Jon Moxley Reflects On Being Told To Retire In Alcohol Rehab

AEW star Jon Moxley checked himself into alcohol rehab at the end of last year, spending months away from AEW before making his return back in January of this year.

Moxley was a guest on his wife Renee Paquette’s the Sessions podcast this week, where he discussed his headspace going into alcohol rehab, and what he was told during his time there.

He said:

“Night sweats, crazy nightmares, my chemicals are all unbalanced, wacky mood swings. Let’s 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. Not drinking was easy. 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 and what happens to you physically when your body goes through this metamorphosis, trying to re-calibrate itself has not been easy. I’m on national television while I’m going through these problems and being in front of everybody. A lot of people in my position would have stayed in rehab a lot longer. I would have stayed in hiding a lot longer than I was. The one therapist I had straight up told me to retire. She said, ‘Start a wrestling school. Train some kids. You know what the problem is? You gotta get out of there.’ I was like, ‘I don’t think it’s that.’”

Moxley continued on, explaining how he felt ahead of his first match back from rehab.

He explained:

“So my first match back, you think it’s gonna be like, ‘Okay, well, now you’re sober so you’re just going to feel like a million dollars.’ It doesn’t really work like that. 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 is like, 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, like this transformation to be ready to go to the ring. I think people who probably don’t spend their lives partying too much or whatever, probably take for granted just waking up in the morning and feeling good. I feel like I’m cheating. Like, the novelty hasn’t fully worn off of not having a hangover. 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 like that first match, I felt terrible. I just felt off, like, it was weird. I can’t really explain it, like I was just chemically imbalanced and it was strange. Then it got a little better the next match and the next match. Finally I wrestled Bryan at a pay-per-view. More or less, I just went to the ring, and like the first time I’ve ever met him, just got in the ring and just wrestled. Then I kind of started feeling my mojo again. But it took me like a month.”

Moxley is back at his best in AEW right now, and is set to face off against Hiroshi Tanahashi for the interim AEW World Championship at this Sunday’s Forbidden Door event.

transcription via WrestlingNews.co

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