Artie Lange Lost $145,000 in One Weekend | Joe Rogan

So once, once heroin gets in your system, you need it every eight hours. You need it every eight hours like it's oxygen. So you become desperate. Withdrawals are insane. So is it insane? Like, what is it like? It's insanity. Well, okay. When I became, you know, again, my story on the Howard Stern show, the big headline at the end of why I left that show was, and I speak sometimes at NA meetings and I try to get this through young people's heads. I was basically a full blown junkie on the biggest radio show of all time. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the headline that that's what, you know, so not an off on the air, but I also had a full time stand up comedy schedule. So my life became the kind of chaos that not many human beings have ever seen. So I would, I would have gigs in Pittsburgh, Phoenix, and Detroit three weeks in a row. Then I got to get back at 6 a.m. to be on stern. Now I was, by the end, I was so paranoid to bring drugs on a plane, but I needed the heroin to get on stage because the sickness picture, the flu times 10. That's what the, that's what withdrawals are. And there's, there's aches, all the emotional pain you're masking comes back. So withdrawals are a living hell. So when you see the withdrawals coming, you see the heroin getting out of your system, you're like, okay, it's going to get really bad. Then you realize most people can't leave the room. Then you realize you got to do five radio shows a week and then you got to fly to Detroit and do stand up on a Saturday night. So when I landed in Detroit, I wouldn't have heroin. So my life became a dance of like, I would land in every city and I would say, uh, I would, I would get in a cab and I'd say to the cab driver, I need, I need heroin. I got a score. Otherwise I can't do this show. Sometimes the guy would recognize me and, and want tickets to the show. I would go to the worst part of Detroit. Okay. Or the worst part of anywhere, anywhere, any city, and try to find heroin, because in an hour I got to be on stage and in 20 minutes I'm going to be deathly sick. When I say sick, like shit in my pants, throwing up. So this is, you're getting there with no connections. No connections. Now I started. Did you ever not score? Uh, yeah, I used to call them, uh, I used to call them, uh, dope six X cause withdrawals. They call it dope sickness. And I, one time I was on stage in Orlando, Florida, I had to do an hour, half an hour into my set. I realized I'm going to ship my pants in front of 2000 people. So I said, okay, in my head and like, you know, with your act, sometimes you got jokes, you could do like a robot. So I'm just, I'm just going through the motions and you say this, it'll get a laugh. You say this, it'll get a laugh. I realized I'm going to ship my pants. Okay. In front of 2000 people. So I said, there's two choices. I can either say, guys, I gotta go to the bathroom, listen to some music and go shit or ship my pants in front of 3000. Did you see your pants? No, I said play a song and I did tell them, you're going to ship your pants. Came back and I said, I was going to ship my pants. So, okay. These are stern fans. I go, it would have been funnier if you shit your pants. So I got stern fans who know I was about to ship my pants. The last day I found the show was like them yelling, shit your pants. Yeah. They're particularly ruthless. I remember I saw you at the Lex, the Luxor in Vegas. Yeah. It was one of the first times I ever saw you in front of a stern fan, right? Like the stern fan group. Right. They're ruthless. It's crazy. Yeah. It's crazy. They, and then they say that they love you, but then they're screaming shit out. And, uh, you know, in Vegas is another, again, so, so that became my life. The chaos was insane. Do you think it was encouraged too? Like, did people incur, like, did they enjoy the fact that you were off the rails? Some people did. Yeah. Some people did. And because of that, do you think that like you identified with that? Like, this is who I am. This is what I do. That's a great question. Absolutely. Part of me said, maybe this is my thing. Yeah. You know, and that's, that's you bullshitting yourself because that's also you saying it's a reason to continue. Yes. You know, I could keep fucking up because this is the reason I'm doing this because this is how I make money. Yes. And this is my, a lot of money, a lot of money. Yeah. I mean, I, okay. The, the most money I ever did making stand up stand up most money I made. It was actually at Mandalay Bay, Super Bowl leave 2007. This is an example of my life. And one night I made 140 grand to one stand. Okay. I got 70 grand for two shows. I did two shows. I'm on the plane flying back from Vegas. I'm doing the math between the gambling, the drugs and the hookers. I lost 145,000. Okay. So when I got home, my account thought I was going to give him a check for 140 grand. I said, I need five G's. Oh Jesus Christ. I made $140,000 in a night. One night my father climbed roofs for a living. Okay. He never made that in 30 years. And, and then I'm going back to co-host the biggest radio show ever. And I lost a hundred, but I had a $10,000 hooker who looked like a young Carmen Electra. And, and I lost money playing craps. I lost on the game and, and the drugs I bought. Jesus. I was down 145,000. So after I paid out my commission to the, to the agents, the weekend cost me like 40 grand. Have you put this in a book? I don't know if that story is in a book. I wrote another book in jail too. I wrote a fourth book. Good. It's called Rippin and Runnin. And I'm trying to get a deal. I'm trying to get a deal for it right now. Who the fuck wouldn't give you a deal for that? Jesus Christ. That's just one fucking story of, of, of, of madness. That's the thing about those stories is they're so great. Like it's such a catch 22, right? It's like the stories are so amazing and people love you for those stories, but they also want you to be clean. Well, here's the thing. So, so that's the catch 22, you know, and then I'm saying to myself, so, so, so again, the answer to your original question is, is the, if I were to be honest with you right now, the reason, the thing that got me, the method I'm using now are consequences. If I didn't have jail hanging on my head, I don't know what would happen today.