Jake The Snake Roberts On The Darkness Of Addiction, How Long It Took Him To Get Clean, Feeling No Pain While Wrestling

WWE Hall of Famer Jake “The Snake” Roberts was a recent guest on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, where he opened up about his struggles with addiction, being conceived in rape, and being molested as a young boy and much more. You can read a few transcribed highlights below:

On How Long It Took Him To Get Clean:

I stayed there for 3.5 years because it took me that long to get clean. I couldn’t go in for six months. I’ve done that. I couldn’t go in for four months. I’ve done that. Hell, the time I went in for four months, man, I go across the stage to get my diploma, so to speak. I’m finishing this course, being in rehab for four months. I go off the other side, pick up a payphone and call my dealer. He meets me outside the door with a big rock and a stem, ‘Thank you, I made it,’ but that’s the insanity of the disease. The disease will let you sit in a place for three or four months and not touch you. It won’t even come knocking on your door because it knows, right now, you’re locked in and you’re gonna do this; but, it’s over there doing push ups in the corner waiting on your ass. ‘As soon as you get away from these idiots over here that are teaching you bad habits, Jake, I’m gonna get you to where you need to be.’ That was the thing being there for a long period of time. [I slipped up] four or five times, I did. I wanted to die. Not only did I let myself down, but I let him [DDP] down and that really sucked because here’s a guy that’s opened up his wallet and said, ‘You come live with me. Don’t worry about your damn bills. I’ll take care of them.’ ‘Excused me? Oh, I’m damn sure in now. I don’t have to think twice about this. I’m moving in with you, if you pay all my bills while I get healthy.’ I never thought it was gonna take three years.

On Feeling ‘No Pain’ When He Wrestled:

I felt no pain when I wrestled. None. I was wrestling a guy in Louisiana, Ernie “The Cat” Ladd…he’s in the Hall of Fame for both football and wrestling….bad ass son of a bit*h…we were wrestling and my bone came out of my arm, compound fracture. He goes, ‘Kid, your arm.’ I go, ‘Yeah, I see it. Come on.’ He goes, ‘What? Get away from me.’ I’m trying to get to him and he starts puking on me. I’m like, ‘Mother fu*ker, you’re puking on me!’ ‘Your arm man, your arm, it’s fuc*ing bone, dude!’ I’m like, ‘It doesn’t hurt. Let’s finish the match.’ [puking sound] ‘Fuc* you, I’m getting out of the ring.’ Man, he could puke out a bunch of sh*t man, nasty smelling sh*t too. I was fine. I got back into the locker room and this was the strangest feeling; I’d blow on the bone. ‘Ooooh it feels cold when I blow on the bone.’ 15 minutes later, I was in the shower, ‘Holy fuc*. Holy fuc*!’ The adrenaline’s gone. When the adrenaline’s going, nothing hurts. It feels good, in fact.

On Depression:

You have no idea what it’s like to wake up and be angry that you woke up because you didn’t want to. You wanted to be over and there’s been so many years that were like that with me. I wouldn’t go out shopping unless it was 3AM because I didn’t want anybody to see me because I’d gotten to the point that I hated myself so much that I’m begging God to die. When I would hear another wrestler had died, I’d get angry at God and curse him for not taking me instead. When [Roddy] Piper died…I was so pissed off that he got to go before I did and that’s just wrong, man. Even when I tried to OD a couple times and I really tried, I took 100 valium, 110 mg valium, I woke up and all I did was puke on myself. I said, ‘What a fuc*ing loser you are. You can’t even die right. You’re a piece of sh*t.’ What kind of mindset is that? It’s a mind that’s given up, man.

On Addiction:

People have the wrong idea about this sh*t, man. They think, ‘Yeah, they’re over there getting fuc*ed up. They’re happy.’ No, we’re not happy. We’re not enjoying getting high. I quit enjoying getting high thirty years ago, but the problem was I couldn’t live without it. I would feel like my heart was gonna burst, that I couldn’t breathe. I was scared to go anywhere. It was horrible, man. For me [what was pulling me] was more. I’m lucky I didn’t get into heroin. I probably wouldn’t beat that one. Yeah, I would because this is what I’m meant to be doing now.

To go through 25 or 30 years of doing cocaine, I thank Vince McMahon for affording me my addiction because without it, I’d be in prison somewhere because I would have killed somebody for my drug. Without a doubt, I would have knifed him. That guy’s got an 8-ball? Watch this [slashing noise]. Done. Life meant nothing to me and it gets to the point where you put yourself in such a dark hole that there is no light: none at all. You couldn’t send me to rehab then. It wouldn’t have worked. I would have been out in minutes….at the time I couldn’t go 24 hours without doing cocaine. If you wanted me to get up out of bed, bring me some cocaine. That’s where I was at because life was too ugly to want to go out there.

(Transcription Credit: Michael McClead, WrestleZone)

Readers can watch the Joe Rogan Experience in its entirety below:

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