Former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones had a very bad year. He was involved in a hit and run car accident, stripped of his UFC belt, and suspended. Then he pled guilty to felony charge of leaving the scene of an accident, was given 18 months of supervised probation and in late October was reinstated by the organization. If he meets the terms of his probation, the record will be expunged.

Jones stumbled through a series of gaffes on social networks prior to the hit and run. Wisely, he went into near media silence since, but finally sat down with Ariel Helwani for his first substantive public interaction since.

Jones openly speaks about what happened, and what’s next.

I don’t drink anymore, he said, as transcribed by Tom Ngo for 5thRound. I don’t smoke marijuana anymore. It has been, maybe, three or four months now. It’s not difficult. I’m honestly excited to be set free from that. It took time for me to acknowledge that I had a little bit of a problem because I was able to take care of my family, I was able to win fights, I was able to pretty much hide it from the world that I was smoking pot and drinking three or four days a week.

I was handling my life just fine, so I didn’t think I had a problem. But now that I’m completely sober, I totally had a problem. I’m upset about all the hours I spent being under the influence and all the dollars I spent getting under the influence, and I’m set free from it.

It’s crazy with the cocaine thing. I don’t like coke. I’m not a coke guy. I smoked marijuana, quite frequently. And people who know me, they know that about me. And I love to drink. I can honestly say, I can partied with the best of ’em. But cocaine, I tried cocaine one night, and the athletic commission is there the next day. It’s like, how in the world did this just go down? How did it happen this way? And now I’m painted as this coke head, and of course my haters would love for me to be a coke head, but far from it. I would have never been able to accomplish the things I have with cocaine, but I was addicted to marijuana. And because you can do so much while being a marijuana addict, it’s hard to admit that you’re an addict. But I was, and now I’m not.

Jones is now reinstated, and could fight current light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier as early as April 23, in Madison Square Garden.