Ex-UFC Star Reveals Harrowing Story Of Self Harm & Nearly Dying

“The Crippler: Cage Fighting and My Life on the Edge” will be released on Jan. 5 and is currently available for pre-order at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and IndieBound.

Chapter 3, “Downs and Ups”

Three weeks before (my fight with Jake Rosholt), Kaleena called me and told me that she couldn’t take it anymore. She wanted to break up.

This, of course, threw me into a death spiral. I spent the next three days lying in the corner of the back room of my mom’s house covered in a pile of blankets, drinking whiskey and scarfing down OxyContin to numb my brain. One weird side note: One of the blankets I had buried myself under was a blanket I remember having when I was about 5 years old. It was light blue and covered in ducks. When I was a scared or sad little boy, I would cover myself in it and pull it up tightly to my chin. More than 20 years later, this ratty old blanket was still taking up space in my mom’s house. And, quite appropriately, it was what I turned to for comfort when my life was falling apart.

I was extremely depressed and was even cutting myself, slicing my arms and legs. This is something I had started doing back in Hawaii, but the habit got much worse during this stint in Oregon. I don’t know how or why it began, but I think I did it to punish myself – to mark myself in a way that would remind me of all the times I had screwed things up. My memory is a bit hazy, but I would say that I was probably suicidal at this point. Even my mom, who wasn’t fazed by much, started to get scared. She called Nate Quarry and asked him to come help. Other than Eddie Herman, Nate’s the one other fighter who was there by my side during the first five or six years of my career.

I was in a stupor when Nate showed up. He dragged me out of the back room and shoved me into the rear seat of his car. He drove me to his house and helped me into the bed in his spare room. He called a doctor over, who checked me out and made sure I hadn’t done too much damage. And, within the next day or two Nate got me back to the gym.

Nate also insisted that I immediately join an AA program. I agreed, and in addition to my twice-daily practices, I started going to meetings twice a day. Unbelievably, within two weeks Nate helped me recover and get into fair enough shape to make an appearance in the octagon. Mind you, I wasn’t close to peak condition. However, it was a miracle compared to the disgusting puddle of a man that I had been just fourteen days earlier.

I’ve said it many times, and I’ll say it now for the world to hear: Not only did Nate Quarry save my fight career, he saved my life. I very well may have died there in the back of my mom’s sh-tty house under that grimy children’s blanket had someone not intervened. Thank you, Nate.

Skip to page 3 for the continuation of the heart wrenching chapter…