Name: John Mulaney Opens Up About His Addiction and Recovery
Uploaded: 2023-04-21T19:21:39.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'John Mulaney Opens Up About His Addiction and Recovery' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-04-21. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'John Mulaney Opens Up About His Addiction and Recovery' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-04-21. Transcript available.

so you were deep in how'd you get so deep in because i don't think anyone would
look at you
and think this is the coke guy good that was the whole thing um i mean i've
certainly tried to talk
about it on stage as having had like a drug and alcohol problem but it just i
don't know yeah it
didn't something about me seems so to me it's like well of course the guy that
seems like he
has it all together has the problem because that's just like how life is that's
text yeah it's almost
like this textbook yeah um but that's i don't put that on other i don't put
that on you to be like
how come you didn't see it because i was i also i really thought like i really
thought that i was
doing life i was able to achieve it life with the drugs as opposed to in spite
of them it took me
a long time over the past couple years to realize that i did well at what i do
in spite
drugs not because of them wow yeah yeah because it would be fun yeah from an
outsider i would always
look at him and be like oh that guy yeah drugs would not help that guy like
that guy is his own
he is so unique in his own way that anything to uh like a a base that or
something or debase that
would only mess him up but i would have thought i would have thought like i'm
delivering something
people really like and i think i'm delivering it because i take two 30
milligram adderals and then
one z bar and so i'm really sharp but i don't seem jittery and so i go on a
podcast or i go on a talk
show and i'm just i'm delivering and i'm giving people what i'm naturally good
at but i'm a little
tired so i can't naturally do it so it's okay it's okay to take it's okay to
rip open time release
adderall and dump the beads down my throat and then pop a klonopin because then
i will get to
the level that i naturally am at like i just got to deliver what i'm good at
and right now we're
running on a lean mixture and it used to be easier but now it's harder so
whatever i'm putting in my
body to get to that is fine so cocaine you liked cocaine xanax klonopin adderall
percocet
ridolin any kind of speed oh so all that speed huh um would you get i would get
so scared at night
when i was high on cocaine right yeah that i would be like googling what can i
take with cocaine to go
to sleep and that would take me so many hours i'd look at so many there'd be
like you get on these
answer sites and people's like you're dying brother yeah yeah i go to quora
right or whatever that is
right yeah yeah count a count now from 60 and you'll be dead people would say
stuff like that and you're
just like oh my so you didn't have like because that's the thing i i actually
you didn't take any
downers i didn't take any downer so i would lay there in misery i would google
like can i go may
ask did you know about downers i guess i knew about them but i just had never
taken them and i was so
scared to mix something with cocaine because it would kill me that's what i was
fearful that was
your worry yeah um i kind of thought if i if i didn't have the right balance
yeah i was more like
if i don't have enough in the right amounts then something bad could happen but
as long as i'm
balancing coke and adderall with xanax and klonopin i'll be just fine i
remember i walked into my
intervention i'd just been to my drug dealer's apartment and i finally got the
right balance
oh yeah one pocket all adderall and coke one pocket all xanax and i was like i
have done it i reached
equilibrium yeah opened the door and a bunch of people yeah it's okay were you
high when you went
to your yes but i was insisting that i hadn't used drugs in days i went look i
am sober right now
look at me i am sober right now i kept saying and were you good enough to
convince those people that
you were no i was pretty strung out by then so it didn't i i i could present
really well for a long
time yeah but i'd reached a point where um it was just off the rails i'm seeing
that about you you're
a very good presenter um it's a yeah a a doctor at rehab was like it scares me
how good you are at
presenting like everything's fine wow yeah were you surprised that you were an
addict or did you know
you were an addict um i had like skin deep self-awareness of like i have a drug
problem i i'm i love drugs i like them
too much i don't like them the way other people like them it's not like oh that
was fun let's do that again
let's do that again in two weeks this was like i think think the plan for the
morning should be to get
more of that um i knew i liked them more than other people but i it was but no
not to the depths that it
was what do i mean to say i had us i had a surface level awareness and i would
joke about that and and and
say you know oh i got sober in 2005 which i did but i slowly got back into
pharmaceuticals
over the next you know 13 14 years prescribed then not prescribed or prescribed
then abused but
prescribed then bought on the street then everything were you buying them off a
craigslist and stuff like
that even no i always thought that might be cops smart um and it's pressed
pills it's a lot of like
i have friends oh this was even before i had an awareness that there might be fakes
out there like
that yeah um i've definitely bought adderall a couple times and snorted it and
thought this is
what is this yeah oh i bought a whole thing of something one time and did it
all and it wasn't
it wasn't cocaine nope no god yeah and i don't know what it is and i still
imagine one day i'm gonna
walk past a chemical and and it's gonna connect a little oh you'll smell it or
something you'll smell
a chemical and you'll remember that that was what you bought it'd be like oh it
was me you know what
i'm saying yeah uh no the um the realization that i actually had no control
over this took a long time
wow it's a hard thing for people to convince it's a hard i mean i still
struggle sometimes even if i sit
in a meeting and there's still part of me that doesn't want to say i'm an
alcoholic yeah or an addict i to
me i go it's more complicated than that yeah like you don't get it it's not it's
not that i'm like
it's not that just that cocaine's addictive and when i do it i'm addicted it's
it's a different
thing i use it in a different way and the way i see it in my relationship with
it and it's just
yeah i kind of have a romance it's like a i romanticize it a hundred percent i
romanticize
everything in my life and me too yeah those like being in midtown manhattan
have a meeting have a
you know have a big like production meeting on something um and you could be
get there get there
half hour late uh uh desperate to have a cigarette so like finding an abandoned
office and smoking out
the window and being almost very much in trouble and it being really clear
those moments were so about
surviving that that hour that they i never thought about them with any deeper
perspective i never thought
oh my god what has my life become i was just like i it would be easier to take
the train i'd be faster
to take the train home to my cocaine but i can't do coke on the train so it was
all just like figuring
out the video game of being a drug addict wow took up it was just a scramble
for the present problem
and as soon as that problem was solved i moved on i wasn't like i can't believe
you know i remember i
i went into a meeting holding a bottle of pedialyte because i was not eating
anything i was just drinking
pedialyte doing cocaine and i was i was with people i knew and we were waiting
for other people to join
the meeting that we didn't know and i said if my nose bleeds or if i pass out
it's because
i have a sinus infection don't worry you know and i'll give a signal if i think
i'm about to pass out
and then then and even to them i was like because i'm sick right because that's
why wow yeah what's
the signal too i can't remember geronimo um would be a great thing to say
before you pass out and your
nose explodes with blood yeah that that covered it well did you ever end up in
a really cool place doing
drugs uh meaning geographic place yeah or just like a dicey like you know shoney's
or something
you know someplace that was a little deviant you know um karaoke bar i'm trying
to think like were
you that were you that guy that wanted to get deep into the trap houses and
were you like kind of like
the um uh who was the guy anthony bourdain of like trap houses and stuff like
that did anthony what's a
trap house a trap house is just like a place where people are doing drugs and
there's like a lady who's
like probably like you know if you wake her up she would have sex maybe like in
the back it's like
anthony bourdain went to these no he didn't but he was like food places he went
to restaurants yeah right
are you like that i was not the that he would have a trap house uh yeah are you
like would you be that guy
like where is that kind of you're like some people like to get into the depths
of the of the no 5 a.m
you know and like just the like how weird can i get you know my the weirdest
times for me were the days
because i was i mean that feeling of you know when you haven't slept and the
whole world has
yeah just the way that that warmth you feel in your bones you're going into
starbucks or like
man like just running an errand and you're like does everyone know can everyone
tell there's just
something kind of like shinier about us yeah you know like just something like
sleeker we're just a
faster animal because like we didn't just lay down for eight hours oh that's
true you are more alert huh
oh you're like an alley cat like an alley cat yeah and you're like a very but
you're like things also
become far more complicated you know right oh yeah i would overthink things
overthink everything you're
like a ghost you're like a fast like a tesla ghost and you're like these
clothes don't look like
someone put them on this morning yeah these look like yesterday clothes yeah
not even that
they're wrinkled not even anything just you just have an air about you that
says
i did not just rest yeah but i think no one can tell if you're still gacked up
enough to converse
yeah fuck i would be so scared dude i would walk yeah my depth perception would
feel weird yes a lot
of like cat you know cars everything's coming yeah everything's coming fast
yeah oh god dude they're
a disaster how yeah does that drugs are a disaster and that's a nice thing to
not have to worry about
anymore isn't it oh my god yeah that is not i'm not in a crisis all the time i
don't judge people for
having a harsh view of addicts a lot of people have addicts in their lives and
you can't just go
it's a disease and i you know like it it can really um it's very painful to
other people yeah oh yeah i mean
it's a mess they're a mess yeah life's so hard already life's like life's like
a table piled high
with so much shit like a bad you know when you go to like a little restaurant
in a tiny circular ass
table and they don't have room for anything oh yeah table piled high with shit
and drugs come in and
drugs you think you're going to solve all your problems and they kick the legs
out from under it
they're just a mess it's it's they're a disaster yeah they're a disaster hope
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