Mike Santana has spoken openly about a dark chapter in his life, revealing that his unhappiness during the final stretch of his AEW run played a significant role in his struggles with addiction. Now a part of TNA, Santana has continued to be transparent about his journey toward sobriety, explaining that he turned to drugs and alcohol as a way to cope with the emotional toll of both his professional and personal challenges.

In a recent appearance on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Santana admitted that while he technically could have stayed with AEW, he was too emotionally drained and dissatisfied to continue in that environment. He described how a lack of healthy communication and overwhelming frustration pushed him deeper into addiction.

“I could have, yeah. I care and I love this too much to just, I do not know, man. I just could not sit on my ass. I could not do it. That was honestly, that whole situation, and that whole time period was a big contributor to my addiction issues too, because I was just so unhappy. I did not know how to communicate that very well, because I was angry. And like they say, you cannot react off of emotion, and that was the only way I was gonna react. So me not knowing how to communicate that is what made me, I guess, drown into myself.”

Santana also revealed that he repeatedly asked for his release from AEW, though his requests were met with vague reassurances. He chose instead to stay active on the independent scene while making it clear that returning to the same toxic situation was not an option. Protecting his sobriety became his top priority.

“Yeah, more than once… It was always, ‘We will figure it out.’ At that time, I was like, I am going to continue doing the Indies and doing what I got to do to continue building myself and staying busy. I made it very clear when I came back that I was not going to come back into a situation that I was in before, and that got me to where I was. As an addict, I put my sobriety first before anything, so I am not gonna go into a situation that is going to compromise that. So I was like, Listen, I gotta do what I gotta do for me.”