Ric Flair says 20-drinks-a-day lifestyle nearly killed him

By Dan Cahill

Ric Flair tells People.com how a life of drinking nearly killed him. (via People TV)

In his first extensive interview since his near-death hospital experience, wrestling legend Ric Flair opened up to People.com about his out-of-control lifestyle.

Flair told People:

I didn’t think I was an alcoholic, but obviously I was. I never drank when I was working, but as soon as work was over, I went right to the mill.

A little more than a month ago, Flair was rushed to an Atlanta hospital where he was put into a medically induced coma. Doctors inserted a pacemaker and removed a bowel.

Flair told People it “scared the sh-t out of me.” The 68-year-old former wrestler is still recovering in an Atlanta convalescent center.

Thursday on ESPN’s ‘Dan Le Batard Show,” Flair recounted his hard-living ways:

When I started in the business in 1972, we drove 3,000 miles a week, we drank beer on the road … threw cans out the windows and all the stuff, no cops, it was just a way of life. Then pretty soon, it was drinking a beer, getting to the hotel, drinking liquor.

Flair said he would never drink before wrestling, but that he would consume about 4,000 calories of booze a day. “It’d be like 20 drinks a day,” he said.

But Flair hopes to put the health scare and the drinking behind him.

“I’ll never drink again,” Flair told People. “I never want to go through this again.”

Next Up In Sports

Minneapolis will host Big Ten basketball tournaments

Cubs move up Wednesday game time vs. Rays due to rain in forecast

Jerry West says HBO’s ‘Winning Time’ is a ‘deliberately false characterization’

Russian, Belarusian players banned from Wimbledon

Illinois’ Kofi Cockburn will enter NBA Draft

High hopes for Heidecke Lake fishing: Prospects look good for the season, despite a brutal opener