Joe Rogan on Addiction & Wasting Your Life

You know yeah, and I've always admired that you figured out when we were really young I mean when I met you you quit and you know we were both in our early 20s Yeah, and you were like fuck this right? I'm not I'm not going down that road and you didn't need anything you didn't you didn't need alcoholics anonymous You like no, I'm not doing it. I did some therapy that helped. I just needed to realize that once I realized that And I had gone to Al-Anon because of my dad adult child of alcoholic meetings which helped me phenomenal amount just to realize that That it's a disease and that you know you're powerless to it and that For me I was able to apply what I learned in there because I went to a couple AA meetings and in Boston It was like guys would get up and they were like and then I blew a guy for a sandwich and I passed out the fucking And they you know it's like I couldn't relate I mean my thing was like I fucked a fat chick You know that was my bottom. I had a three-way with a couple girls who were you know as Anette and so so I could but I but I've I read the literature of the 12 steps And it helped me because it made me realize that when I wanted to drink something was going on yeah And to this day. I just have that reaction I know that I still want to drink all the time But when I really want to drink I stop and I go all right. What's stressing you out? What do you need to deal with and then I just kind of focus on it yeah? Yeah, there was some when I was a kid My my dad was an architect and so I worked on a lot of construction sites And I met a lot of junkies a lot of junkies a lot of people in construction sites are either alcoholics or drug addicts And there's this one guy that I really liked He's a funny guy man Really funny guy, and he's in the band his name is Robbie Funny fucking dude loved hanging around with him, but just couldn't stay off the coke Couldn't stay off the coke and you could totally tell he and he would he'd be honest about it to Say how he went off the rails and you know and you know and he would we would be working together He was a carpenter, and I was you know like a labor sounds like an apprentice And so you'd be you know talking to me why he's explaining to me how to do things and stuff like that and He's like yeah, you know I'm just fucking tired of this I'm getting my shit together the band's getting back together again. We're writing songs and this and that and then He come in Monday looking like shit Just looking like shit real grumpy didn't want to talk had a headache Yeah, and you know and he didn't met it you know went off the rails man The saddest thing is that when you first start doing drugs, and I don't know about you But I had a phenomenal time doing cocaine You know I mushrooms and all the stuff I did as a teenager was like I never got hooked on it, and if you do it You know maybe I did coke 50 times Without ever getting hooked. It's a blast. That's the that's the best-kept secret, but then once you get hooked You're not even having fun anymore. You're just Maintaining you're just feeding it so you don't crash you know with heroin. You're just trying to avoid withdrawals You're not even feeling that great anymore. I think with Robbie to part of the problem was He was very disappointed in himself. Yeah, you know was booze to He would just go off the rails and try to keep it getting you know it's like There's a lot of people out there that They have a dream and then the pressure of trying to reach that dream like his dreams to be in a successful band right and The pressure of trying to reach that dream and see it to fruition. It seems it seems unreachable Yeah, it seems too far off and here you are you're you're in your 30s And you're working in a construction job, and you know you fucking work all day in Boston in the winter You're tired as shit when you get home. You don't want to go to band practice you get home at 6 30 you have dinner now It's 7 30 you got to get up right you got to get up in a few hours, right? What are you doing? When are you going to bed? You know you got to get up at 6 like then you go to band practice and the drummer doesn't show up So you can't practice or he's 45 minutes late his car breaks down, and you're fucking pissed and you're off screaming at you Yeah, yeah Yeah, then try to have a relationship on top of that tell that girl you can't go out on Saturday night ever because you're doing gigs And then the gigs suck, and you're not making any money, and they're like you should get a job the gig suck You should get a job Yeah, and then you're in a band so girls are throwing themselves that you have an affair. She's got some coke Now it's good. No story turned around turn it around now. It's exciting again Sometimes when I work at casino They'll always be that band in the lounge just playing like born to be wild and all those songs and like you'll see people that are like 57 Dancing and you see them and they're dancing and it's like they're just reliving the only joy They had in their life which was like when they were young who dance in Iraq and this band is fucking They're gods to them Mm-hmm You know the the time when you're young when you're having fun is so fleeting yeah Then all of a sudden responsibilities stack up all sudden you know You have to pay bills you have obligations You have so much that you have to think about yeah for so many people there's just There's this period of their life where they look back to whimsically like that was the time when I was free Yeah, I was young and my dick got hard all the time I could go two or three times three times in a night Man, I can't believe it and you think anything is possible. I mean that's really anything can happen That's the loss of innocence is when you realize at a certain point that you do have to pick a path and stay on it Oh, yeah, you better you cuz you got to pay the bills with it and You know and then what's so sad is you see people that work so fucking hard for not a lot of money And you know bills just add up and then they save just enough when they get their vacation twice a year They'll go to like a cruise and they'll just drink non-stop for a week and at the end of it They're just hungover they blew the excess money they had and that was it. That's what you worked all year for I had a friend of mine. I work in a restaurant and One of the guys who worked with saved up his money for eight years Went to Vegas and blew in one day God It was the most heartbreaking story this poor guy I think he was a dishwasher and he worked there for eight years. Yeah set aside 50 here 25 there Set aside for eight fucking years. Yeah, and I think it was some good amount of money like thirty thousand dollars shit Went there with a plan. This is it, baby. I'm good at blackjack. Whatever the fuck you played. He read a book Lot of guys read books