On this week’s “The Sessions with Renee Paquette,” Dustin Rhodes opened up about his past drug addiction, as well as what he feels his father would have thought about Cody’s recent promotion on Monday Night Raw.
Dustin talking about his past drug addiction began:
“Years and years ago, I had a knee injury. This is like ’96, I think. I started taking a couple of vicodins, some opiates. Those calmed me down and I kept working because back then we didn’t have doctors on duty like we do now.”
“Vince saw me in the bathroom one night taking a pill. It was just me and him in the bathroom, and he was painting my face. We had a conversation for about 30 minutes about why he shouldn’t do what I’m doing and get addicted to stuff because he’s seen it before. He has seen them come and go and die because of them. He really was talking to me like a father figure. I listen to it and paint my face. I’m trying to respect what he says and all that, but he was going to do what he was going to do,” Dustin said.
“So that 2 led to 4, 10, 20, 50. I can work hard to be my best in the ring and then all the other things that happen in my life just take over, and the depression, the drugs . And that’s all I want is to find my next fix, my next shot, my next 8-ball of cocaine.”
“There’s this downward spiral, and then you lose sight of having a 10-year-old daughter. You’re doing this to not be in her life for a few years, which when I talk about this, and my daughter, always, always breaks me. But it’s really hard to know that you’re so involved in taking drugs and alcohol and stealing from your parents just to find your drugs.”
“I had a paid house. I lost everything. I pawned everything I owned, and at the end of 2008, I was living in a connected garage, a one-stall garage, to someone’s house who was renting for $100 a month. She had a little Honda Civic. I was still trying to find things to pawn, I was still trying to sell things and trying to steal from my dad. ‘Hey, I need this for a bill’ or whatever. That’s what I mean by stealing. They would send me some money, and that would go straight into the pills or straight into the alcohol or straight into the cocaine,” she continued.
“In 2008, I was really at my worst. They were two really solid good years no matter what and no one, wanting to die, wanting not to feel anymore, wanting not to be closer to anyone. I had my wife and she was with me. She was not an alcoholic. She was not a drug addict. She stayed with me and was by my side the entire time.”
“The last two years, I didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t want to do anything. I was taking up to 80 pills a day. For the past two years, I’ve downed up to a half gallon of vodka every day and eight balls of cocaine every three days. So that’s what I was taking.”
“So, the straw that broke the camel’s back or whatever, I was laying in bed, I was really drunk and I didn’t get drunk. Okay, so something was wrong, taking so many pills or whatever. I was so dizzy. He wouldn’t stop. The next the same day. I tried to drink, I tried to take pills and more things to quit. Nothing happened.”
“I remember my wife getting up in the middle of the night. So she would take vicodin and lortabs during the day, cocaine, vodka, and then take xanax to come down at night. They will kill you. She had like eight or 10 of those, the big ones. She would wake me up in the middle of the night and she would look at me. I would take two more thinking I can’t sleep when I was only asleep.”
“So the third day of that little rocky bottom, I guess, divine intervention or something. It was three in the morning and it was raining outside. My dad had given me a prepaid cell phone. So he had a cell phone. It was a flip phone, but it was like whatever, it didn’t use the internet or anything like that. So I woke up and Ta-rel was sitting next to me, and I was like, ‘I’ve had enough,’ and I wanted to go call my dad.”
“So I’m really screwed. She is trying to help me out because there is no cell service and I have to crawl up a hill to get a barbell. I crawled up the hill, in the mud, in the rain, and she’s helping me. I’m tripping. I’m crying. I just told him, I said, ‘I want you to call WWE and take me to rehab.'”
“Not that day, but the next day they got me a flight to Fort Lauderdale or West Palm. They were really worried that I wouldn’t get on the plane. I made up my mind, but I understand why they were worried. I took my first flight, loaded up the layover in Atlanta and loaded up to West Palm. She was pretty shitty. The guy picked me up at the drive-thru or whatever and I was like, ‘Stop at the store. I’m going to get a 12 pack.’ So I stopped at the store and bought a 12-pack. I drank about six before I got to the place and I don’t remember anything else,” Rhodes shared.
“I had eight days of medically induced detoxification. But I was pretty out of it the whole eight days. I don’t recall going through any serious withdrawals or shakes or whatever. I just remember that at the two week point, I couldn’t sleep.”
“Two weeks later, three weeks, you see for the first time in a long time. Your parents come to visit you, your wife, they all knew you were so screwed up, but you didn’t know what kind of pain it caused them. I certainly didn’t know what kind of pain it was causing me. We don’t know when we are too far away. There’s no, ‘Hey man, I can do this.’ I can do this myself. It is impossible. But it only works when you’re ready. I was ready. So I made the decision.”
“Once I got pretty cleaned up and started seeing some stuff for the first time in a long time, I made the decision to keep going. Several things had to happen for me to stand firm on this. Number one, I had to take care of my recovery first, before my daughter, before work, before anything else. So of course I automatically say, ‘Hey man, I need to do this with my daughter.’ I need to do that. I need to find a job now. I need to do this. I’m clean, whatever. I am not. I’m not there yet. It takes a lot of time.”
“So for two years in a row, I went to AA meetings. I missed maybe a handful over the two years, and that’s what helped me. When you sit in these rooms, you’re afraid to share. You don’t want to say anything. But then you see someone who just came off a three-day detox and they’re still screwed, and then you have people with 23 years of experience or 30 years of experience and they’re like the leaders. or whatever, but it’s like, you see this person screwed up and it’s like, damn, I was so mean. I was like this not too long ago.”
Dustin was asked what he thinks Dusty would have thought about Cody’s promotion on Monday Night RAW:
“I knew that dad always wanted us to be happy. He would have his suggestions and things like that and try to guide us on the right path. But ultimately, these are our decisions. Money is money, and Dad always said, ‘Take the money.’”
“I only know myself watching his (Cody’s) first promo and seeing Dad up there on the screen and talking about him, and Cody is very passionate about his promos, every word he’s going to say, which is very important, and especially for that first one, which was very important. You’re having a huge impact on a lot of people, the first time he’s been back in years, and he did. I know Dad would be happy.”
