During a recent edition of his “1 Of A Kind” podcast, Rob Van Dam discussed his marijuana use, WWE’s past policies on substance abuse, and his experience with taking breaks.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On stopping smoking before his 2013 WWE return: “When I went to WWE for my return in 2013, it was a $1,000 fine at that time if you got busted for smoking marijuana… I decided on my own, ‘You know what? I’ll take a break from smoking.’ Because I hadn’t taken a break in a long time, looked like a good idea. So I stopped a month before starting with WWE. And when I gave my first piss test, I did fail it still a month later because that’s how dirty my system was. But then I did the 90 days without smoking and just thought, ‘Eh, why not?’”
On taking a different approach when he went back to 2014: “And then I left and I came back the next year and I did a five month deal… And this time I was like, ‘Eh, I could quit again or whatever.’ And I was like, ‘Nah, you know what? I’ll just smoke my way through it to pay the fines.’ [I was fined’ two or three times.”
On whether he has issues stopping: “They say some people have an addictive gene and some don’t. I don’t think I have… I smoke because I love it, and then if I choose not to, it’s always that easy.”
On whether he noticed anything during that 2013 run: “I was surprised that I didn’t feel a lot more different, not smoking… my amount of energy, I was amazed to realize I didn’t feel like I had a lot more energy. I didn’t feel like I stressed out a whole lot either, which I thought that I would. But I actually felt like I was more conscious of bigger, longer lists [of things he needed to remember] that I normally would be… It seemed like I could hold on to more information at a time. I didn’t feel like any more energetic… instead I felt just as tired.”
