“Sometimes You Gotta Piss Yourself”: How Andre Petroski Fought His Way Out of Addiction
Before Andre Petroski made it to the UFC, before the walkouts, the wins, and the cameras, he was just a kid with a fire inside—and for a long time, that fire nearly burned him alive.
“I got clean in 2018,” Petroski says now, years removed from the darkest chapter of his life. But the road there wasn’t just rough—it was nearly fatal.
Andre’s introduction to drugs came young. “I was probably like 16, a freshman in high school,” he recalls. “My neighbor’s mom would give us Oxy-80s. That was the beginning. This was back in the oxy era, like 2006.”
What started as a teenage thrill quickly became survival. “I wasn’t even really getting high anymore,” he says. “I was just getting well. It became a job. You get out of practice late at night, and you can’t even go home—you gotta go cop for tomorrow or else you’re gonna be sick.”
Petroski doesn’t hide from the truth. “I’ve got it all—whatever you want to call it—the void, the addictive personality. That’s what made me a terrible addict. But it’s also what makes me a great fighter. I’ve got that fire.”
Andre Petroski | Instagram
Eventually, it all caught up to him. Still competing in local fights to make just enough money to feed his habit, Andre hit a wall during one final attempt to quit on his own. After a kickboxing bout, he tried detoxing alone at home. “I made it like three days on the couch,” he says. “But I just never saw the light at the end of the tunnel. It was terrible.”
That’s when things took a turn—one that, strangely enough, saved his life.
He went down to Kensington to score with a friend, which was rare for him. “I usually never got high with anyone,” he says. “But this time, I wasn’t alone. And that probably saved me.”
On the drive back, Andre overdosed.
His friend called 911. When paramedics arrived and revived him, Andre panicked. “I came to and saw everything in the car—the cops, the ambulance—and I freaked out,” he remembers. A medic asked if he wanted to go to the hospital. “I said no, so she told me to step out and sign a form refusing treatment.”
“I step out, throw the clipboard in the air, and just start booking it—right there on McDade Boulevard,” he laughs now. “And this cop jacks me up against the ambulance, puts a stun gun on the back of my head, and I piss myself. That was the moment. That was the wake-up call.”
“Sometimes,” he says, “you just gotta piss yourself to realize what you’re doing.”
From there, Andre went to jail, then to Malvern Institute for treatment, followed by a recovery house. It’s where his real fight began—and where he found something worth fighting for.
Andre Petroski | Instagram
“I met people, got the help I needed, found a program, found God,” he says. “It’s not like I scream about it from a mountain or shove it down people’s throats. But I talk to God every day. I wake up and ask Him to keep me clean. At night, I thank Him for my life.”
That life now includes a daughter with the woman he met in recovery. “We’re so far removed from that world. It feels like it was a different life.”
Andre Petroski’s story isn’t just about recovery—it’s about transformation. It’s about owning the worst parts of your past and turning them into fuel.
The fire’s still there. But now, it’s pointed in the right direction.
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