Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Jake ’THE SNAKE’ Roberts shares his life and struggle from addiction to sobriety

Episode Date: January 13, 2023

Jake "THE SNAKE" Roberts struggled with addiction for many many years.  Jake was at the top of the wrestling world one day and hiding from the world the next. You could say Jake had the cards stacked against him from day 1 and still became one the the top wrestlers in the world. Jake says he felt worthless, hopeless and alone in the world until he got an opportunity he could not turn down. Jake has not been sober for 10 years. This is Jake’s story on the sober motivation podcast. Follow Jake on Instagram Follow SoberMotivation on Instagram Download the SoberBuddy App Get help and check out United Recovery Project

Welcome back to season two of the Subur Motivation Podcast. Join me, Brad, each week is my guests and I share incredible and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety as possible, one story at a time. Let's go. Jake the Snake Robert struggled with addiction for many years. Jake was at the top of the wrestling world one day and hiding from the world the next. You could say Jake had the card stacked against him from day one. and he still became one of the top wrestlers in the world.

Jake says he felt worthless, hopeless, and alone in the world until he got an opportunity he could not turn down. And this is Jake the Snake Robert's story on the Sober Motivation podcast. We all know how important connection is when it comes to getting and staying sober. At Sober Buddy, we have 10 live hosted support groups every week. Also a thriving community with over 400 members that are helping each other every day stay on track. If you could use a little extra support on your sober journey,

be sure to download the app today, your soberbuddy.com, or your favorite app store. Search Sober Buddy, and I will see you over there. Getting help for addiction is never an easy thing to do. And picking the right place to get help makes it even more overwhelming. That's why I've decided to partner with the United Recovery Project. I've had a chance to get to know some of the incredible people working at the United Recovery Project over the years.

And that is why this partnership makes so much sense. The United Recovery Project has a top-notch treatment facility and program. I truly believe in Brian Elzate, who is the co-founder and CEO and has 14 years clean. The properties themselves are beautiful with tons of amenities and activities. But most importantly, it's the level of care they offer. It's exactly what you would hope a family would receive and the staff who most of which are in recovery themselves truly care. It's really apparent that they do their absolute best to create custom treatment plans to meet everyone's individual needs.

If your loved one is struggling, reach out to them directly at 833-551-0077 or check them out on the web at U-R-P recovery.com. Now let's get to the show. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. We've got the one and only Jake the Snake Roberts. with us today. How are you doing? I'm doing great, man. Absolutely fantastic. Feel great. Excited to be alive and can't wait to see what happens next. Yeah, that's beautiful. You have an incredible story, comeback story, some may call it. And I appreciate you so much for jumping on the podcast with us today. Yeah, we usually just get started off with what it was like for you

growing up oh wow turmoil that'd be the best word to describe it uh my father shows his bride uh my mother was 13 years old when i was born um he was actually dating my grandmother and she went to sleep one night and he went into the next room and picked my mom. So in 13, she's got a child and winds up having two more children in the next four or five years. And she's not even 18 yet, you know, and that's when my dad decided he had enough and he wanted to hit the road. So he did. she had no way to support us. He wasn't helping at all.

So what happened was that she moved in with my grandmother, my dad's mom. She moved in with her, and she would try to work. And I was at a school age now and starting to go to school, first grade, second grade, such. And it was pretty hectic.

When she had my brother, which was five years after six years after I was born, it was just too much. And she wound up giving him up for adoption. And he was adopted by my aunt, my dad's sister. She was unable to have children. So her and her husband decided they wanted a baby and they took my brother. So it's me and my sister.

This went on just for a few years. my mom wound up remarried, but they didn't have the means to support all the kids. So they took my sister, and I stayed with my grandmother because it was a solid home that I could go to school. School was close by, and it just made sense. And I stayed there until I was 12 years old.

dealing with my grandfather. My grandfather was a hopeless alcoholic. He had been in an oil-filled accident when he was younger, and then he crushed his legs. So he was crippled up pretty bad. He would go to farms and do farm work the best that he could. You know, usually it was building fences, things like that, manual labor, and then dragged me along with him,

and then on the way home we'd stop at the beer joint. it for a while. That's what I learned out of drive. I was 12 years old, and each time we'd go out, I knew the reason I was going, it was to drive him home. It was only about four miles home and his back roads and stuff, and I didn't know how to drive for shit, you know. I really didn't, man.

And we went the whole way in first year, you know, re-r-re-jurking him around that truck. You know, coming home was tough. for me at school because when I came home, my grandfather would be passed out in the living room in the less than nice house. I'll just put it that way. It was pretty rough, man. There's a lot of shame involved. On top of that, I was a bedwetter. My grandmother didn't have a washer and dryer. She had a ringer washer that she had to do by hand. Drying clothes would put them out outside of the clothesline.

Well, lots of times those sheets never got washed. They were just hung out there with the big yellow stain and the center of them. So I didn't more bring anybody around and say, and see that, and I'd be laughed at. Shame. When my grandmother came home one day when I was 12 and told me she was sick. And what do you mean sick? Because I'd never known her to go to the doctor.

And in those days, the doctors came to her house. Less than a week later, she was dead. Cancer had consumed all of her body. Her insides were just full of cancer. It was a horrible thing to see. She turned bright yellow. It was really wild. And at that time, my father decided to come back and be around his dying mother.

And I met my new stepmother, who I realized I'd seen before. When I went out and visited my dad a couple of times when I was growing up, he was out wrestling. He was a professional wrestler, much bigger than me. He was seven foot tall, 425 pounds, a huge man. I realized that it was this girl. When I say girl, it's because she was very young, very young. I mean, he had to be 32, 33, and she was like 17 or 18. You know, he was a pedophile, man.

That's bottom line. When they left, they took my sister with him. She was going to school, but it wasn't a necessity, they thought. So she went with them for a while. Then she came back and started going back to school. She moved in with my mother. I had to move in with my mother also because nobody can take care of us. we just kind of went where we could get the care, you know.

And my mother had married a really good man, hard working man, and a lovely man. His name was E.C. Crockett. He was such a sweet man, but by that time, I'd already started building my walls up around me, you know. And also, my grandfather, the rule was around our house, if you found his booze, you poured it out. Well, I used to find it and I found out that I could sell it and make money off of it. So I started selling it to the neighborhood kids, you know. And that's just the way it went. And the thing with your with your grandmother, was she your rock sort of in your life, the stability part?

Yeah, she was. She was. But she had quite a load put over, you know. My grandfather, like I said, which is a hopeless alcoholic. him. She had tried to stop him from drinking. He's the only person I ever met that was able to take an abuse and drink on top of it. They didn't trust him to take the pill. He had to go to the doctor's office every morning by taxi and give him the shot and he'd get back in the taxi and go four miles to liquor store. and then by the time he got home he had already down that pint, which got him well on the way.

I guess throwing up didn't bother him a lot. It's sad because I look back and I'm quick to figure out that he was in the hospital for 13 months, you know, in the 1940s. Their way of fixing his legs was to continually re-break them. him to try to line up the pieces. They would break them, put them in splints, and then try to let him heal. And if they were healing right, they'd let it go,

and they'd go to a different part of his leg and work on it. But the whole time, they was hooked up to morphine, you know. So when he came out of that hospital after 13 months, he had a little itch. He had a little itch. And those days, it's not like it is today where you can find morphine on every corner, you know, he just went to liquor. You know, I wonder what kind of man he really was.

You know, he was a loving grandfather as best as he could be in the situation that he was in. And dealing with his addiction, he wasn't mean. He was very kind. He taught me a lot of things, man. I'm really grateful for those things that he taught. Growing up, man, was really tough because, like I said, I kind of built that wall around me because of my bed wedding and stuff like that. You know, kids can be really brutal, man, when it comes to something like that, you know. And it's not something you want out at school, for sure.

I continued to be a loner, not many friends. Usually I had one friend. And I depended on that friend to get everything that I needed. and that's just the way it was growing up for me. At 16, I wanted a car, and the rule was, if you want a car, you can have a car as long as you buy it, as long as you insurance, as long as you pay for everything, go ahead. Well, that's what I did. I worked my way through high school and continually had great grades for some reason.

I never took a book home in my life. but usually if I heard it, I learned it. And if it was a problem thing, I was somehow smart enough to figure these problems out without depending on the books. So I graduated from high school. When I graduated from high school, I was very angry.

My father had not shown up for anything. I never went to a ball game when I was playing. I was a pretty good baseball player. I was, again, I was a loner, so I wasn't connecting with people. Football's a team thing. So it's baseball, but for some reason, then I could stick man on that mound and I could throw fire at you. I guess it was the way I was built.

But I went to visit my dad because I wanted to let him know that I'd finished high school. I was the first kid in my family to ever finish high school. My parents had never going to school. My dad, I think, went to the sixth grade. My mom went to the fifth or sixth grade before she got pregnant. So that was the end of our educations as a family. So I wanted him to know that I'd finished high school and I'd planned on going to college. Because my dream was to become an architect.

I really loved buildings and the way they looked and how they were made. He just amazed me. But I went down to see my father and told him I'd finished high school. I was going to college. And he just looked at me and said, well, I hope you don't need anything for me. I haven't got it to give you. I was like, you know, you haven't given me anything yet anyway. You know, I said this to myself.

But all I was wanting from him was a pat on the back or I'm proud of you, son. Way to go, son. Never came out of his mouth, man. So I was very upset about that. A few nights later, I went to a show with him, had a few beers. And towards the end of the show, my alcoholic brain started thinking, if you want your father to be proud of you, what you need to do is get up in that ring and beat up one of those wrestlers. Well, I was 18 years old.

I was a young kid. I was in shape. I was a big kid, but certainly not. built in wrestler shape by no means. So I went up and pounded on the mat and challenged this wrestler who invited me into the ring. And then he spent the next 20 minutes twisting me up, making me pee on myself, making me squeal, making me beg, making me scream uncle. Really humiliating. The fans were laughing their asses off.

He twisted me up so much that I was unable to walk. I had to crawl back to the locker room area. And when I got there, my father came out and seen me in the floor, and he just looked at me and he shook his head. He said, I'm ashamed to you. You're gutless. You'll never amount to a damn thing. And turned and walked away.

I remember that night vividly going back to his house, laying in bed, crying. I remember making the deal with the devil. you know, devil, you help me become a wrestler because I want to show my dad that I'm better than he is. You know, so I'm going to give up my dream. I'm going to become a wrestler and be the best wrestler ever was. I made my pack with the devil, and the next day I started going for it.

I didn't go about it the right way. My idea of learning how to wrestle was the trial and error method. No training at all got in the ring anyway, which was really stupid. So, of course, I had some injuries. That's my early years. Yeah. So that's how it all started for the wrestling.

I was curious to when that was going to start. How did the wrestling journey look like for you at the beginning? It looked like hell. I mean, I was ignorant. I didn't know anything about wrestling. Hell, I still believed it was real. you know because my father always played out the storylines at home, which was really cruel. He was a very cruel man when he comes to stuff like that.

You know, if he'd gotten injured in a match, he would come home nursing that injury. And some of them were pretty bad. I remember one time he had to take three months off. It was a storyline. He wasn't hurt at all. But he was wearing a neck brace for three months around the house. then I find out later that every time I left the house, you can take it off, you know.

It's a pretty cruel shit, man. Yeah. So did you end up going to college or did you do the wrestling? No, I threw it all away and got into wrestling and suffered through the early years because trying to become a professional wrestler is not a one-day job. It takes years.

I did it the hard way, like I said, the trial and error method. I just wasn't not near ready to get in the ring to wrestle, so they made be a referee. That's how I learned. I learned by refereeing the matches, and I got quite a bit of knowledge from refereeing. I refereed for about a year, and then I went back to trying to wrestle again.

Again, never going down there and getting into a ring and working at it, practicing maneuvers, how they hit the ropes properly. I finally had a guy teaching me how to hit the ropes properly, which was a brutal experience. I remember not being able to lift my arm where I would hit the rope with that side.

Underneath my arm turned green and blue and orange. It was pretty damn brutal, man. But that's learning the hard way. If you learn the hard way, you don't forget it. I'll tell you that. Yeah, that's the truth. if you could go back, you would change the way that you approach things? Absolutely.

I would have taken the time, number one, get my ass in shape for it. And number two, go and actually get into a ring and practice moves and learn how to make the moves right without hurting myself because I wound up hurting myself two or three times, which, well, I bent my wrist over to my forearm. It's been all the way over. That's not good. The surgery there took 18 months to recover from that.

While I was recovering, I worked on my father-in-law's dairy farm, and I learned quite a bit there and had a great experience there. Wow, 18 months, yeah. That puts you out of the game for a bit. Yeah, it did. Yeah. When did the addiction start for you? Well, I think I've always been. addict, predestined, if you will, because I was always searching for something to make me feel

better about myself. It seems like the only time I could feel really good about myself is after I'd had a few drinks. Then I started feeling my oats and would start standing up and start being heard. It gave me the courage to talk, if you will. We all know that's bullshit, but that's just the way it was. You know, it gave me the courage to speak out and question things. Because when you got a few drinks in you, you don't give a shit. You know, you just throw it out there.

Whatever happens happens. And that was the way I learned a lot. Yeah. So that was at a very young age, you know, especially in the wrestling business. You know, every night you drink, seven days a week. You know, wrestling back then, you, you, you've raised. wrestling seven days a week. You had no days off. You know, you might have one or two days off in six months. So every night after your match, what do you do? You drink. You drink on the way

home. And when you're drinking on the way home, you're talking about your match, talking about what you could do better, talking about trying new things. Other guys would give you suggestions. The old timers would give you some advice if you're riding with one of them. And I don't always try to put myself around people that get teach me. Yeah, to learn. Now, that's super important. When did things get out of control in a sense for you? Were they, like from the beginning?

Or did it take a while for you to really lose a grip on things? Yeah, it took a long time for me to lose a grip on things, man. I say that, but it depends on how strong a grip was, I guess. because I maintained for years, but that's when I was drinking beer and just a little pot, you know, and was still able to perform every night and do my job better than anybody else could do it.

Once I got into the business and got going, it took me about three years to get going. But once I took off and got going, I became a main eventer overnight. And that was like 1970, 78. By 1978, I was in the main event every night, no matter where I went. If I went into a place that I had never been before, two or three times in that ring, brother, I was pushed up to the main event.

For some reason, I had some people wanted to see. Right, they just like me going out there and killing myself, one of the two. but it was pretty quick. The alcohol and drugs started to take over after I had a neck injury. We did a thing where this guy, the honky talk man, was going to hit me across my back with a guitar. Well, he missed my back and wound up hitting me in the head. And it wrenched my neck over and completely obliterated two discs. The disc were literally sprayed in little bitty pieces onto my spinal cord.

The surgeon said he had never seen that before. The one that exploded with such force. But they did. And foolishly, I had just gotten to the WWF at the time. I'd been up here a year or so. And the money, it went from making $700 to $700,000. thousand dollars a week to making anywhere from five thousand dollars a week to twenty five thousand dollars a week just overnight it changed whenever i went to the w wf so all of a sudden

i'm able to give my family a gigantic new home a new car my wife could go do anything she wanted to do she had jewelry she had fur she had artwork in the house that was you know very expensive and things were coming in, but I wasn't saving any money. I was just, you know, as soon as you came in, I'd go out and buy something else, you know, and I didn't prepare myself for an injury. And also, in my business, they want you to be job scared. You know, they want you to be scared to take a day off. I've wrestled with a broken wrist

of the neck injury I wound up wrestling for two years with that but that's when the addiction took over because I was medicating myself with morphine and cocaine and I lost control after two years of trying to perform like that I finally went and had the surgery

and they told me I'd never wrestle again to forget about it but I knew better than that. I knew me. They never asked me what I was going to do. And I was going to go back. No doubt in my mind, I was going back. I took six months off. I made a trip to Amsterdam to get a lot of performance drugs,

steroids, some growth hormone, quite a few antibiotic injectable steroids that I bought and used, whether it be testosterone, testosterone, parable, and there was two or three that I used. I snuck that all back into the country. I should have went to prison for that, you know, but I snuck it back in because I had to have it, you know. Yeah.

You know, I had an angel watching over me or something, man, because they should have snatched my ass up but good. And the amount of it I had was enough for 10 guys instead of one. You're taking one helps than taking fire are really help. Yeah, now we're talking. You're taking one CCC's going to do it. Imagine what if I took 12 CCs a week, you know? That's just the mentality.

Then you get addicted to steroids, you know, just another damn addiction. And yeah, yeah, whatever I finally came back, I'd gained, you know, close to 40 pounds. And my strength was unbelievable. and for the first time in my life, I was told that I was too big to wrestle. Miss McMahon told me he didn't want to Jake the Stake Roberts looking like the way I looked.

I was much too big, too strong. I'm like, what the fuck? I thought the idea was the bigger the better. I mean, the champions Hulk Hogan, you know, so and Andre the Giant. And when I got hurt, I weighed 235. pounds. But when I went back, I weighed 280. So when I went back, he looked at me and he said, okay, take your ass out of here. You're not coming back to work looking like that. I want you to lose

20 pounds, 20 pounds of muscle, which really pissed me off because I was in the best shape of my life, man. I was, I mean, I look fucking good, man. I really did, you know. I was jacked. You know, and I had muscles where I'd never had muscles before. And so when he told me to go home for two months and lose all that, I basically did exactly what he said. I lost it all. But of course, I used a lot of cocaine with that time off. And I just sat by the pool and drink beer.

That was my idea of how to lose it. And I was very frustrated. and angry because I couldn't get back to doing what I wanted to do what I loved, which was performing. I think the most dangerous drug that I've ever been around it is the rush you get from the people, that adrenaline rush. That is so powerful. I mean, I had a compound fracture at my right arm where the bone came out.

And I remember looking down at it going, whoa, that's funny. Cool, man. And my opponent looked at me and literally threw up on my boots when he's seen it. He just, and he puked on my boots. And I'm like, are you fucking kidding me?

Come on, let's wrestle. He's like, go away, get away from me. Get away. Get away. He was running from me because the bone was sticking out. But I didn't feel it. I didn't feel a damn thing. That's that adrenaline rush, you know.

And that's dangerous, very dangerous. but I spent a lot of time, a lot of years, a lot of injuries. And when I lost control with the neck injury, which was 1989 and 91, those years right there, whenever I lost control. And, of course, they started drug testing us, and boy, I'd study all night for a test, and then I'd fail it.

I couldn't understand that, you know. Something was wrong, but, I went to rehab. That didn't help at all. It was a waste of time and money. And I just kept rocking and rolling, man. Finally, I really crashed in 1997, 98. I'd been caught again.

They kept me in a good position on the card because I was a superstar, but they'd never give me the title or anything like that. because they couldn't trust that I'd be there to perform. You know, they were afraid that I'd get, I'd flunk a test and have to be setting out. So I just never, they never put the load on my shoulders, so to speak, which was very frustrating for me. I was a bigger star than the most of those that were, were being used in a better position than me.

But because of my addiction, they just couldn't trust that I'd be there, that, that I would wouldn't flunk another test and be told to go home. So I created my own monster, man. And after 97, I just started spiraling down. And I spiraled for a long time. I didn't finally crash until 2010, 2009. And it got really bad, man. It got pretty bad.

I wouldn't go any. where unless it was two or three o'clock in the morning. I didn't want people to see me. I looked so bad. I've ballooned up over 300 pounds. Couldn't get work. Didn't care if I did work. Didn't give a shit.

I lived on next to nothing. And every time money did come my way, I'd spend it on cocaine. You know, I'd just buy what I could and then buy some alcohol to come down. And then it fell 20 bucks towards food. It's been 500 on cocaine and alcohol, $40 on food. That's going to last you what? A day? Right.

I didn't care, man. He just got into the point because I realized that my family was gone because I lost my family in 96 because of my addiction. I'm grateful to God that he gave me women that were strong, independent, and they raised my children really well. I've got eight kids, and I can't say that I raised any of them because I was seldom there. When I left in 97, I didn't see any of them for 12 years. And by the time I wanted to see them, they didn't want to see me, which was part of the addiction, you know, is what I used to get angry and what I tried to avoid thinking about. you know addiction is such a tricky beast man he brings these memories to your head and tells you how sorry you are this that and the other where you you wind up hating yourself and you you just want to escape all the

pain you wind up using so you can escape that's what i did that's what i used it for i didn't want to think about what i'd blown what i'd done how bad i'd been i didn't want to think about that shit but yet i wasn't strong without to try to change anything. I tried to quit hundreds of times. Hundreds of times I literally prayed and swore and prayed and begged and finally went to another rehab. That didn't work. Just could not get it together.

You just felt like this might be a part of your story forever. Did you ever feel that way? Yeah, I was wanting to die. I was trying to die. I tried to commit suicide a couple of times by thinking, a lot of value. Basically, all I did was wound up throwing up on myself in my sleep. Somehow I didn't die.

I remember doing that and then getting angry at myself for being such a failure, you can't even fucking die right. That's, if there's not the definition of loser, I don't know what his, man, when you get to that point. Years before, I befriended a guy, he was trying to get this company of his going. DDPY yoga Yeah, yoga man, believe it or not He came to me and seen me And he wanted to help me

You know, get out of the situation I was in He wanted me to get straight So he made me an offer And I couldn't refuse And basically You know, because I was dodging my ex-wife man Because every time I got near her I went to prison

I went to jail You know, because I hadn't paid My child support and just the way it was, man. But anyway, he made me a deal. He said, if you'll move in with me in Atlanta, I'll pay all your bills. I'll get you caught up on your child support.

I'll get you straight. The deal is you can't use. Can't drink, can't do drugs. And you got to do my rules. Boy, did I jump at that. Are you kidding me? You mean I'm going to be, live in a nice house instead of where I'm at because I was living in a dump.

It was horrible, man. And to escape all that and to escape responsibility, this was the perfect way for me. Knowing my addiction, when I went to Atlanta, I figured I'd last about a week before I had to use, you know. So I figured it was going to blow up fairly quick. But hell, I was going to try. Well, I went to Atlanta and I made it. a week. I made it a couple of weeks. And then I had to do something. So I escaped and went down the street and got a pint of vodka and drank it, then come back to the house and got busted,

you know, expecting to be kicked out of the house. I went to Dallas and said, yeah, man, I did it. I'm sorry. I did the best that I could, man, but I fucked up. He's like, yeah, you did. And he gave me a big hug and said, I love you. Let's go back to work again tomorrow. What? Do what? You're not kicking me out? No, I'm not giving up either. I didn't even realize what he was doing to me. He was changing the way I approached each day. He was changing the way that I looked at myself. I used to wear some pretty graphic t-shirts, you know, that said things like a loser, you know. I used to really piss him off when I wore it. Anyway, I can't remember.

I get brain farts now. I'm at that age. That's what I call him anyway. He started making me, and he changed the way I talked. He wouldn't let me put myself down because I was real bad about that. you know, oh, fuck, I can't do it. That moves too hard. I'm a fucking loser.

I can't do it. Don't call yourself a fucking loser. Just try harder. And he slowly started changing the way I thought about myself. Then it almost got to the point that I was getting healthy enough that I could do a lot of the moves. So a funny thing happened on the way to the war, you know, basically. because all of a sudden, man, I'm doing these moves and I'm starting to feel good about myself

because now I've lost 40 pounds and it was something that it was positive in my life. It was a good thing. And getting myself in shaping up to where I could get in there and do the workouts, immense amount of pride. And I started thinking, you know, maybe, maybe I can. be completely clean. Then after about seven months, I went out and used cocaine. Oh, man, it was a bad one. I was gone for a couple of days. And when I came back, I knew that was it.

He set me down and said, okay, there's a new rule. You don't go anywhere unless somebody's with you. And I was wanting it so bad at that time that I said, well, I want to do something. And I took out my driver's license and I cut it up. And I said, I don't want to be able to drive. If I'm able to drive, chances are I'll get behind the wheel of the car and I'll go get dope or I'll go get booze. So I don't want to drive anywhere. And he was good with it. Again, he didn't kick me out.

You know, he just, each time I screwed up, there was consequences, you know. I had to do 90 meetings, 90 days. And it was tough, man. But, you know, I was starting to work now because people had heard that I was getting sober. But again, to be careful, if I went somewhere, I had to take somebody with me. And, of course, I had to pay them for going. So all of a sudden, I'm doing a gig that's going to pay me $2,500. But it's going to cost me $800 to pay this guy that's riding with me.

And it made for some good times. Some funny stuff happened on the way to the war. But you share a room with somebody. You find out just how nasty they are, I guess. You know, I was raised in the locker room, man. So I was real bad about not wearing clothes, you know, and just parading around the whole. hotel room and not giving a shit.

But I kept moving forward. And I credit DDP yoga for getting my life back on track. Because back before I started doing it, the first thing I thought of in the morning was how am I going to score today?

How am I going to get what I need? Well, in Dallas's house, the first thing you do in the morning is you get your ass up and you do DDPY yoga for an hour, sometimes longer. By doing the yoga, a little magic happened and released those endorphins. By release those endorphins that made me feel good about myself, made me proud, and it gave me hope. That was one thing that had been missing in my life for so long was hope, and now I had it. just kept doing that routine, you know. Routines are good as long as it's a good routine. You know, a routine where you get up and start finding dope

and wondering where you're going to get your booze is a bad routine. It's your choice which one you're going to do. But again, doing that DDPY yoga, the first thing when I got up, man, and I get that endorphine release. And then I was ready to go out and try to kick the world's ass. I was ready to go again, man. I felt young again. I felt proud again.

I felt like it was on fire inside. And that's the way I went about things, man. And I think I fell, when I say fail, I used, I think six times in a little over two and a quarter years. And they were filming me the whole time I was there. So they documented everything. Of course, we came out with the documentary, the resurrection of Jake the Snake Roberts. That's what it was, which you can still catch you on Amazon or whatever.

Yeah, I saw a little bit of a, I saw the your Joe Rogan episode and he had mentioned it at the beginning. I'm just a few questions if that's okay. I'm wondering a few, two questions. I'll ask one first, the next one after. What were your initial thoughts, though, when it was suggested to you that yoga might be helpful? I thought that's completely horseshit. Yeah. I didn't believe that for a second.

And I'm still amazed by it. If you don't think yoga can kick your ass, get in there and try it. Yeah, you haven't done it yet. Oh, my God. You'll love it, man. Because the great thing about yoga is you can make it as hard as you want or you can make it as easy as you want. But there's something about doing that routine where your mind and your body starts to float together and it's all good that endorphin releases. That's what you're looking for.

Where did the name Jake the snake come from? I'm curious. I was a big football fan. And there used to be a guy that played for the Oakland Raiders and Kenny Stabler. And they called him the snake. He was riding down the road after a wrestling match and listened to the football game on the radio

and spoke of the joint, drinking beer. And he's like, man, the snake, that's a bad ass, man. that's so bad man that'd be so cool there was a wrestler with a snake and he threw it on people yeah man that'd be funnier and shit you know and here I keep smoking I'm like yeah man and wow

Jake the snake oh my God that's perfect Jake the snake oh my God now Roberts I got from the TV program Dallas because the heel there was J.R. So I stole

Jake and then took the R for Roberts. Jake the snake, Roberts. Tadda. How many years have you been sober for now, Jake? Now I've got over 10 years. It's friggin awesome. I'm very comfortable now in my sobriety. I hope that's not dangerous.

For some people it might be, maybe it's dangerous for me too. But I do drive by myself now. and I've not had any problems and I pray that I don't. I can tell you this, if I'm walking through the airport and there's a bar used to,

I would magnetically go there automatically. But now, when I get close there, I take a deep breath because the smell of alcohol makes me sick to my stomach. What a gift is that? I mean, literally the smell of alcohol makes people want to throw up. So that's a positive thing.

Yeah, for sure. And you have, it sounds like you have a lot of hope now. Oh, got you. Going back to the way things used to be, you're distancing, you've distanced yourself so far from that. I think it's incredible. Oh, yeah, man. I've been able to do a lot of things.

I've, uh, you know, I didn't do my taxes. for like 15 years, man. And now I'm getting caught up on my taxes. I got caught up with my ex-wife. My ex-wife and I reconnected. And after 23 years of being separated, we're now back together, and I've even got a little ring on my left hand

that she gave me, and I've given her a very nice ring to wear. And I guess you might say that she's my feet. fiance right now. We're just waiting for the right day to get married. Wow. And that's just amazing when to go from where I was, you know, in the ditch, begging to die with no hope at all, no way to support myself, nothing to doing what I'm doing now. And I guess in February, there's going to be a special on television about. my life.

And that's going to be really awesome. Wow. I've just got so much going on. I'm doing comedy again. Basically, my comedy is just of me telling road stories, things that used to happen back in the day in the locker rooms, which is some pretty crazy stuff. You know, very entertaining. Some of the Joe Rogan stuff, if you will.

Yeah, doing that. Do a lot of signings. I'm trying to get something set up where I'm going. going into rehabs. I work for AEW now, the wrestling company. Occasionally I'm on TV with another guy named Lance Archer, a buddy of mine when we became buddies. And I manage him.

Also for AEW, I'm their guy, basically, whenever they come to a town, there's an outreach program of some sort there where they need somebody to go to the hospital to see kids or whatever. or we just did one where we handed out food for five hours. Wow. Five hours of handing a car, frozen-ass turkey, and it was cold with hell outside, man,

but there was like 2,500 people lined up to get this food. And we stayed there the whole morning and handed it out. And just trying to do things for the people, man, and to give you somebody some hope. You know, to let you know that you don't have to go that way, that there's help out there if you'll just seek it, you know, and then I encourage people that are doing well to, hey, if you want to do something cool, man, help somebody. That's cool.

It is cool to help people, man. I'm not saying be stupid and hand up your wallet or anything. No, that's not helping it. You know, you're going to facilitate something bad. there but there are ways to help people man and uh the first thing comes with acceptance of love yeah that's so true it's so important on our journeys of recovery recovery and giving back is that you know showing other people oh god yeah that there is hope because we lived hopeless for too long yeah without your sobriety would any of this stuff ever be possible no no i'd be dead by now

No doubt in my mind, I'd be dead. Because back in the day, if it was a choice of me going to the doctor's office and taking care of a health issue or getting high, which one am I going to do? Get high. Well, get high. You know, blow off the health issue. You know what that's like. But none of these things would have happened. And I give back.

I've got several people that I talk to. if not weekly, several times a week, whenever it's needed, try to help them through a rough spot. School, I'm going to how to get clean, which involves ant abuse, of course. I'm a big guy for ant abuse. I know I went through those spells where I'd had to take it for several months at a time, just to be sure. and of course I had to test it one time to see if it really worked. That was not a good night. No.

Oh, my God. What happens if you drink while you're on it? Oh, you puke your guts out. You shit your brains out, man. You'll be sitting on a toilet throwing up and shitting at the same time, man. It's brutal. Wow. Very painful.

Very painful. So it's effective. Yes, yes. And I actually got sick by accident. I had some beer battered fish and got sick from that. Wow. Then I checked into it and they said, well, they try to tell you, oh, the alcohol is cooked off.

No, it's not. You can't test that shit, man, especially wine sauces. Uh-uh. don't do it. You do it you're going to pay for it. Yeah. Yeah, I've got all my people

that I'm connecting with right now doing anti-abuse, man. Absolutely. And you need to help, right? Yeah, anything to help, man. What you're looking for is the end result, right? And people say, oh, well, you must be really

weak if you can't do it. Motherfucker, I'm going to add it. I'm not weak. I'm an addict. there's a difference. Yeah, it definitely doesn't have to do anything with strength, with mental strength. Right. It doesn't, man.

It's an illness and that's just it. Yeah. It's like what you said earlier too. It's about putting one foot in front of the other and doing the stuff. You were doing the, you did the meetings. And I liked when you shared about the other story about being at the house is that it seems like throughout that story when you, the first time you went out and you got caught, you might not have done anything on your end or you didn't share.

But the second time you went out, you took responsibility and to cut up your driver's license and do some more things. Right. That's the change. That was the change that started happening. I know that although I went out and used two or three times after that, I remember how emotional I was each time. And it completely devastated me because I was really trying to stay clean. Yeah. I was using everything that I could and I still failed.

But I think that was a, that was, you know, that was a good thing because it made me, it showed me that I was completely powerless. Yeah. Completely powers over alcohol and the drug. Yeah. So I learned. No, yeah. And, you know, I mean, that's a lot of people's story.

That's a lot of people. And that's okay to be part of this story. And I think also, too, what I hear from it, too, is you had. more hope, but you also had people in your life that you probably didn't want to let down. And when we get in- That's it, man. Yeah, the hopeless part of things, and we're on our own and we're stuck up in the daily cycle, it's easier for us to go further down in the hole.

Yep. We're just destroying ourselves, we feel like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. And that was the thing. I didn't want to look Dallas in the eye and telling my loss to get. You know, come on, man. This guy's doing everything in the world to keep me straight. he's feeding me some of the best food I ever ate in my life.

You know, he's got people cooking for me and feed me. I'm taking, doing cleansings and doing all sorts of stuff. He went a whole nine yards with me. Never asked for a nickel, you know. Of course, now after I got sober, I started paying him back. Yeah. And I'm glad to say today, I don't owe him anything and except my love. And he's got that.

Yeah, that's incredible. That's incredible. I got one question here to wrap things up if that's okay with you. Yeah, I'm great. Yeah. How do you want to be remembered? I want to be remembered as a guy that fought and lost, but won again, you know, because I think my story's got so many parts to it.

But the loss is something that's a big part of my life, man. I want to be remembered for the humane things that I'm not. doing now. Not so much as a great wrestler. That was such a small part of my life. Yeah. Incredible. I love that. Well, thank you so much. This has been incredible. This has been incredible. Good, good. I hope it helps somebody. That was an incredible episode. Huge thank you to Jake the Snake Roberts and his people for setting this up. This was an incredibly powerful episode. Jake the snake Peel back the layers of the struggles in his life and shared with us how he's thriving now

and giving back is the most important thing that he can do. Huge shout out to my buddy Tommy Kay for letting me know about Jake the Snake struggle with addiction so we could get him here on the podcast. Thank you again, everyone, for listening and be sure to leave a review on your favorite podcasting platform.

And I'll see you on the next episode. I'm out.