How smoking toad venom changed my life – Mike Tyson
Boxing
By
Mirror
| May 21, 2019
Mike Tyson has revealed smoking toad venom has mellowed him.
Former heavyweight champion Tyson was one of the most feared boxers in history due to his explosive style but also had problems away from the ring.
The American served three years of a six year sentence for raping a teenager in 1991.
But cannabis advocate Tyson no longer wants to been seen as a monster or leave a terrible legacy and believes that the hallucinogenic drug, which is found in Sonoran Desert toad of northern Mexico, has helped temper him.
“I don’t want to be that monster when I die, I don’t want to be remembered as that guy," Tyson, 52, told ESPN Player.
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"He is very toxic and dangerous for my family and my wife. He doesn’t care about them but they are all I care about.
“But I know what it took to make that guy and the experiences we went through to make him so I know he will not disappear overnight.
“I really don’t have much regret. My violence, my drug habits, my reckless sexual escapades, my street fights and car accidents, all that time is over and I am still here so now it is about making a better life for my family. I am grateful for existing and having another life.”
“Once I smoked it, everything went boom! When I came down my brain was functioning and I could talk but I was saying ‘I f***ed up’.
"I killed myself because I killed my ego and my life totally changed.
“It sounds like a movie script but it’s the real deal and now I wake up smiling and laughing and I wonder ‘what the f*** happened?’
“It lasts forever but it only took 15 minutes. As soon as I realised I was nothing, all my fancy stuff didn’t matter.
“When you think you know everything and then you realise you don’t know anything, then it is a big awakening. You can call it growth or divine intervention.
“I won’t say it is God but it was the death of my ego, I felt so naked and afraid because all I ever had was my ego and that made me a very special and famous person.”