Former UFC lightweight contender Dustin Poirier sat down with The Diary of a CEO host Steven Bartlett for a conversation about his mental health, his Father’s Day airport arrest, and the emotional weight that has followed his retirement from professional fighting.
Poirier was arrested on Father’s Day at Atlanta’s airport after being removed from a flight. A video of the incident spread widely online, showing him confronting a security officer before being taken into custody on a public intoxication charge. He addressed the incident directly, describing the state of mind that led him there.
“It just feels like everything has its own gravity and it’s going to pull me towards the negative. No matter what it is, it’s like a cloud in my head that I just can’t get out from under it,” he said, describing what he called depression. “When it hits me, it hits me hard.”
He connected that low point in part to his father, who is currently homeless and has battled alc**olism his entire life.
“I just couldn’t stop thinking about my father,” Poirier said. “I try to help him out and he’s back out on the street.”
The conversation also turned to a turbulent childhood shaped by divorce and drinking. Poirier said he started drinking around age 12 or 13, was expelled from school for brawling, and ended up in juvenile detention at 14 after violating probation.
“I was just living day-to-day doing whatever,” he recalled. “I didn’t have any goals.”
Since the arrest, he has returned to therapy and decided to stop drinking entirely.
“I’ve always had a bad relationship with alc**ol. Ninety percent of the times if I do drink, I’m going to drink to be the best at drinking,” he said. “I’m going to cut alc**ol completely out of my life.”
He also revealed he has not watched the viral video and deleted all social media after the incident.
“To see myself in that condition, disrespecting police officers, disrespecting workers at the airport, disrespecting myself, disrespecting my family. I just don’t feel like it’s going to benefit me to see that,” he said.
Poirier disclosed that a brain scan showed abnormal changes, including thinning in parts of his brain and a splitting of the brain’s septum. Neurologists believe the findings could affect communication between the brain’s two hemispheres and may be tied to head trauma sustained during his career.
He also casually admitted to another habit he plans to address, telling Bartlett: “I need to stop gambling. I can’t cold turkey everything. Give me one. Let’s go one thing at a time.”
On a possible UFC return, Poirier put the probability at 5%, adding that the figure has been falling since his retirement on July 30th.
“For 20 years I was dreaming about being the best,” he said. “I just want to dream again.”
