Court McGee Celebrates 14 Years of Clean Living: ‘Grateful for My Dark Past’

Court McGee recently reached a significant milestone in his life.

The 16-fight UFC veteran celebrated 14 years of sobriety last week. McGee reflected on the achievement in an Instagram post.

“Grateful for my dark past, the willingness to face and correct my mistakes, and more importantly, the ability to convert them into assets,” he wrote. “Today I celebrate 14 years of sobriety.”

McGee nearly died from his battle with drug addiction – he used everything from prescription pain pills to illegal narcotics -- before turning to mixed martial arts. The 35-year-old Utah native recounted a near-death experience from 2005 in an interview with Sherdog.com.

“One particular night, a Sunday night, I shot up too much,” McGee said in 2010. “Immediately after I shot up, I knew I’d shot up too much, and the lights went out. Thank God that my cousin and her friend showed up. They started CPR. They called 911. The ambulance showed up. They were able to do CPR, and they defibrillated me and brought me back.”

It wasn’t until April 16, 2006 that McGee began his journey to sobriety. He hasn’t looked back since. McGee won Season 11 of “The Ultimate Fighter” and has carved out a respectable career within the Las Vegas-based promotion, compiling an 8-8 mark with wins over the likes of Robert Whittaker, Josh Neer, Alex Garcia and Ryan Jensen, to name a few. Durability has been a staple of McGee’s professional tenure, as he has only been finished once in 28 career bouts.

“I lost everything, had nothing. I was unemployable. I had no friends. It was pretty traumatic,” he said in 2010. “No matter what, the biggest thing is through my stories and what I’ve been through, if I can help just one person make a small change in their life and maybe not do the same s--t that they’ve been doing and decide to get out of the drug life … if I can give can give them any sort of inspiration and one person makes it out of it, then this will all have been worth it, whether I win or lose.”

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View this post on Instagram

Grateful for my dark past, the willingness to face and correct my mistakes , and more importantly, the ability to convert them into assets. Today I celebrate 14 years of sobriety. . . #14yrssober #april16 #recovery #sober #life #experience #family #fighting #speaking #ufc #mma

A post shared by Court McGee (@courtmcgeemma) on Apr 16, 2020 at 11:11am PDT

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