As a guest on the True Geordie Podcast, Kurt Angle talked at length about the struggle he had with an addiction to painkillers during his run in professional wrestling:
“Yeah, I’m not proud of it. I’ll tell you this. This is something that 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 gonna 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-strength Vicodin a day. This was within a six-month period of time….My focus was not wrestling anymore. My focus was, when am I gonna get the drug next? I became a druggie. I became an addict right away.”
Angle went on to describe how the addiction worsened as he was dealing with the pain of his sister passing away, stating he was “trying to hide the pain, physically and emotionally, and [the addiction] got out of control.”
When asked how much he was spending, Angle replied saying it was $7,000 a month, but “the money wasn’t really an issue” due to what he made financially during his run.
The WWE Hall of Famer has worked hard to overcome his battle with addition, and previously started an addiction recovery program to help those overcoming similar struggles.
Source: Fightful