Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - The Transformation Journey of WWF superstar Jake 'The Snake' Roberts: Addiction, Rebuild and Triumph

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

In this episode, we have Jake 'The Snake' Roberts, a WWF professional wrestling icon who shares his journey from growing up in a difficult environment to achieving fame in the wrestling world only to fall into addiction. Jake candidly recounts his destructive path, from enduring a damaged childhood to wrestling successes, severe injuries, and the subsequent slide into alcohol and drug addiction. Despite multiple failed attempts at rehab, Jake reveals how fellow wrestling veteran Diamond Dallas Page (DDP) helped him turn his life around through DDP Yoga, not only by providing a program to regain his physical health but also by altering his mental perspective. Jake's story underscores the power of positive influence, self-care, love, and the human capacity for resilience and recovery. --------------- 30-Day Free Trial To the SoberBuddy App: https://community.yoursoberbuddy.com/plans/368200?bundle_token=8d76ca38d63813200c6c1f46cb3bdbed&utm_source=manual Follow SoberMotivation on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sobermotivation/ Donate to support the show here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivation    

Welcome back to season three of the Suburmotivation podcast. Join me, Brad, each week as 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. In this episode of the podcast, we have Jake the Snake Roberts, a professional wrestling icon who shares his journey from growing up in a difficult environment to achieving fame in the wrestling world, only to fall into addiction. Jake candidly recounts his destructive path from enduring a damaging childhood to wrestling success,

several injuries, and the slide into alcohol and drug addiction. Despite multiple failed attempts at rehab, Jake reveals how fellow wrestling veteran Diamond Dallas Page helped him turn his life around through DDP yoga, not only by providing a program to regain his physical health, but also altering his mental perspective. Jake's story underscores the power of positive influence, self-care, love, and the human capacity for resilience and recovery. And this is Jake the Snake Roberts story on the Suburmotivation podcast. Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the podcast. So happy to have you.

So grateful for your continued support. As always, if you've been listening to the show since it launched, you might have heard Jake to Snake Roberts story. This is a completely remastered episode. I went back through it since I know a lot more now than I did back then to really make it easier for listening and really highlight the really cool stuff about this episode and about him sharing his story. The comeback is just incredible. And I think this is a really relatable story to a lot of professional athletes. You hear it seems all the time about the rise in the fall of making it. to the top and then when they're not playing anymore or when they fall out of the limelight,

it's a really big struggle for people. And Jake touches on this in the episode as well about that rush you get from being part of something so big and so incredible. So you guys are really going to enjoy this episode. Before we jump in, though, I want to also say thank you to the handful of people who listen to the podcast that join us on that last sober buddy support meeting. It was incredible. It was great to meet some people and connect with everybody. If you're looking for some support on your journey, I'm hosting the three groups every week inside of the Sober Buddy app. And what I'm going to do for all of you that are fans of the show, because I really want you guys to check it out, is in the show notes, I'm going to drop a link that's going to give you a 30-day free trial to the Sober Buddy app.

So it's going to give you 30 days to check it out. There's 10 or more groups each week. We cover everything from skills on how to stay sober, supportive connection, meetings and also different topics each week and there's just a community in their 24-7 support. A lot of great feedback. So I hope to see you over there soon. Now let's get to this episode. 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 yet 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. We usually just get started off with what it was like for you growing up. Oh, wow. Very well. That'd be the best part to describe it. My father shows his bride. My mother was 13 years old when I was born. He was actually dating my grandmother, and she went to sleep one night.

He went into the next room. So in 13, she's got a child and winds up having two more children in the next four and five years. And she's not even 18 yet. And that's when my dad decided he had enough, but he wanted to be hit the road. So he did. She had no way to support us. He wasn't helping him. at all. So what happened was she loved in with my grandmother, my dad's mom. She lived in with her

and she would try to work. And I was a school age now and started to go to school, first grade, second grade, coach. And it was pretty hectic. When she had my brother, which was six years after I was born, it was just too much. And she wound up giving them up. for adoption. And he was adopted by my head. 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 me and my sister just 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 once by and it just made sense. And I stayed there until I was 12 years old dealing with my grandfather.

My grandfather was a homeless alcoholic. He had been in a oilfield accident when he was younger and he crushed his legs. So he was crippled up pretty bad. And he would go to farms and do farm work the best that he could. Usually it was building fences, things like that, manual labor and drag me along with him. But then on the way home, we'd stop at the beer joint for a while. What I learned down to drive. I was 12 years old.

Each time we'd go out, I knew the reason I was going was to drive him home. And it was only about four miles old and his back roads and stuff. and I didn't know how to drive for shit. I really didn't matter. And we went the whole way in first year. You're in a church, you get around that truck. But coming home was tough for me at school because when I came home, my grandfather would be passed out in the living room and less than nice house.

I'll just put it that way. And it was pretty rough, man. It was a long shame involved. On top of that, I was a bed. wetter. My grandmother didn't have a washer and dryer. She had a wringer washer and she had to do by hand and drying clothes would put them out outside of a 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. They'd see that. I'd be laughed at Shane.

When my grandmother came home one day when I was 12 and told me she was sick. What he means sick is, I had never known her to go to the doctor. In those days, the doctors came to her house. And once 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. As 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 land. And I realized that it was this girl. when I say girls, because she'd bury you.

I mean, he had to be 32, 33, and she was like 17 or 18. He was a pedophile, man. That's bottom line. When they left, they took my sister with them. She was going to school, but it wasn't a necessity. 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. Nobody could take care of us. We just went where we could get the care. My mother had married a really good man, hardworking man, and a lovely man. His name was E.C. Crock. He was such a sweet man, but by that time, I'd already started building my walls up around me. I'd also had started picking up with beer drinking. My grandfather, the rule was around our house.

If he found this booze, he 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 the neighborhood kids. And that's just the way it went. And the thing with your grandmother, was she your rock sort of in your life, the stability part? Yeah, she was, but she had quite a load put on her. My grandfather, like I said, which is I hope it was alcoholic. She had tried to stop him from drinking.

He's the only person I ever met that was able to take any abuse and drink on top of it. Wow. 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 sport. 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 quit to figure out that he was in the hospital for 13 months until the 1940s, and their way of fixing his legs was continually rebrand. break them to try to lie the pieces. They would break them, put them in splints, and then try to let him heal. And if they were healing rights, they'd let it go, and they'd do it a different part of this leg and work on it. But the whole time, they was looking up to morphine.

So when he came out of that hospital after 13 months, he had a little itch. He had a little itch. In those days, I'm not like it is today, where he could find morphine on every quarter. He just went to liquor. I wonder what kind of man he really was. He was a loving grandfather,

as he bet as he could be in the situation that he was in. And dealing with this addiction. He wasn't made. He was very chides. He taught me a lot of things, man. I'm really grateful for those things that he taught me. Growing up, it was really tough, because, like I said,

But I built that wall around me because of my bed wedding and stuff like that. Kids can be really brutal, man, when he comes to something like that. And it's not something you want out at school, for sure. And 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, and the normal you pay for everything. Go ahead. Well, that's what I did. I worked my way through high school and continually had a great braids for some reason. I never took the book home with my life. But usually if I heard it, I learned it. And if there was a problem being, 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. You know, little football in high school, but I was good.

I was a loner, so I wasn't connecting with people. And football's a team day. so was baseball, but for some reason then you can stick mail on that mound and I could throw fire at you. I guess there's the way I was built, but I went to visit my dad because I wouldn't let him know if I had finished high school. I was the first kid in my family never finished 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 her education as a family. So I wanted 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 and just amazed me. But I went down to see my father and told me I'd finished high school when 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, he haven't given me anything yet anyway. I said this to myself. But all I was wanting from him was a pat on the back where 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 and 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 she needs to do is get up in that ring and beat up one of those wrestlers. I was 18 years old. I was a young kid. I was a shape.

I was a big kid. But certainly not built in wrestler shape by no means. So I went up and held him on the mat and challenged this wrestler who invited me into the ring. And then he spent the next 20 minutes twisting me. making me peel 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 see 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 makes you the deal with the devil. The devil you helped me become a wrestler, because I want to show my dad that I'm better than he is. So I'm going to give up my dream.

I'm going to become a wrestler and be the best wrestler ever was. And I made my back with the devil, and the next day I started going for it. But 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. So that's how it all started for the wrestling.

Yeah. I was curious to when that was going to start, what did that look like for you? Well, it was that thing. It looked like hell. I mean, I was injured, man. I didn't know anything about wrestling. Hell, I still believed it was real. 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. And if he'd gotten injured in a match, he would tell him nursing that injury. Some of them were pretty bad. I remember one time he had to take three months off. It was a storyline. He wasn't heard at all. But he was wearing a neck brace for three months around the house. Then I found out later that every time I left the house, you can take it all.

Some pretty cruel shit, man. Yeah. So did you end up going to college or did you do the rest? I threw it all the way and got into wrestling. And to the early years, because I tried to become a potential wrestler and not a one-day job takes years. And I did it to horribly, like I said, in the trial in there, about that I wasn't not near ready to get in the ring to wrestle, so they made me a referee. And 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 him to a ring and working at it, practicing maneuvers, learning how to hit the rope properly. Finally had a guy teach me how to hit the ropes properly, which was a brutal experience. I remember not being able to lift my arm or I was hit the rope with that. side underneath my arm turned green and blue and orange he'd be 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 wait if you could go back you would change the way that you approach things or do you feel like the way you absolutely yeah you would change it up absolutely i would take in the time number one get my ass in shape for it. And number two, gobbling and actually get into a ring and practice moves and learn how to make the looms right without hurting myself. Because I wound up hurting myself two or three times,

which, well, I bent my wrist over to my forearm and bit on the way over. That's 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. Yeah. When did the addiction start for you? Well, I think I've always been an 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 I tried to have a few drinks. Then I started feeling my own.

It started 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. It gave me the courage to sneak out and question things. Because when you got a few people, you got a few. drinks in you, you don't give us yet. You just throw it out there, whatever it happens. That was the way I learned a lot.

Yeah. That was in a very young age, especially in the wrestling business. Every night you drank, seven days a week. Wrestling back then, you wrestled seven days a week. You had no days off. You might have one or two days off in six months. So every night after your match, what do you do? 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 can 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. Then I always try to put myself around people that give to you. Yeah, to learn. 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. Well, I say that, but it depends on how a stronger grip was, I guess. I maintained for years, but that's when I was drinking beer and just a little pot. and was still able to perform every night, 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 maid of dinner overnight. And that was like 19, 78. By 1978, I was in a 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. Yeah.

Brother, they just like me going out there and killing myself, one or two. But, you know, 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 Humpty Dog Man, was going to hit me across my back with a guitar. Well, he missed my back and wound up in me in the head. And it wrenched my neck over and legally obliterated two discs. The disc were literally sprayed in little bitty pieces onto my spinal cord.

the surgeons and he had never seen that before. They wanted to explode with such force. But they did. And foolishly, I'd just gotten to the WWF at the time. I'd been up for a year or so. And the money, it went from aging $700 to $1,000 a week

to aging anywhere from $5,000. $25,000 a week to $25,000 just overnight. It changed whenever I went to the WWF. So all of a sudden, I'm able to get 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.

It was very expensive. And things were coming in. but I wasn't saving any money. As soon as you came in, I'd go out and buy something else. And I didn't prepare myself for an injury. And also, in my business, they want you to be job-skared. They want you to be scared to take the day off. And they want you to me, I'd wrestle with a broken wrist.

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, morphine, and goate. And I lost control. And after two years of trying to perform like that,

I finally went and they had the surgery. 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. And I took six months on.

I made a trip to Amsterdam to get a lot of performance drugs, a lot of steroids, some growth hormone, quite a few antibiotic injectable steroids that I bought 10 use, whether it be testosterone and parabolin, there was two or three that I used. But I snuck that all back into the chattriac. I should have went to prison for that. But I snuck it back here because I had to have, 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, send them one.

If they had one else, then taking five are really held. Yeah, now we're talking. And taking one CCC's going to do it. Imagine what if I took 12 Cs a week. That's just the mentality. Then you get addicted to distribution. Just another damn addiction. And yeah, whatever I finally came back, I'd gained 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. Mr. McMahon told me he didn't want to Jake the St. Robert's looking like the way I looked, I was much too big, too strong. I'm like, what the fuck? The idea was the bigger. the better. I mean,

the champions Hulk Hogan 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 said, okay, take your ass out of here. You're not coming back to work looking like that. You know, which you lose 20 pounds. What are these pounds of muscle? Which really pissed me off.

Because I was in the best shape of my life, man. I was, I mean, I was fucking good, but I really did. I was jacked. 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. Of course, I used a lot of cocaine with the 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 love, which would perform me. I think the most dangerous drug that I've ever been around me, oh gosh, is the rush you get from the people that adrenaline rush. That is so powerful. I mean, I had a compound fracture in my right arm where the bone came out. And I remember looking down at him going, whoa, that's cool, man. And my opponent looked at me and literally threw up on my boots when he seen it.

He just, he puked on my boots and I'm like, are you kidding me? Come on, let's wrestling. He's like, go away. Get away for me. Get away. He was running from it. Because the bone was sticking out. But I didn't feel it.

I didn't kill a damn thing. That's that adrenaline rush. That's dangerous. Very dangerous. I spent a lot of time, a lot of years, a lot of injuries. But when I lost control with the neck injury, where it was 1989, 91, those years right there, is whenever I lost control. And, of course, they started drug testing us.

And boy, I'd study all night for a test, then I'd fail. I couldn't understand that. Something was wrong. 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.

Been caught again. They kept me in a good position on the car 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. They were afraid that I'd fucking task and have to be sitting down. So they just never put the load on my shoulders, those things, which was very frustrating for me. I was a bigger stover than most of those that were being used in a better position than me. But because of my addiction, they just couldn't trust that. be there that I wouldn't put another jazz and be told to go home so I created my little

monster man and after tiny seven I just started spiraling down and I spiraled for a long gun I didn't finally trash till 2010 2009 it had it got really bad man. I wouldn't go anywhere unless it was two or three o'clock in the morning. I didn't want people to see me. I looked so bad. I bloomed up over 300 pounds. Couldn't get work. Didn't care if I did work. I couldn't give a shit. And I lived on next to nothing. And every time money did come my way, I'd send it on cocaine. I'd just buy what I could and then buy some alcohol to come down. And then about 20 bucks to worse foods.

Then 500 old cocaine and alcohol with $40 on food. That's going to last you a day. Right. I didn't care. I just got to the point because I realized that my family was gone. I lost my family in 96 because of my addiction. And I'm grateful to God. God that he gave me women that were strong and 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 would sell them there. When I left in 97, I didn't see any of them for 10 years, of years. And by the time I wanted to see them, they didn't want to see me. which was part of the addiction, was whether they used to get angry and what I tried to avoid thinking about.

Addiction is such a tricky beast, he brings these memories to your head and tells you how sorry you are, this, that, and the other where you wind up hating yourself. You just want to escape all the pain, and you wind up using so you can escape. Oh, that's what I did. That's what I used it for.

I didn't want to think about what I had done, what I'd done, how bad I'd been. I didn't want to think about that shit. But yet, I wasn't strong enough to try to change anything. I tried to quit hundreds of times. Hundreds of times I had literally prayed and swore and prayed and begged. didn't. Finally went to another rehab, that didn't work. So she could not get it together.

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

I remember doing that and then getting angry and myself for being such a failure, you can't even fucking die right. But years before, I'd be friend of the guy. And he was trying to get this company his going, the DDPY yoga. Yeah, yoga, man, believe it or not. And he came to me and seen me and he wanted to help me get out of a situation. I was in. He wanted me to get straight.

So he made me an offer that I couldn't refuse. And basically, I was, I was dodging my ex-wife, man, because every time I got near her, I went to prison. I went to jail. I was like, pay by child support. It's 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 called 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. Then,

boy, did I jump at that. Are you kidding me? You mean I'm going to 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 escaped responsibility.

This was the perfect way for me. Now, knowing my addiction, when I went to Atlanta, I figured I'd last about a week before I had to use. So I figured it was going to blow up fairly quick, but hell, I was going to try. And, 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 jumped back to the house and got busted. And 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 they gave me a big hug and said, I love you.

Let's go back to work again tomorrow. What? You're not checking me out? No, I'm not giving up either. And 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 look at myself. I used to wear some pretty graphic t-shirts

that said things like loser shit. What was the one? But I used to really piss him on when I wore. Anyway, I actually remember I get brain parts now. I'm at that age. That's what I call him anyway. And he changed the way I talk.

He wouldn't let me put myself down because I was real bad about that. I can't do it, Giles. 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 to change in the way I thought about myself. And 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, basically. Because all of a sudden, man. I'm doing these blooms 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,

gave me immense amount of pride. And I started thinking maybe I can't be completely clean. Then after about seven months, I went out and used to okay. It was a bad one. I was gone for a couple of days. When I came back, I knew that was it. He sent me down and said, okay, there's a new rule. You don't go anywhere unless somebody's with you.

I was wanting it so bad at that time that I said, well, I want to do something. I took out my driver's license and I cut it up. I said, I don't want to be able to drive. If I'm able to drive, chances are I'll get behind the wheeled car and I'll go get dope or I'll go get boons. So I don't want to drive anywhere. And he was good with, again, he didn't kick me out.

Each time I screwed up, there was consequences. I had to do 90 meetings, 90 days. I didn't stop, man. But 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 $25,000. hundred bucks, but it's going to cost me $800 to pay this guy that's riding with me.

Well, and it made for some good times. So plenty of stuff happened from the way to the war, but you share a room with somebody to find out just how I'm asked you they are, I guess. You know, I was raised in the locker room, man, so I was real bad about not wearing clothes and just parading around the 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. Can you do need E.PY yoga for an hour, sometimes longer? By doing the yoga, a little magic happened, and it 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. And now I had it. So I just kept doing that routine. routines are good as long as it's a good routine A routine where you get up and start buying the dough 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 younger again I felt proud again I felt like it was on fire inside

And that's the way I went about things, man. I think I'd fail, when I say fail, I used, I think six times in living 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 and the life, the resurrection of Jake the St. Robert's what it was. which you can still catch on Amazon or whatever. Yeah, I'm just a few questions.

I'm wondering a few, two questions here. I'll ask one first and the next one after. What were your initial thoughts, though, when it was suggested to you that yoga might be helpful? That's totally horrid shit. Yeah. I didn't believe that for a second. And I'm still amazed by it.

But if you don't think yoga can kick your ass, get in there and try. Yeah, you haven't done it yet. Oh, my God. You'll love it, man. Yeah. It's a 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 adorphine releases. That's what you're looking for. Yeah. So true. Yeah. I love that. And I've heard incredible things about the program. Oh, it's so unbelievable.

from people the transformation. Oh, she's definitely doing, man. Yeah. Where did the name Jake the snake come from? I'm curious. I was a big football fan. And I used to be a guy

that played for the open raiders and Kenny Stabler. And they called him the city. Drieding down the road after a wrestling match, she listened to the football game on the radio. And spoke to the joint and drinking beer. And it's like, man.

The snake, that's bad ass, man. That's so bad, man. That'd be so cool. There was a wrestler with a snake, they threw it from people. Yeah, man, that'd be funny and shit. Jerry, I keep so good. Yeah, man. Wow.

Jake, the snake. Oh, my God. That's perfect. Jack, the snake. Oh, my God. Now, Roberts, I got from the TV program, Dallas. because the heel there was JR. So I stole Jake and then took the R for Roberts.

Jake to stay Roberts. That's incredible. So when do you celebrate your sober birthday? Each moment. Yeah, fair enough. Each moment, I can't tell you an exact date. But now I've got over 10 years. and it's freaking 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'm afraid that I don't. But I can tell you this,

if I'm walking through the airport and there's a bar, Houston, I would magnetically go there automatically. But now when I get closer, I take a deep breath because the smell of alcohol makes me sick to my stomach. What a gift is that? Literally, the smell of alcohol makes me want to throw up. So that's a positive thing.

Yeah, for sure. And it sounds like you have a lot of hope now. Oh, God, yeah. Going back to the way things used to be, 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 didn't do my taxes for like 15 years yet.

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 married ice cream to wear. And I usually say that she's my 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 in the ditch, baiting to die with no hope at all, no way to support myself, nothing to doing what I'm doing that.

I guess in February there's going to be a special television about my life. That's going to be really awesome. Wow. I've just got so much going on. I'm doing comedy again. Basically my comedy

insist of me telling road stories, things that used to happen back in the day in the locker rooms, which is some pretty crazy stuff. Very entertaining. Yeah, doing that and do a lot of signings. I'm trying to get something set up where I'm going into rehabs. I work for A.E.W. now, the wrestling company, and occasionally I'm on TV with another guy named Lance Archer, buddy of mine. where we became buddies

and I managed him and also for A.W I'm their guy basically whenever they come to a town there's an outreach program of some sport care 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 you know? Wow. Five hours of handing a car a 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. 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. But 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, but there are ways to help people, man. And the first thing comes with acceptance of love. Yeah, that's so true. It's so important on our journeys of recovery and giving back is that showing other people that there is hope because we lived hopeless for long. I have a question for you here. Yeah. Without your sobriety, would any of this stuff ever be possible?

No, I'd be dead by now. No doubt in my mind, I'd be dead. 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 a high, which one would I'm going to do? Getting high. Well, get high. It's what. Blow off a health issue. You know what that's like. But just 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, whatever it's needed, try to help them through a rough spot, school how to get cleaned. I like that, yeah. And you need to help, right?

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. I'm not weak. I'm an addict. There's a difference. Yeah. It doesn't, man.

It's an illness and that's just it. Yeah. So, Ben, 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 like when you shared about the other story about being at the house is that it's 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 working to cut up your driver's license and do some more things. Right. That's the change. That was the change that started happening. And 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 because I would really try to stay clean. Yeah, I was using everything that I could and I was still there. But I think that was a good thing because it showed me that I was completely powerless.

Yeah. Completely powers over alcohol and the drunk. Yeah. So I learned. 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 easy for us to go further down in the whole. Yeah. We're just destroying ourselves, we feel like.

Yeah, and that was the thing. I didn't want to look Dallas to me. I didn't tell him I lost a good. Come on, man. This guy's doing everything in the world, but keep me straight.

He's feeding me something the best thing. eating my life. They got people cooking for me and saved me. I'm doing cleansings and doing all sorts of stuff. He went to a whole nine yards with me. Never asked for a nickel. Of course, now after I got sober,

I started paying back. Yeah. And I'm glad to say today, I don't relieve 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 all in lost, but one again. 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. and I want to be remembered for the humane things that I'm doing now.

Not so much as you're a great wrestler. That was such a small part of my life. Yeah. Incredible. I love that. Well, thank you so much. Thank you, bro. This has been incredible.

Good. Good. I'll help it help somebody. Well, there it is, guys. An incredible episode. What a story. to come back through listening to that story I can just envision in my head and I was early on with podcasting so I wasn't maybe as quick as I am now after 130 something episodes but I really

enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it. Jake's an incredible storyteller very honest about how dark things got for him and I just really appreciated him being willing to come on here and share his story and what he's doing now for people to get somewhat of a career back and you know maybe a living for himself and his family and just to be part of something and giving back and helping others. And I just can't express how important that is. And this whole journey is once we get our feet under ourselves is to start giving back and helping people in our communities in one way or another. It doesn't always have to be people trying to get sober. People want to be sober. But just being good and giving back and feeling good about volunteer opportunities and reaching your hand out to help

the next person with what they're going through and maybe some of the pain and some of the experience that we've been through can help people out in their darkest times. So thank you all. As always, for the support. If you have not left a review yet on Apple or Spotify, jump over there and do that. Make sure you're following the show on Apple and Spotify as well. And let's keep going.