Raven says he became too much like his character in ECW

“I didn’t realize how personal it was gonna become, and then the character became so personal, so art imitated life, but then life started to imitate art when I started to become a bigger, you know, getting worse in drugs and alcohol. Because, in some perverse way, I was trying to stay true to who I created, to Raven, even though Raven was based on me. So, art imitated life, but then life started to imitate art, and that’s when things went downhill.”

sources: Title Match Wrestling via Wrestling Inc.