Ric Flair On Healthscare And Being Put In The Hospital And Having Issues With Drinking

WWE Hall of Famer Steve Austin recently spoke to Hall of Famer Ric Flair on The Steve Austin Show, where Flair addressed his recent health scare, his stay in the hospital, and issues with alcohol.

Ric Flair on issues with drinking

“I would go to high school in Wisconsin and, of course, you could drink beer when you’re 18 and that just leads to everything. Then I got into the business and people thought I was ribbing or being facetious when I told people on that 30 For 30 that we drank every day. I said, ‘I drank every day I worked,’ and they said, ‘How many days did you work?’ I said, ‘I worked every day, twice on Saturday and twice on Sunday.’ It doesn’t mean I drank twice on Saturday and Sunday, but when Saturday and Sunday were over I drank probably double the amount depending on how long I had to wrestle that day because sometimes I would do two hours a day with guys like [Ricky] Morton or [Ricky] Steamboat or Harley [Race] or [Jerry] Brisco.”

On being put into the hospital and recent health problems

“I just doubled over, literally where I was standing…..Wendy took me to the hospital and I don’t remember anything, Steve, for two months. I was in a coma for 12 days, ICU for 31 days. I had kidney failure, respiratory heart failure. I was septic and I had pneumonia all at one time. I guess I was in so much pain they induced a coma. Wendy said I was just screaming; they couldn’t give me enough pain medicine and then it took them 12 hours to get me ready for surgery and then 12 days in a coma and then 31 days in intensive care and then I had to go over to a rehab facility to learn how to walk and just start from scratch and I never had any memory of anything until the 1st of November. I don’t remember any of it. Obviously, I’ve been told and it’s been filled in for me, but I don’t remember one person coming to see me from Michael Hayes to Ricky Steamboat to [Hulk] Hogan.

People came from all over to see me and I don’t remember any of it. Even when I was out of the coma in ICU, I was barely there. They did 20 cat-scans trying to figure out if I had any type of permanent damage, in terms of memory loss. I got out of that place the 28th and I was home here with full time nursing care, still on an intravenous antibiotic and I would just sit and ask Wendy questions. They wouldn’t give me my cell phone because every time I said something to somebody it was just crazy.

They asked at the office. Hunter [Triple H] told Wendy, ‘Please don’t let him talk on the cell phone because every time I try to make sense with him, it’s out there,’ which I’m sure I was….I lost 43 pounds. It’s a miracle Steve. I literally looked at it as being a miracle. The doctor told me it was a miracle and after I look back on everything and come to realize what actually took place, it is a miracle. People were writing me off.”

Coming to grips with being sick

“I never thought of giving up, but I really couldn’t come to grips with it. Does that make sense? It took me a long time. I would sit there, as an example, to tell you how out of it I was, the 28 days I spent in the rehab facility trying to learn how to walk again and everything, I didn’t even realize that I had the stoma attached to me and they’re changing it everyday four times a day and I didn’t even know it. After I got home, I started thinking about it. I’ve told this to a few people, but I think people can realize it. I would sit in the chair alone and worry about dying. I would spend the whole day worrying I was gonna die, after learning how sick I’d been and trying to figure out why, out of all people in the world, I was still there and somebody else wasn’t. I’m being very serious.

I don’t tell that to a lot of people. If you think about it, I’m sure people, if they’ve had that similar misfortune go home and wonder why too and then it went away, maybe a couple days I thought about it and if I was upset or depressed or something or something caused any stress, I automatically thought that day I was gonna die. Living on borrowed time, right? I would think back to all the stories over the years, like Angelo Mosca when I was 24 years old, he was an old-ass wrestler, big time football player in the CFL and he told me that if I lived to be 30, I’d be overstaying my welcome [laughter].”