TNA star Mike Santana has opened up about a dark period in his life, revealing that his unhappiness during the latter part of his run in All Elite Wrestling was a significant contributing factor to his struggles with addiction. Santana, who has been very transparent about his journey to sobriety, explained that he used drugs and alcohol as a way to escape his professional and personal pain.
“I Just Couldn’t Sit On My Ass”
During a candid interview on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Santana confirmed that he could have remained with AEW but was too unhappy with his situation to continue. He explained that his inability to communicate his anger and frustration in a healthy way led him down a dangerous path.
“I could have, yeah. I care and I love this too much to just, I don’t know, man. I just couldn’t sit on my ass. I could not do it. That was honestly, that whole situation, and that whole time period was a big contributor to my addiction issues too, because I was just so unhappy. I didn’t know how to communicate that very well, because I was angry. And like they say, you can’t react off of emotion, and that was the only way I was gonna react. So me not knowing how to communicate that is what made me, I guess, drown into myself.”
“I Gotta Do What I Gotta Do For Me”
Santana revealed that he asked for his release from AEW on multiple occasions, but the requests were not granted at the time. He made it clear to the company that his sobriety was his number one priority and that he would not compromise it by staying in a situation that was detrimental to his health.
“Yeah, more than once… It was always, ‘We’ll figure it out.’ At that time, I was like, I’m going to continue doing the Indies and doing what I got to do to continue building myself and staying busy. I made it very clear when I came back that I wasn’t going to come back into a situation that I was in before, and that got me to where I was. As an addict, I put my sobriety first before anything, so I’m not gonna go into a situation that is going to compromise that. So I was like, Listen, I gotta do what I gotta do for me.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
