Eddie Guerrero
Guerrero takes comeback 'one day at a time'
by Phil Speer WWE.com
Eddie Guerrero woke up last November 9 and found himself in a jail cell in Tampa, Fla. Denial of his problems was simply no longer an option.
He was an alcoholic, he had serious financial problems and his wife had filed for divorce.
"(Up until then) I just hadn't accepted in my mind that I could not control this," Guerrero told WWE.com, referring to his alcohol problem. "There was that thought in my mind: 'Well, I can still drink. One drink's not going to hurt me.
"(The night I was arrested), all I wanted was a couple of glasses of wine in my apartment. Before I knew it, I was out partying, and then I woke up in jail with a DUI (driving under the influence of alcohol). With that and the WWE releasing me, I started thinking, 'What happened? All I wanted to do was have a couple of drinks.' That's when I accepted the concept that, 'Wow, this really is a disease.' That's when I truly, honestly believed it."
He hadn't accepted that he had a problem when WWE signed him in January 2000. He hadn't even accepted the problem after four months of WWE-sponsored rehabilitation in 2001.
But today, Guerrero has admitted that he has a problem. Experts say that's the first step toward recovery. Guerrero now knows that better than anybody. Since hitting rock bottom in that Tampa cell five months ago, Guerrero has taken life "one day at a time," and has begun to deal with problems that have plagued him for at least three years.
On Jan. 1, 1999, Guerrero was driving while under the influence of GHB, aka "liquid ecstasy." He fell asleep at the wheel of his Trans-Am in Land O' Lakes, Fla. While the car was traveling 130 mph, it flipped. He ended up being shot 100 feet in the air out of the car's T-top. He suffered a lacerated liver, a broken hip socket, two fractured vertebrae and a fractured collarbone. He needed reconstructive surgery on his left shin and ankle. Because he was bleeding from the liver, doctors weren't sure if he'd survive past the first two days.
"I was already in a downward spiral before that," Guerrero said. "I was in a downward spiral even before I was in WCW (although) it wasn't to the extent it was later in the WWE."
Guerrero realizes today that he was an alcoholic before the accident. However, he had steered clear of prescription drugs because his former tag-team partner and good friend, Art Barr, had been addicted to them when he died in 1994 at age 28.
"After the car wreck in 1999, when I was supposed to die and didn't die, I got this kamikaze attitude, this bulletproof attitude," Guerrero said. "I said, 'God's gonna take me when he wants me.' That's when I lost my fear of pills, and I got into pills in 1999. It wasn't heavy then; it started progressing. I'd try to quit, and every time it just got worse."
It didn't help matters when, in his first match with WWE (taped on Feb. 1, 2000, for SmackDown!, aired on Feb. 3), he badly dislocated his left elbow while hitting Billy Gunn with a Frog Splash.
He eventually returned and had a fairly successful run for several months as "Latino Heat." But WWE officials began to notice that he was having substance-abuse problems.
"I know they suspected it," Guerrero said. "When they saw it got bad, they sent me to rehab. I didn't want to go. I hated it. But it was the best thing for me."
WWE paid for Guerrero to check into a rehabilitation facility, which he did on June 7, 2001. But things would get worse before they'd get better.
First, Guerrero's wife left him, splitting up a family that includes his two daughters, ages 11 and 6. Through all the bad times, the one thing that has been unwavering is Guerrero's love for his children.
After four months in the rehabilitation facility, he checked out, only to realize that he was also in financial trouble, which he "didn't even know about and wasn't aware of until I got out of rehab." The financial troubles, he said, have to do with "IRS problems and all kinds of stuff."
"I was not on top of the finances the way I should have been," he said. "I can't point the finger at anybody. I don't want to. I should have been aware of what was going on. I had people dealing with it, and now I'm taking care of it -- one step at a time. That's all I can do."
He returned to the WWE in October, first getting back into shape at one of the company's talent developmental camps. On November 3 and 4, he wrestled on successive non-televised events for WWE. Then he attended, but did not appear on, the television tapings on November 5 and 6. Three days later, he relapsed, and ended up in the Tampa jail.
WWE terminated him shortly thereafter.
"(WWE officials) did everything they could to help me, and I blew it, man," he said. "There's no other words about it. I screwed up royally. I needed to grow up.
"Now, I can see that that's probably the best thing that happened to me, that (WWE officials) let me go when they did. Before, I would always say to myself, 'I've still got wrestling.' It really made me take a look at myself. I could pretend and lie that things were going to be alright, or I could make an effort to try to get sober and do what I had to do to take care of things."
Since November, Guerrero says he has done exactly that. Already a devout Christian, he turned to his God, Jesus Christ, more than ever -- "Now he's like my best friend," Guerrero said. He also began attending "day and night" Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings. With that, and the encouragement of family members and a few close friends -- including WWE's Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit -- Guerrero will celebrate five months of sobriety on Wednesday.
He has also begun to deal with the fact that he's not going to be married anymore. He says his divorce is "almost final," and that his soon-to-be ex-wife has been very good about sharing custody of the children.
He also says he has kicked his addiction to pain pills.
"By the grace of God, I don't have any aches and pains like I used to," he said. "Of course, being off the pain killers and all the other stuff has a lot to do with that. If you keep taking pain killers, your body hurts even when it's not hurting because it's dependent on that chemical."
Guerrero says he has learned through his AA meetings and conversations with his rehab counselor -- who he still talks to periodically -- that "everything is not a catastrophe."
"Life is life," he said. "Bad things happen whether you're drinking or not. It's how you deal with them (that's important). It's how you react to things. I was just a very immature person, and I didn't know how to handle things."
Guerrero says he is focused like a laser beam on his WWE career, but unlike in the past, he intends to keep it in perspective and not let it affect his personal life, or vice versa.
He returned to WWE television on April 1.
"All the boys are very nice to me," Guerrero said, referring to his fellow superstars. "They expressed that they were happy to see me back. And that's felt good to me. It was good to see (Kevin) Nash and (Scott) Hall again. They treated me really nice. I know you hear a lot of stuff. With me, they've always been real cool. It was good to see all the boys.
Even though officials were happy with his work in his previous tenure, Guerrero says he knows he can do better.
He admits he hasn't been 100-percent healthy in three years "because I was under the influence in one way or another. And even when you're not doing it, you still have it in your system, so you can't give 100 percent of your focus."
Previous tenures in WWE have left a "unsatisfying taste" in his mouth, he says, and that's something he wants to change.
"When I left Japan, I was satisfied because I knew I gave my best," he said. "Same thing when he left Mexico. Even with WCW -- even though there was a lot of politics there and I felt in my heart I was stopped a lot through politics -- I still felt I had given the best of myself. In the WWE, I wanted to give my best, but I couldn't, because I wasn't there spiritually, mentally and physically. Not only that, but I had become complacent. I never gave what I needed to give.
"So my goal is go out every match and do the best that I can -- give my love that I have for this business -- not only in the ring but in vignettes and promos. Give the best that I can, give back to this business the best that I can. If it takes me somewhere, thank God. If it doesn't, at least I'll know that I gave the best I could. And I'll be happy with that. I know I will."