In an interview with WrestlingINC, WWE Hall of Famer Jake “The Snake” Roberts commented on a variety of topics, including his journey to sobriety.

“It’s been a terrific trip. The first year I had was tough, it really was. Trying to get clean and sober was a journey I wouldn’t recommend for anybody, it was really rough, but things started to get better right off the beginning? my health got better being able to move around and being able to get out of a chair by myself kind of felt good. Sobriety is a daily chore, but it’s one that I find easier everyday and I don’t have the need to drink or the want to, that’s just great for me, not to do a drug and going on five years now that I have been now it’s been awesome.

Back then, I couldn’t imagine myself actually succeeding, I really couldn’t, but I mean, it’s tough, you do something for a long period of time everyday? always doing drugs and drinking everyday, then you stop. I have tried several times, been to several rehabs, but didn’t work, and then to move in with an old buddy, and something clicked in a positive way.

I think it had a lot to do with doing the DDP Yoga, getting indoor in the morning instead of waiting around to feel good, I charged out there and made myself feel good, so when I started losing weight that was a positive thing. I couldn’t believe I was actually losing weight? it made me get in shape again, so I am feeling good and whenever I started to actually like myself, which was about two years in, that was something I never felt. I always been down on myself because what happened to me in my life, and disgusted with what happened to my career and what I had done to it, and my family and what I had done to them, and you know, it was all negative, negative, negative and then to start turning it around and started having positive things come into your life with my health getting better and family situation getting better? the gifts kept coming man.

Now, I am out here on the road with the comedy thing, which I never saw. It’s really not comedy, it’s telling the world stories which are hilarious, the stuff that happens in the dressing room, things that people don’t know about, whether it would be in a bar or hotel room or a strip joint, I talk about all of them, it has been some crazy stuff with Andre (the Giant) and (Ted) DiBiase, Undertaker and with Terry Funk, all these stories I have. I was on the road for forty years, so I have a good catalog of them.”

The interview is available in full at this link.