Bang Your Head! (eBook)

The Man Behind the ---------------------------------------- Blue-and-Green Mask ---------------------------------------- Hi. My name is Dewey Robertson, and I used to be The Missing Link. This book is the story of my life,my career in wrestling and my struggle with addiction to steroids, alcohol and drugs - the good, the bad and the ugly. Recovery from addiction is without question the toughest match I've ever fought. I am not writing this book to tell you what to do. I am just going to tell you what happened to me, and hope that people learn from it. For nearly 15 years I was the 'All-Canadian Boy' of professional wrestling. I was one of the most versatile faces in the business,my good friend, the late Bullwhip Danny Johnson called me 'The Man of a Thousand Moves.' As a dedicated bodybuilder since the age of 19 and someone who was always extremely conscientious about what I put into my body, I never thought I would become a substance abuser of any kind. Even now my mother says to me, 'Byron' (that's my real name), 'I don't ever remember you drinking a lot. You were always so interested in your health.' That's true. If I drank at all, it was inmoderation - two or three beers to loosen up at a party, never any more. I weight-trained and wrestled without using any steroids or illicit drugs for many years. That all changed when I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, in the late 1970s. While going to Charlotte gave a huge boost to my wrestling career, I was also introduced to steroids and my drug of choice, marijuana. Once I left Canada, it only took 13 years of steroids, alcohol and drugs to take me to the bottom - and I mean the bottom. When times were good it seemed harmless, but after a few years I came to a point when my career had stalled and I had to take drastic action. I went to Texas, shaved my head, painted my face and changed my name to The Missing Link. The Link was an immediate sensation, drawing so much heat that riots sometimes broke out during shows. But nobody knew that the outrageous antics everyone loved so much - the roaring, the hair-grabbing, the headbutts and chair-smashing - were fueled by my growing addiction to steroids, alcohol and drugs. The Link saved my wrestling career, but he nearly killed Dewey Robertson in the process. I literally 'went missing' as The Link took over my personality. I lived the gimmick 24 hours a day. I didn't speak to anyone for nearly eight years and sank into a fog of addiction. As my mind and body went downhill, so did my career. When the last promotion I worked for went out of business in the late 1980s, reality hit me with devastating force. I was approaching my 50th birthday with no money, no career and nothing but my customized Linkmobile truck to my name. I had nothing to fall back on, because I hadn't saved a cent. All of my money had been spent on living the high life. After a long, humbling struggle with poverty, illness and homelessness, my family and I finally made our way back to Canada and began to rebuild our lives from the bottom up. I had to go into rehab, and then recovery, which has been my primary occupation for the last 16 years or so. I've stayed sober, but not always clean, and it's a constant battle to stay on track. My biggest challenge came when my wife left me after 32 years of marriage and I wasted a lot of time afterwards thinking she would come back to me - time that should have been...