Goldust Had A Major Drug Problem When He Was In TNA

Dustin Rhodes (aka Goldust) celebrated an important milestone on Saturday as it marked the 10-year anniversary of the day he got sober.

“Today is an important day for me. X yrs ago I was on deaths door while drugs and alcohol consumed my everything. But, by the grace of God, I survived,” Rhodes wrote on Twitter.

“Sobriety is the most important thing in my life, and I am proud of me. #CleanIsCool #KeepSteppin #10Years #GodSobrietyFamily.”

Today is an important day for me. X yrs ago I was on deaths door while drugs and alcohol consumed my everything. But, by the grace of God, I survived. Sobriety is the most important thing in my life, and I am proud of me. #CleanIsCool #KeepSteppin #10Years #GodSobrietyFamily pic.twitter.com/Lx7M7ZmiJE

— Dustin Rhodes (@Goldust) May 19, 2018

The sobriety coin is a token given to members of groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous to represent the amount of time he or she has remained sober.

Rhodes’ drug abuse spiraled out of control during his two stints with TNA (2004 through 2005, and 2007 through 2008). Rhodes spent all the money he had on cocaine, pills, and alcohol. When he’d run out of drugs before he could find another doctor to write a prescription, he’d turn to drug dealers on the street.

Rhodes said in a 2013 interview with The Post and Courier, “It was day in and day out, probably two years solid, and I can go through the list of things. A half gallon of vodka a day, probably 60 or 70 pills a day, plus other stuff like cocaine. It wasn’t good, but I didn’t care. I didn’t see the other way. I only thought about where I could get my next fix.

“I didn’t see what it had done to me or what it was doing to my family and everybody around me. And what it was doing to my career and especially my health.”

Rhodes hit rock bottom at the end of a three-day bender in April 2008 — he was working for TNA at the time under the name Black Reign. He called his dad, the late Dusty Rhodes, early one morning pleading for help.

“I was trying and trying and re-medicating myself. It just didn’t happen. Enough was enough, and about three or four in the morning I crawled out in the rain and my wife was with me. I was like, ‘I give up,’ and I got on the phone and told dad I wanted to go to the WWE rehab center.”

Connections were made, and Runnels was in rehab the next day.

Rhodes went into great detail on his drug addiction in his autobiography, Cross Rhodes: Goldust, Out of the Darkness (published and released by WWE in 2010):

“Eventually, and thanks to my dad, I started working for Total Nonstop Action for $1,000 a show. He was the boss, right under Dixie Carter. TNA wasn’t doing too well at that point, but I had a job making okay money. I could drive home just about every night. All I was doing was what little I had to do in the ring, then hanging out spending my money on coke, pills and booze.

“I started making excuses for why I couldn’t hang with Dakota. Subconsciously I probably knew I didn’t want her around me or my girlfriend because the environment was so toxic. Despite the chaos, I showed up every night for work.

“I have no idea how I was able to stay on point with work at that time. One of my cardinal rules was never to drink before I worked a match. I wouldn’t consider doing coke before a match either.

“I’d take painkillers, fine. I had been taking painkillers for so long that I had convinced myself I really need them. I was taking medicine because I worked in a tough business. That was the story I had cemented into my mind.

“But drugs have a way of altering everything, including the stories you tell yourself. Eventually, I started doing a little coke before matches while retaining my vow to never drink alcohol before I go into the ring, as if that was something to be proud of.

“Every morning, as soon as I pulled myself out of bed, I’d take three Vicodins or Lortabs just to get moving. I was sore and pretty banged up physically, but over time pain pills exaggerated rather than eliminated whatever pain I was feeling.

“It was a slow process for me to get into the day. I’d get that first rush from pills and then I’d get moving. I might do something around the house, or jump into my truck and drive to the river to work on this book.

“I was probably taking close to 40 pills a day at the end. I was so desperate that I actually bought pain pills from drug dealers because I would run out long before I could find another doctor to write a prescription.

“If I dropped a pill and it fell into the carpet, I would spend hours down on my hands and knees trying to find it. At the same time I was drinking so much that I’d wake up dizzy and unable to walk.

“Finally, after a three-day binge, I’d had enough. It was raining, I pulled myself up and walked right out the door. The rain was pouring down and I stumbled up a hill near this house where I knew I could get cell-phone reception.

“Somehow, I managed to call my dad. It was 4:30 in the morning. I was falling down the hill in the mud. Tarel (his wife) was trying to hold me up. I was scared half to death. I managed to get into the house, soaking wet.”

“I had found the bottom.”