Reported by Adam Martin of WrestleView.com
On Friday, October 12, 2007 at 5:39 PM EST

SLAM! Wrestling's Dave Hillhouse has an interview up with former WWE star Joey Mercury (aka Joey Matthews) where he talks about his release from the company, his addictions and more. Here are some highlights:

On returning too soon & working with The Hardys:
"I was lying to them because I wanted to get back so soon. We did some stuff with Matt Hardy and Tatanka on Smackdown. We kept calling Jeff to get him back. Jeff was doing really well and was getting himself straightened out, and he told Matt he'd like to come back for another shot. Then when he came back I went into rehab, so Jeff and Nitro did some work together. It was a dream match for us. We had great matches all over the country and all over the world." Then came, literally, Armageddon."

On his injury at Armageddon 2006:
"I've taken shots to the face before. Nitro escaped with a cut across his shoulder and one across his neck, but I wasn't so lucky. I get headaches sometimes, but I don't know if that's connected because I've had over ten concussions too. I wish it didn't happen. If it didn't happen, maybe I wouldn't have gotten hooked on painkillers."

On his battle with drugs and alcohol:
"I've been a drug addict and alcoholic since I was 15 years old, right before I started in wrestling -- so that's the better part of 15 years." Matthews admitted to using a mixture of alcohol, cocaine, crack and heroine usage as well.

On keeping it secret that he still had problems:
"I didn't want to tell anyone that I had a problem. I didn't want anyone to think that rehab had failed. I didn't want it to look bad on me because at that time I was on almost every Raw and Smackdown, getting a lot of work and being in a lot of good spots. Then one day, before a taping, I took some pills that somebody handed me -- they weren't prescribed to me. I knew it was wrong but I took them anyway because that's the nature of the beast."

On Vince McMahon speaking to him:
"I had to be sent home. Vince sat me down and said 'We're not concerned about your work because we know you can pull it together for 30 minutes every night. We're worried that you're going to die.'"

To check out the full interview, click here.