Kurt Angle is one of the greatest technical wrestlers of all time. The Olympic Gold Medalist himself has had a dark side. He went down a dangerous path that almost ruined his entire life.
The WWE Hall of Famer during the early 2000s had suffered a neck injury during one of his matches. Following this injury, he began to take painkillers. That slowly became an addiction. During an interview with True Geordie, Kurt Angle opens up about his addiction.
“Yeah I am not of proud of that… Well I’ll tell you this. This is the something the doctors don’t tell you. When I broke my neck the second time, the first time in WWE. I met a doctor and he introduced me to painkillers. He said, ‘These things are the greatest things in the world, you’re going to love them.’ So I started taking one every four to six hours.
“After a while, your body builds a tolerance and one doesn’t cut it. Then you take two, then two leads to four. Four leads to eight. Before I knew it I was taking 65 extra straight Vicodin a day. This was within a six-month period of time. And I mean, we’re talking like almost enough to kill a horse. It was that bad. And what happened was my focus was not wrestling anymore. My focus was, ‘Where am I going to get the drug next?’ Because I became a druggie. I became an addict right away. 65 Extra Straight Vicodin a day.”
While speaking, Angle also mentioned that he needed to take more just to overcome the withdrawal effects.
“And the reason why I was taking them was not because of the pain anymore, it’s because I was going through Withdrawal. So if I took 15 painkillers, few hours later it would wear off and I start having Withdrawal again, I have to take more. So I was taking more all day. More and more all day long every single day.”
Kurt Angle shares tragic story about his sister’s passing
During the interview, the WWE Hall of Famer also shared the tragic story about his sister’s passing. He mentioned that he got the news the day before his Iron Man Match against Brock Lesnar. The wrestling veteran also swallowed 20 painkillers to escape the pain of his sister’s death.
“There was a point in time where I wrestled Chris or who was it? Brock Lesnar. We had a One Hour Iron Man Match on TV. And this is a sad point in my life. We were wrestling a One Hour Iron Man Match and the night before we were at a House Show. And I just got done wrestling and my brother calls me and says, ‘Hey listen, your sister died of a Heroin overdose.’ I was like ‘What?’ He said, ‘Yeah, she just died. You need to come back home and plan the funeral and get this moving.’
“So, I was devastated. And I remember going back to my hotel room and I was crushed, I was in such pain thinking about my sister who was only 40 years old that died. And I took 20 painkillers. I had in my hand and I threw hem in my mouth, I chewed them up and swallowed them. And I didn’t wake up until 3’O clock in the afternoon next day.”
The Olympic Gold medalist took painkillers to overcome the pain of her sister’s death
Kurt Angle mentioned that wrestling and painkillers helped him overcome the trauma.
“Okay, I’m supposed to have this One Hour Iron Man match with Brock Lesnar. And I’m late already to getting there. So the WWE is calling me all day because they want to tell me I don’t have to show up that I could go home and plan the funeral for my sister that it’s okay I don’t have to do the match. I remember saying something to my sister. I said, ‘Lynn what do I do?’ And she said, ‘Do it for me.’ That’s all I heard. And I thought, all right I’m going to do it for her. That one hour with Brock was the best hour of my life because I didn’t have to think about Leanne at that particular time.
“I was focused on the match because of my sister, because I was doing it for her. But for that one hour, I didn’t have to think about what happened to her. And it was like my release. I was like, ‘Man I would love to go two hours and not have to think about my sister. Or three or four… I’ll go all day long, I’ll go 24/7. That was my mentality. Just to get away from thinking about my sister. And the only thing that would get me there was the painkillers. So I was taking more and more and more. All I was doing was trying to hide the pain. Physically and emotionally. It got out of control.”
Kurt Angle bought 2000 painkillers a month
At one point things got way worse and Angle was forced to consume 2000 painkillers a day and that resulted in him spending over $7000 a month just on his drugs.
“I’ll give you an example of what I was doing. I had 12 different doctors that were giving me 12 different scripts of medication. And I had to set up a calendar because you couldn’t go to the same Pharmacy, so you had to have 12 different doctors go to 12 different Pharmacies. So I had all these different Pharmacies on my calendar. And then it still wasn’t enough. So I had to buy 500 of them illegally from Mexico. So I was buying 2000 painkillers a month. Just to keep my addiction going… $7000 a month. But remember I was making a lot of money, so the money wasn’t really an issue,” Kurt Angle said.
Currently, Angle is clean and is also very healthy at the same time.
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