AEW Champion Jon Moxley has given a frank interview on his issues with alcohol addiction and what he described as his “absolute personal hell.”
Speaking to Matt Koesters of Cincinnati.com, the 36-year-old called his decision to check into rehab at the end of 2021 “definitely the best decision I’ve ever made.”
Recalling his lowest point before seeking treatment, Moxley said:
Over a year ago, I was afraid of dying of a seizure in the ring. I had that on my mind every day. It was all [messed] up, and going through an absolute personal hell for a long time that nobody else even knew about. When you’re scared for your actual life, to make the decision to go to rehab and [stuff] was basically — I had to basically assume I’m giving everything away. I was like, OK, I’m either going to live a long, happy life and raise my kid and be a person, or I can wrestle. But I can’t have both.
The AEW headliner, real name Jonathan Good, added that he knew he had to stop relying on alcohol to manage his pain but was concerned he could be throwing his career away by choosing to go to rehab:
But when I got out, it turned out that nobody was mad at me at all. Everybody was very happy. I was welcomed back by AEW and by the fans.
If I had taken another step in the wrong direction, I could have been on the verge of losing my family if I had gone that way. If I had kept going in another direction, I could have died on live television. I could have literally lost everything. So, to make that choice, I had to completely give away everything.
Now there’s kind of nothing to lose. What, am I gonna lose a match? Will I screw up a move? Like, what could possibly go wrong? Almost nothing. Big f’n deal. Am I alive? OK, I think it was a fine day, then.
Going into further detail on his decision to check into rehab, Moxley said:
The simple short way to put it is that you get to a certain point you’ve got a problem you can’t fix yourself. If your plumbing is backed up, you call a plumber. If your transmission is shot, you call a mechanic. At a certain point, when things are beyond your own control, you’ve got to call a professional and do a job that’s much more expedient, efficient and thorough than you can do yourself.
It’s definitely the best decision I’ve ever made. I’m the kind of guy that wants to fix everything myself, and isn’t going to ask for help, necessarily, and obviously that’s a kind of embarrassing thing, y’know. That’s the main reason probably that a lot of people hesitate to do a thing like that because it’s a sign of weakness or it’s embarrassing. It’s whatever. It’s a lot quicker. It saves you a whole hell of a lot of trouble to deal with it head-on. But you’ve got to kind of get to that point, though, because you can try everything on your own first. The cliche is you’ve got to hit rock bottom or whatever.
On a lighter note, Moxley spoke about his wife Renee Paquette’s new-found love of the city of Cincinnati, and how he now feels like the “King” of his home city:
She loves it because it reminds her of Toronto. Toronto is very much a part of who she is. They’re very similar as far as walkable cities. You’ve got to deal with the hills here, but as far as just like a place you can walk around – there’s four seasons and sports and all kinds of different shops and coffee shops and breweries and restaurants and [stuff], and people just hanging in the parks and stuff.
Now she’s working with the Bengals, too. I don’t even know how that came up, but she’s basically going to end up being like Mrs. Bengal. That’s it for me. That’s like the final jewel in the crown of I won the lottery of life. There’s definitely like a conquering hero feeling. Like I’m going to come back to Cincinnati because I left with nothing, I went and I saw the whole world, literally.
I went around the world multiple times, and I came back with, like, all of the spoils. The most beautiful woman in the world and all of the other [stuff]. Now I feel like the King of Cincinnati, and I’m married to Mrs. Bengal. It’s like the final, it’s like – OK, I’m done. I could have written this in a story. It’s crazy.
Cincinnati.com acknowledged that some of Moxley’s original quotes were altered to remove swear words.
