Eryk Anders believes he ultimately had more to offer during his MMA career, and quite frankly, the past nearly two decades of his life.

The UFC middleweight makes his 18th walk to the octagon when he meets former champ Chris Weidman this Saturday at UFC 309. On Sept. 1, Anders — a 2009 national champion college football player for The University of Alabama — revealed that he had stopped abusing drugs for over a year, which has led to gaining custody of his son, and incredible growth in and out of the octagon.

“It’s not like I was living under a bridge shooting heroin and smoking crack or anything like that, I was just like out partying doing God knows what at whatever time in the morning, with whoever and I’ve just always kind of been like that — even since high school,” Anders told MMA Fighting.

“I would even be doing all of this in high school, and I just always felt that as long as I made the workouts, and didn’t miss practice and performed relatively well, that it wasn’t an issue. I’m not the only one doing that, but obviously I’m a little bit older. I started to ask myself, ‘How much better could I have been?’

“Especially in college, like if I wasn’t up all night chasing women, drinking, doing whatever, because I never sleep. I just kind of rationalize, ‘Well, I’m not asleep anyways so I might as well go out and find something to do. And then I had court coming up for custody of my kids, so obviously, we stopped doing everything, but it was still going out and drinking or whatever. But then I just kind of had this moment of clarity after like three or four months: I was like, ‘Damn, this is what it feels like to not be hungover. This feels great.’

For the 37-year-old, the choice to change his life and his habits were clear. And once that clarity hit him, it became simple and easy.

“I’m not like a therapist or nothing, but for me it’s an easy choice and I just feel so much better,” Anders said. “Right now, I’m driving around looking for places to put a gym, something that I probably would have never done a year ago, actually like thinking about what’s next, so to speak.”

After winning his first eight fights as a pro, Anders signed to the UFC and knocked out Rafael Natal in his UFC debut in July 2017. then went on to defeate Markus Perez i at UFC Fight Night 123 in December 2017. From there, Anders would compete in his first headliner against former light heavyweight champ Lyoto Machida, losing a decision at UFC Fight Night 125 in February 2018.

Fourteen UFC fights later, Anders gets ready to make the octagon walk in the World’s Most Famous Arena — and he’ll do so with a clear head, a sober mind, and on the heels of a decision victory against Jamie Pickett in March, which was his first fight on his new path.

“It was just smoking, coke, pills, you name it, dude,” Anders explained. “You name it. Anything other than — like I said, wasn’t like smoking crack or heroin but kind of, you know, pill form heroin, like opiates and uppers downers left, right, whichever way you want to go. I’m not even asking. You offer me some, it’s down the hatch, and we’ll play it by ear, you know.

“I think that a lot of people tell themselves that lie, and it was actually kind of glorified, especially in college. It’s like, ‘Oh, dude, Eric was out until five in the morning and didn’t even go to sleep and now he’s here at workouts, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,’ but in the grand scheme of things, it’s really not that cool because you’re just playing yourself. There’s just no way that you could perform at your highest level if you’re hungover, or if you’re actually even like, high during the workout or whatever.

“You just lie to yourself and everybody thinks it’s cool. But at the end of the day, it’s not really because I could have been better. There are some close fights that I’ve lost that had I been... I’m not Jon Jones, I wasn’t doing it the week of, but, if I wasn’t doing it at all, maybe, like in the last minute of the last round I can push more or, maybe I’ll just go into training with a clearer mind and get more rest, get more out of training so I can go harder in the fight or whatever the case may be. I know that you can expect to see the best version of myself on Nov. 16.”

Of course, when you’re as interesting as Anders is, people want to hang out with you. As most would, Anders liked the attention he was getting. But as he looked deeper at those who were surrounding him, and knowing he had gained custody of his son, Anders realized what was truly important.

“I just kind of topped answering the phone and distancing myself because at the end of the day, they probably just want to hang out with the UFC fighter,” Anders said. “They don’t really necessarily care about me or what I got going on. They just want to hang out with somebody they think is cool and do stuff that they think is fun.

“It is what it is. I’m just not really trying to go down that road anymore.”

At 37 years of age, and a fresh perspective on who he is as a father, a fighter, an aspiring business man, and human being, Anders is a realist. He currently has three fights left on his current contract, and has prepared himself for it to be the final three fights of his career.

But as it always is in this crazy sport of mixed martial arts, things can change in an instant.

“I mean, everything has a price, you know what I’m saying?,” Anders said. “If I go out there, and I starch the next three dudes, and they come with me with a new contract and I mean, money talks. I like money.

“So let’s see what happens man, to be honest, I still feel young. I feel like I could fight for 100 years but I’m just getting tired of having surgeries and that kind of thing. And I really love the life that this has afforded. In between fights, I can go and take my kid wherever on planet earth. So obviously, if I open up a business that’s going to tie up a lot of my time, but it’s OK, because as much as I want to fight forever, I know you can’t fight forever.

So three more fights, that puts me at 20 UFC fights. I think that’s a great milestone to have and a lot of fighters don’t get there, and that’s just kind of where my mind is at right now.”

With 14 months clean of drugs, and with the positive changes he has made coming to light, Anders felt blessed when the UFC approached him about competing at Madison Square Garden. The opponent did not matter at all.

Now that he has the chance to face a former world champion, and one of the most recognizable names in the history of the division, everything appears to be coming up Anders.

“It’s Madison Square Garden, that’s one of the most prestigious fighting arenas in America, if not the world,” Anders said. “They could’ve asked me to fight anyone in there, and I would have said yes. I’ve always wanted to fight there. It’s definitely on the bucket list for me.

“The name is just the icing on the cake — former champion, guy who knocked out Anderson Silva. So yeah, of course. How could you say no?”