There’s a movie out now for rent on Amazon Prime Video called “Night of Recovery: Live from the Moravian Center.” Actually, calling it a “movie” might be stretching things. In front of a mostly static camera at a nondescript conference hall in Pennsylvania, four men just talk, for two hours, about their harrowing battles against various forms of addiction. Jesus Rodriguez, Curt Hussey and Shannon Moore do most of the talking, with the moderator, Chris Dreisbach, introducing each speaker and adding his own personal struggle for sobriety at intervals. And it’s riveting stuff.

If those first three names sound familiar to you, you’re likely a fan of the singularly outsized branch of the sports entertainment industry known as professional wrestling. Rodriguez, under his ring name Ricardo Rodriguez, was a popular comic sidekick, announcer and wrestler in World Wrestling Entertainment. Same goes for Shannon Moore, a once prominent WWE superstar (as the company’s wrestlers are known) known as the Prince of Punk for his mohawk, piercings, tattoos and high-flying style. And those in the WWE know Portland’s own Hussey better as the flamboyant Fandango, a major WWE figure for many years, now known as Dirty Dango in Impact Wrestling. 

Host Dreisbach, with his towering stature and flowing hair and beard, might be mistaken for a pro himself. And he might have been, had not an early life of drug abuse and legal trouble not derailed his training.

“I lost several hundred days of my life to the criminal justice system,” explains Dreisbach, now the CEO of Blueprints for Addiction Recovery, which sponsored “A Night of Recovery.” “Back in 2007, when I went to jail for the first of three times, we couldn’t talk about this stuff out loud. I had well-meaning people around me but we didn’t understand the brain science, and I suffered extra because of that lack of knowledge.”

Well, Rodriguez, Moore and Hussey all shatter the silence surrounding their addiction in “Night of Recovery,” each relating just how the drive for wrestling success and the drive to use fought for control of their lives and careers. It’s harrowing stuff, these three very different (very large) men all sharing life stories fraught with abuse, troubled childhoods, the dizzying heights of wrestling fame, and the inevitable crash that followed from their addictions.

Hussey’s tale of growing up in a Portland trailer park with two drug- and alcohol-addicted parents is particularly wrenching, with the former Fandango first apologizing to the unseen crowd for not being the most confident speaker before pushing on to tell his tale. This from a man who, as Dreisbach noted, “debuted at WrestleMania in front of 75,000 people in his underpants.” But in front of the 125 people assembled at the Moravian Center (many coming directly from treatment themselves), Hussey is hesitant but shockingly forthright, softly relating how his addiction saw him nearly destroying his big break by showing up still high and without sleep on the morning of his lavish introductory video shoot for WrestleMania. 

For Dreisbach, now gratefully 17 years sober, “Night of Recovery” is all about eliminating the stigma so many people feel in coming forward to speak about addiction, an issue too long regarded as shameful. As Dreisbach puts it: “As a society, we’re a whole lot more loud about the fact that recovery is real, and possible.” The fact that lifelong wrestling fanatic Dreisbach wound up befriending three of the professionals he idolized growing up is as bewildering to him as it is uniquely suited to helping Rodriguez, Moore and Hussey tell their stories. 

“I got connected to the wrestling world through the WWE’s Wellness Program,” explained Dreisbach, referring to that company’s official push to get help for its wrestlers following the early death of beloved WWE star Eddie Guerrero in 2006. That’s where Dreisbach met Sean (X-Pac) Waltman, another WWE superstar who was one of the first big names to truly bring his own struggles with addiction into the open and began to connect with other wrestlers. 

I brought up the well-known fact that controversial WWE head Vince McMahon launched the Wellness Program at least in part due to the massive outcry (and legislative rumblings) against substance abuse in sports entertainment following the horrific crimes of WWE megastar Chris Benoit, who in 2007 murdered his wife and son before hanging himself. (Steroid and other drug use along with long-term brain injuries have been blamed in part for Benoit’s shocking act.) For Dreisbach, McMahon’s motives are beside the point, however.

“This is a business predisposed to addictive personalities,” said Dreisbach, citing the sport’s volatile mix of fame, money, youth, testosterone, lingering personal trauma and the inevitable parade of injuries that comes with a life in the ring. “I’ve never met Vince, and there are certainly a lot of things you can say negatively about him. But he’s saved the lives of three of my friends directly. The Wellness Program is right in there the moment a wrestler is in crisis, providing lifelong benefits.”

It wasn’t always so, either inside the business or in society at large, a place Dreisbach refers to with thankfulness as “old society.” “Even things born out of negativity can still be beautiful,” said Dreisbach, referencing both the Wellness Program and his own collision with the consequences of his addiction.

“I was pissed that day when I was shipped off to treatment by that judge,” he said, “but now, 17 years later, I thank every lucky star.” Concluding, he said, “The one thing I want people to take away from this is that they shouldn’t be ashamed if they’re struggling. We lose members of our communities every day because of shame or fear of speaking out.”

For Dreisbach, life in recovery has become all about sharing that message of hope with a world desperately in need. “One of the biggest things in recovery is the altruistic drive to help others,” the CEO noted, “in using whatever platform you have to inspire. Being loud makes it more mainstream.” Citing the very public coming out of youthful heroes skateboarder Brandon Novak and “Jackass” star Steve-O with their own lifelong battles with addiction as especially influential for him, Dreisbach said that celebrities’ openness and courage surrounding their own substance abuse can be the key that finally clicks for some people. 

“When Curt talks about Portland, it might not be the most pleasant thing,” Dreisbach said of the now-sober Hussey, “but there are some kids in trailer parks in Portland right now battling the same issues, and if this film can pull one kid out of there who’s feeling the same way, then it’s worth every minute we put into it.”

Dreisbach continues, “It’s that draw – I idolized these guys, and that sticks with you the rest of your life. I’m 37 now, and just knowing that one of my idols also struggled can be the connection – even if you’re not directly related – that causes you to reach out and get the support you need. These guys have such big hearts and they’ve been through so much. That they’re willing to come out and share in order to help others is astronomically beautiful.”

“Night of Recovery: Live from the Moravian Center” is available to rent through Amazon Prime Video. If you’re struggling with addiction, go to the SAMHSA website or seek out any of the dedicated, Maine-based support networks out there. Call 211 or check out 211maine.org/substance for referrals and other help. 

Dennis Perkins is a freelance writer who lives in Auburn with his wife and cat.

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