Jake Crist On His Return to Impact Wrestling, Maintaining His Sobriety

Jake Crist made his return to Impact Wrestling at Under Siege, and he recently discussed his return and how he got sober three years ago. Crist is back with the company and will team with Sami Callihan and Madman Fulton against The Design at Against All Odds, and he appeared on Callihan Uncensored to talk about making his return and more. You can check out the highlights below, per Fightful:

On the motions around his return to the company: “I can’t even put it into words. I can’t even express the meaning. Three years of hard work, dedication, going to the gym, dieting. I know it’s cliche to say all those things, but that’s exactly what I was doing. I’m telling you, I came out the better person in the end and I’m very, very happy that I got that opportunity. Not only was I happy that I was able to overcome all the odds that I’ve overcome, but to do it by my best friend’s side was just the icing on the cake.”

On his sobriety: “Three years sober and I’m very, very happy and proud to say that. It’ll be three years this October. I kind of forgot the date to be honest. I forgot what it’s like to be drunk. I forgot what it’s like to be hungover. I’ve just loved the feeling of forgetting what it was like to be that drunk.

On quitting drinking cold turkey: “I do not recommend that at all because going back during the research, you know, and actually suffering through withdrawals. The day before, I was with a small group of people and we decided to have a few drinks and I actually told my wife, ‘You could do most of the drinking if you feel like it. I’m only gonna have one. I’ll drive us home.’ Well, one ended up being a whole bottle of vodka. I was like 240 pounds at this time. I just let myself go. I didn’t know what was going on. It was in there in the middle of the pandemic. I just didn’t know where my life was headed. So I just started throwing them back. Next thing you know, one became the bottle. She’s carrying my 240 pounds. She gets me out of the passenger seat and I fall face down, ass up in my front lawn. She’s trying to get me up and I’m telling her, ‘No, no, leave me. Please leave me.’ She’s trying and then I legit turn my head and I just vomit. Like violently vomiting. It was bad.

“I wake up [not knowing if he was asleep for 5 seconds or 5 hours]. Travel back into my house and I go to my bathroom to do the normal hangover ritual which was throw up, take a shower, throw up, take a shower. Do that, repeat, recycle seven times. So that was like my home remedy of curing my hangover. So in the middle of me going to do this this process, I walked past my mirror and I didn’t even recognize who that guy was. Just like, ‘Who is this guy?’ That’s when I was living in rock bottom’s basement. I was trying to crawl crawl up and every little thing would send me back down to the basement. So I literally put both hands on each side of the mirror and I had a heart to heart with myself. I remember one of the last things I said to myself is, ‘You’re not the best wrestler in the world, but you’re one of the best wrestlers in the world. It’s time to get your shit together. The two things that held you back your whole career has been your ability to talk and your body. Now it’s time to become unstoppable. Last time, I took a shower, get ready, throw some gym clothes on start walking out. My wife goes, ‘Hey, where are you headed?’ ‘I’m headed to the gym.’ She’s like, ‘Well, you don’t have a membership. What are you talking about?’ ‘I’m about to!’ Walking to the gym ever since for three years.”

On the backstage reaction to his return: “It was overwhelming. I can’t even put it into words how much every single person that came up to me and said something amazing about how great I looked or how young I look or how fantastic of shape I was in, it was awesome. It was the best feeling ever. It made every bit of those three years, every second of that, it made it all worth it. There were days that I literally made myself go to the gym, like I made myself quit drinking and put down the bottle. Anything that you can think about that would set you over the edge and make you want to do those things, I literally had to block those things out to get to this point in my life and I’m so happy and grateful that I’m at the end now.”

On believing he wouldn’t have these opportunities if he hadn’t changed his life: “That’s 100% fact. If I didn’t do that, if I didn’t make a change, I wouldn’t have had these opportunities. I know that for a fact. I’m on the best run of my life.”