Quote · The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #181 with Justin Gaethje & Trevor Wittman
Where this was said
Gaethje's Drug Use, Faith, and Finding a Greater Purpose
At 35:15 · chapter starts 34:20
Gaethje reveals he has never told his parents this, then tells the world: during college he was probably a drug addict. He came from a border area where top-grade narcotics arrived direct from Mexico before being cut, and in a boring small-town environment, drugs were a form of stimulation. But there was also an intellectual justification — he was studying human services and wanted to understand what people in recovery were chasing. He lost close friends to drugs and felt he needed first-hand knowledge. Crucially, though, it was never a crutch. Some internal compass — which he identifies as his Christian faith — always told him something bigger was waiting. He never let the substance become bigger than the purpose. When Rogan asks what gave him that sense of greater destiny, Gaethje says simply: faith. His parents made him go to church every Sunday and built a relationship with God through the word of Jesus Christ. Not that he knew he'd be a champion — just that he knew he couldn't take the easy way out.
Gaethje tried every drug in college — not out of addiction, but curiosity born from studying human services and wanting to understand what his clients were chasing. Then around 2016 he woke up in an ambulance, pretty sure he had died. His parents' faces were the reason he never touched drugs again.
