(Photo courtesy of Mike Tyson instagram)
“Iron” Mike Tyson owned the ring when he was boxing. He reigned as the undisputed world heavyweight champion and holds the record as the youngest boxer to win a heavyweight title at 20 years, 4 months and 22 days old. Tyson won his first 19 professional fights by knockout, 12 of them in the first round in under 60 seconds. Tyson the first heavyweight boxer to simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC and IBF titles, and the only heavyweight to successfully unify them.
He’ll be stepping back into the ring to fight YouTuber-turned-pro boxer Paul (9-1) ton July 20 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, home of the Dallas Cowboys. There is a 31 year difference in ages between the two fighters. But Mike looks good in his training videos–real good.
More gentle, more laughing, and a husband and father. But this suburban-like Tyson took a long road to get to after his bout with depression and drugs. During a recent press conference, former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson said that he was “on the verge of dying because I’m a vicious alcoholic.”
“I’m a bad guy sometimes. I did a lot of bad things, and I want to be forgiven,” said Tyson back in the early 2000s. “I’m negative, and I’m dark,” Tyson added, “and I want to do bad stuff.”
Tyson went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting to discuss his temptation to use drugs and alcohol and the former Champ vowed not to use drugs or alcohol going forward.
(Photo credit: DailyMail/Brad Barket/Getty Images)
“Even though I possessed incredible discipline when it came to boxing, I didn’t have the tools to stop my slide into addiction,” admitted Tyson. “When I got a chance to get high — boom, I’d get high. I wouldn’t call my sponsor, wouldn’t call my therapist, wouldn’t call my sober companions.
Now, in order to kick it, I had to replace the cravings for drugs or alcohol with a craving to be a better person.
I’ve learned that being sober is more than just avoiding drugs or alcohol. It’s a lifestyle focused on making moral choices and elevating the things that make life worth living to the forefront. Don’t get me wrong. If I craved drugs or alcohol, I’d still give in. I could never fight those cravings. But when I am focused on doing good and being good, and practice the day-to-day mechanics of a sober, healthy life, I don’t get those urges to do bad things to myself.”
In 2009, I vowed to get sober after the accidental death of my 4-year-old girl, Exodus. I was determined to live a better life for the sake of my family, but…
…the pain was so bad that I went back on drugs. Recovery is a drawn-out process, and without the continued encouragement of my support system, it would be close to impossible.
Strangely, times of success are most dangerous for me. When people tell me, “You’re great” or “Your comeback is amazing” or “You’re a god,” I could feed right into it and go get high. Hey, if my life is so good, how could smoking a joint be bad? How could a shot of Hennessy or a line of coke be so bad when everything else I’ve been doing is great — especially when there are beautiful, successful people feeding my ego and supplying the drugs? So I’ve learned that when people congratulate me, that’s when I focus on my flaws. That way I don’t allow my narcissism to fly sky-high and allow me to think that I can act out without any consequences.
I had been sober for five years when I had a slip and started drinking again. I had just finished the manuscript of my book, my one-man show was about to air on HBO, and we had a reality series in the can for Fox Sports. I was not accustomed to all that success in an arena other than boxing.
I had such a negative self-image that I just expected bad things to happen to me. And even though I hadn’t been using for five years, all that time I just didn’t feel comfortable in my skin. I was holding secrets from my loved ones, things that I had to get off my chest because I was dying inside. That’s the worst feeling in the world, keeping things to yourself.
When I resolved those issues, through therapy and by talking honestly with my family, I felt like a new man. When I relapsed in the past, I would keep getting high until I was in a car accident or got arrested. But this time, after drinking for two or three days, I came back. I didn’t wait for an intervention. I just got right back on the wagon. After years of therapy, I had learned not to beat up on myself. I remembered that relapse is a part of recovery.
This is the best I’ve ever felt. I’m on the pathway to humility, fully aware that you can’t rule until you’ve served.
“I hate myself. I’m trying to kill myself,” Tyson said in his seemingly off-the-cuff comments, before celebrating having resisted temptation over the past six days. “I hate myself a lot, but I made myself proud of myself. And I don’t do that much.”
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