In his later years of adulthood, Mike Tyson fully transformed from a troublesome raging bull into an insightful and gentle giant, in part due to retiring from boxing and in part due to bonkers marijuana use. To that end, Tyson has been incredibly open about his experimentation with drugs over his decades-long career, and his latest admission fell right in line with a current trend among Hollywood's psychedlic-friendly population. The former heavyweight champion has opened up about how much he has enjoyed tripping on toad venom, sometimes imbibing multiple times a day. And that's not even the end of it.
The boxing legend opened up about his toad venom usage while speaking with The New York Post. Of course, Mike Tyson’s past drug use, not to mention his fondness for animals, made smoking toad venom an on-brand decision. But perhaps unlike his past experimentations with weed and cocaine, Tyson was goaded into trying the psychedelic substance around four years ago. In his words:
I did it as a dare. I was doing heavy drugs like cocaine, so why not? It’s another dimension. Before I did the toad, I was a wreck. The toughest opponent I ever faced was myself. I had low self-esteem. People with big egos often have low self-esteem. We use our ego to subsidize that. The toad strips the ego.
It appears that tripping the toad venom fantastic allowed the actor and podcaster to reassess his life. As Mike Tyson admitted, big egos reflect low self-esteem, and trying the substance seemed to alleviate that imbalance. Tyson did admit that his first trip on toad venom felt like death, which you'd think might have made him avoid future usage. On the contrary, it made him more accepting of such fates, and since then, his trips have made him reevaluate the concept.
Smoking the psychedelic substance, which comes from the Sonoran Desert toad and is a super-potent chemical counterpart to DMT, led to an awakening for Mike Tyson. Being in a personal slump had taken its toll on him in every part of his life, but he revealed how the drug shifted his mindset away from where it was during his boxing heyday.
People see the difference [in me]. It speaks for itself. If you knew me in 1989 you knew a different person. My mind isn’t sophisticated enough to fathom what happened, but life has improved. The toad’s whole purpose is to reach your highest potential. I look at the world differently. We’re all the same. Everything is love.
Thankfully, 2021 Mike Tyson is a different person from his 1989 self. Doing the toad, as it were, appeared to help send him on a new path to enlightenment, and he's even supplying his own stash now. Tyson revealed that he's got a nursery full of the toads within his SoCal ranch, which would be understandable even if they didn't secrete brain-melting chemicals. Over the years, Tyson has shown his affinity for animals of all kinds, even though he no longer sleeps with his tigers for a solid reason. Hopefully, the boxer takes care of his toads in a comparable manner.
Of course, Mike Tyson’s admission was just the latest celebrity to open up about using toad venom. HGTV star Christina Haack revealed she found love again and inner peace after trying the substance fresh from her divorce from second husband Ant Anstead. But not all toad venom stories turn out well as porn star Nacho Vidal was arrested last year after a friend died during a ritual. At least, Tyson’s experience was positive, allowing him to evolve into what he sees as being a better person.
