Ric Flair has vowed to “never drink again” following his recent health scare.
“It scared the s–t out of me,” said the wrestling legend. “I never want to go through this again.”
Speaking to People TV this week from his rehab facility, the “Nature Boy” offered up details about his hospitalization last month — and revealed how his daughter, Charlotte Flair, was told he wouldn’t survive.
“My stomach was really upset,” he said, recalling how his fiancée, Wendy Barlow, rushed him to a hospital in Georgia on Aug. 11.
“My daughter [Charlotte] told me that the doctor told her to go see me — that I wasn’t going to make it. I had no idea it was that bad. Wendy never told me.”
Flair, 68, told People that he had been suffering from a stomach-ache just before he was hospitalized.
Within hours, his kidneys began to shut down and he was on the brink of congestive heart failure — which stemmed from years of drinking.
“I didn’t think I was an alcoholic, but obviously I was,” Flair said.
The “kiss-stealin’, wheelin’, dealin’ son of a gun” remembered how he often turned to booze as a way to cope with his wrestling injuries over the years.
“I’ve never taken a pain pill in my life,” he explained. “I’d just take a shower, flip my hair back and go to the best bar in town.”
Flair said he first started drinking as a way to “bond” with the boys in the locker room in the early ’70s.
“I never drank when I was working,” he said. “But as soon as work was over, I went right to the mill.”
While in the hospital, Flair was forced to undergo surgery to remove a part of his bowel and insert a pacemaker. Doctors told him that his alcohol intake ultimately exacerbated his issues.
“I’ll never drink again,” the WWE Hall of Famer said. “I crashed in an airplane and broke my back, I’ve been hit by lightning — but this is totally different. Anything I’ve been through before is nothing like this.”