt strange. I came back and did a promo and that was cool because I didn't have to do anything physical, I just got to talk. I was, like, super relaxed. So, my first match back, you think it’s just going to be like, ‘Oh okay, well, now you’re sober so you’re just going to feel like a million dollars.’ It doesn’t really work like that,” Moxley said.

“It was weird. It was like my legs were in quicksand. I didn’t have any adrenaline... not that I didn’t have any adrenaline, so much as I wasn’t nervous. It’s hard to put into words but it used to be like this big, long, giant process to get ready to go out and do a match or wrestle. It was, like, this transformation to be ready to go to the ring.”

Moxley continued to say that he felt as though he was cheating by not waking up each morning with a hangover.

"I feel like I'm cheating. The novelty hasn’t fully worn off," he continued.

"Just, like, waking up and being like, 'okay, I don’t have to worry about being massively dehydrated or feeling like crap or whatever.' For me, it’s almost like I got a cheat code or something but that first match felt terrible. I just felt off, it was weird.”

"It got a little better the next match and the next match. I finally wrestled Bryan at a pay-per-view and we more or less just went to the ring, like the first time I ever met him, just kind of got in the ring and just wrestled. Then I kind of started feeling my mojo again. But, it took me like a month or something."

Moxley was also asked about his experience leading up to his stay in an alcohol rehabilitation program. In addition to having difficulty stopping drinking on his own, he said he was also concerned about the physical effects of quitting.

"Night sweats, crazy night sweats, crazy nightmares, my chemicals are all unbalanced, wacky mood swings," he responded. "When I say it hasn't been easy, the not drinking part is easy. It's not like I have some desire to drink, I have no desire to drink. I can't even imagine drinking right now. The not drinking is easy, just stop drinking. I wanted to stop drinking for a long time, I was trying to quit drinking for a long time. Just dealing with all the after effects of what happens to you physically when your body goes through this crazy metamorphosis, trying to re-calibrate itself has not been easy.”

"The one therapist I had straight up told me to retire. She was like, 'start a wrestling school, train some kids.' She's like, 'You know what the problem is, you got to get out of there.' I was like, 'I don't think it's that.'"

Moxley also clarified that there wasn't one big event that led to his decision to enter rehab.

"Nothing bad happened," he said. "I didn't go to jail or nothing. I just couldn't stop. I was trying for the longest time."

He continued to tell the story of calling the rehab place on Halloween while giving out candy to trick or treaters. He checked in later that night. Moxley also would say that he felt as though a weight had been lifted off him when it was made public that he was in rehab.

"Like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, I just went, 'oh, everybody knows.' Because it's this thing that I've been hiding, trying to hide from people for so long."

"AEW and Tony were totally cool. He said if you never came back that would have been cool. They didn't bug me to come back. When I came back, I just went like 'well, I guess I should probably come back now.'"

 

[Swerve]

I'm just glad that he went.