Jim Ross Reveals Why He Has Given Up Drinking Alcohol

Jim Ross has been absent from AEW programming since early November in order to heal up some lingering injuries. Ross previously took a several-week hiatus earlier this year after suffering a fall in June and since his return in August, has been a semi-regular commentator across both AEW Dynamite and AEW Collision. Ross has also beaten skin cancer in recent years, leaving him with a significant radiation wound on his leg, and continues to contend with diabetes.

While providing an update on his overall health during the latest episode of Grilling JR, Ross revealed that he hasn’t drunk alcohol in over three months. Co-host Conrad Thompson queried why he decided to make the move and how it’s affected him, with Ross explaining that it conflicted with his diabetes medication and that he feels healthier on the whole as a result.

“Well, my goal is to get healthy and drinking was not working well with my meds, my diabetes medications,” Ross revealed. “I’m taking a new one, of course, so it was a conflict. It’s a conflict of interest, so to speak, because I want to get healthier and these meds got to work and I was diluting their strength by drinking. So I hung it up.

“I haven’t had any withdrawal. I haven’t had any sleepless nights. I haven’t cheated. I was tempted a couple of nights ago, I think it was Sunday, to go have a shot of Crown Royal and I resisted the urge. Now, I know that somewhere down the road I’ll have that shot of Crown Royal, but I’m gonna do things in moderation and not I’m like a massive 400-pound King Kong Bundy or something.

“This has put a lot of weight off of me, I’m losing weight, I feel healthier. I hope to go back to work sooner than later, but I’m not sure what the doctors are going to say. It’s not up to me. I gotta get released to go back to work because of this wound. The diabetes, I can handle and treat that on the road. The drinking was just something that I had to do to maximize the investment, and it is significant, of all my medicines. So that’s why I did it and it’s working out fine.”

If you use any quotes from this article, please give a h/t to Haus of Wrestling and credit Grilling JR.