Stone Cold Steve Austin Reveals Dark Spiral After WWE Retirement

Stone Cold Steve Austin is one of the most iconic names in pro wrestling history—but life after the ring wasn’t all celebrations and success.

While speaking to Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Dirty Mo Media, Austin opened up in brutally honest fashion about the dark reality that followed his in-ring retirement in 2003. Forced out due to serious injuries, including a spinal cord bruise that briefly left him a transient quadriplegic, Austin admitted the end of his wrestling career hit him like a freight train.

“I don’t miss anything because I’ve been away from it long enough. But when I had to—man, I had to pull a plug on myself. And when I got dropped on my head, I bruised my spinal cord. And there’s a lot of neurological issues that I still deal with.”

He recalled how hard he pushed himself—personally and professionally—and how those years took a toll:

“I was running hard on a personal level and then I was beat to shreds because I wasn’t taking no time off. And you just—it’s a hard life.”

Despite the damage to his body and brain, Austin was reluctant to let go. But after getting clearance from a Philadelphia spinal specialist to return, he gave it another run—until it became clear he had to walk away for good.

“I had to ride off in the sunset after that. But dealing with that, walking away… retirement always sounds like the R word. Always sounds like the holy grail. You work your ass off because that’s what we’re here to do. And then you enjoy retirement. Hell, I retired when I was 38, man. You know how much money I left on the table? I mean, not just about the money, it’s about the good times, being with the boys, traveling down the road, being in front of a crowd, getting that adrenaline rush. That’s what I lived and breathed.”

That’s when things started to unravel.

“I didn’t handle it well. And for about three years, I drank, I hunted, and I fished and just did a lot of stupid stuff. And one morning, I woke up and I went in the bathroom and I just looked at myself in the mirror—it’s a true story—and I didn’t say this out loud, but I was thinking to myself: ‘Dude, the things you’re doing are not conducive to living a long life. You need to slow your ass down.’”

That moment was a turning point. Austin realized he needed to make a real change. Wrestling was no longer an option, but he wasn’t about to go back to the life he had before fame.

“I didn’t have any designs on being a movie star, nothing like that, but I was driving a forklift before I got in the wrestling business and as much fun as that was—and I loved it—after being on top of the world in the wrestling business, I didn’t want to drive a forklift again. I said, ‘You better get your ass down there to Los Angeles and try to do something in the entertainment business.’”

He packed up and moved in with Diamond Dallas Page in Los Angeles but admitted that even then, he spent nearly a year still drinking heavily and wasting time.

“Wasted about a year out there still, you know, searching for the bottom of a lot of bottles. And we found some people and started making some—I call them low-budget movies. Someone with a big ego would call them independents. Hey, low budget.”

Austin’s real re-entry into something meaningful came through wrestling again—just in a different way. WWE asked him to host Tough Enough on the USA Network. That offer gave him purpose and allowed him to reconnect with the industry on his own terms.

“When I first retired, I was so upset that I had to leave the business that I loved. I had to be completely away from it. I couldn’t even watch it. I didn’t want nothing to do with it. If I can’t be the main guy, I don’t want to be any guy anywhere around.”

“All those years later in 2009 or 2011 when they did Tough Enough, I had been away long enough, the wounds had healed, and I wanted to be closer to the business. I didn’t want to be taking bumps, but I wanted to help people learn the trade.”

Although the show only lasted one season, it was exactly what he needed, “That helped me out a whole lot.” Austin then shifted into other ventures—his Broken Skull Challenge TV show, a successful beer brand, and a hit podcast that allowed him to share stories with fellow athletes and entertainers. While his road wasn’t clean or easy, it was real—and that’s what makes Stone Cold one of the most enduring figures in sports entertainment history.

“I drank for a living and wrestled on the side,” he joked later in the interview, summing up the era of excess he survived.

From global superstardom to hitting rock bottom and pulling himself back up again, Austin’s journey after retirement is a reminder that even legends aren’t immune to life’s hardest punches.

What do you think of Stone Cold’s journey? Do you think pro wrestlers today are better prepared for life after the ring? Drop your thoughts in the comments and let us know.

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