Why Jim Norton Stopped Drinking as a Teenager | Joe Rogan

Yeah. Do you know when I was a teenager, I was so, I was very, you know, I was drinking. And I remember I was so anti-Clan. I had read some book on the Ku Klux Klan and it was the preacher for the Klan. His name was in the book. So I called the information. I called the FBI and I tried to stop a Klan rally. But I called this guy at home, this Klan preacher. And I started, you know, that's wrong. You're a racist. You know, I was 14. And he told me, I left the Klan. I'm not in the Klan anymore. And he actually talked to me for a few minutes. Wow. Yeah. But I was before you could be, you know, I was fucking just 14 and drunk and trying to make a difference. How cool is that though that he talked to you? He did talk to me. Yeah. And I'll never forget it. And I, my father, I think knew I was drinking afterwards because he's like, he heard some of the conversation. But I think it started with me calling the FBI where the C I could you call the FBI a few times back then. You called the FBI? That's what I would do when I drank. Yeah. I was a fucking crazy person. I called the FBI. I remember when I met you like, fuck, we're probably early twenties, right? Yep. And I was like, why did you quit drinking? And you're like, why did you quit doing drugs? And you're like, I had to. Yeah. I called a bomb threat into my high school. I remember I cleared the high school. I did that when I was, I want to say I was 17 or 18. And we used to get drunk in my friend's house. And there was a, there was a, some number that you could call for like help from nuns. So I would have my friends sitting around and I would always call up and pretend that like I would make up these horrible incest stories and terrible sexual things that were happening to me. And my fucking friends would be laughing and the nuns would be trying to counsel me on the phone. Oh, Jesus. And then I called a bomb threat. I did it a couple of times. It didn't work. And the third time I did it, the final time I did it, they actually had people leave the school and go outside while they searched the school. Drunk bomb threats. Didn't fucking TJ Miller do that recently? It was something with him on a train, but it wasn't a thread. He, I think he had something with a woman. But didn't he call a bomb threat in? I don't know if it was a threat or if he thought she would have him. Like I never got the full story. He thought she really had one? I bet I don't know. I remember reading it and I don't remember what the conclusion was. If you're really fucked up when you think somebody might have a bomb, like paranoia, like real, like full blown paranoia. Like I remember, you know, Jim Brewer, of course, it was a legendary pothead. And one time he quit and he quit for quite a while. And I said, well, why, why'd you quit? He goes, dude, he goes, I started getting really paranoid, like paranoid that people were listening to me and the people were following me and watching me. It was not healthy. It was not good. And, you know, I wonder about that. Like when you perturb normal states of consciousness, when you take like the normal way you are and you start changing a little bit with a little bit of booze, a little bit of booze, a little bit of anxiety, a little bit of depression, a little bit of bad things, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. I'll take a little Xanax, take the edge off, then I'll take a Valium so I can go to sleep. Then I'll take an Ambien if the Valium doesn't work and you keep going and going and going and going. You're, you're like, you know how like there's certain things you could do that can give you arthritis, right? There's certain things that corrode your joints. There's certain things you can do that, that make you tired. The more chemicals you insert into your body, the more things you do, the more you shift from like your comfortable baseline of who you are when you're at your, you're healthiest. You change, you become a different thing. And I think pot is just as likely to do that as anything. If you're doing it the wrong way, if you abuse it, I think alcohol can do it. I think pot can do it. Pills, speed, I think all those things can surely do it. But it's strange to see when someone starts to slip away and they start to go towards this like very strange version of themselves that you know they don't have control anymore. Is that how you felt like when you were a kid? Yeah, from a very young age. It was weird, but I was very addicted. It was like sexual addiction first. Like that was the first one. Sexual addiction was first? You were drinking when you were 13, you said. Yeah, but I mean, I was a child. I was sexually active as a kid, like fucking, I've, I've, I've, 10 sexual partners before fourth grade. What? I've never told you that? Hell yeah. How, how was that possible? I was blowing all my friends. I was a fucking, couldn't stop. How did that get started? You know, I don't remember the first one, but I remember there's a picture. I can date it because I, there's a picture of me when I was a kid, when I split my head open. And I was, I remember I split my head open running from the boy who was a year older than me and I used to blow him, but I was scared of him. He was, he was terrorized me, but I would, I remember him trying to fuck me once too, but I was, I couldn't do it. Like I vaguely remember I was in the hallway, my pants were down and his fucking dick always smelled like fucking mothballs. Cause he would do it. He wore fucking Budweiser bathing trunks. They had Budweiser on them and he wore Budweiser bathing trunks. So do you have like mothballs in his drawer, his dresser? He must have, but that smell is, is a visceral memory I have of that. He's the kid that pissed in my mouth. I fucking, I was in a public pool in Edison, New Jersey. This is how young I was. I didn't know that. So I went and he, I was blowing him underwater and then he goes, I popped up cause he, he pissed in my mouth. So I popped up. I'm like, don't do that anymore. Anyway. I put my foot down and then went back and he did it again. So I stopped blowing him at that moment. He pissed in my mouth twice in the pool. Dude, that is hilarious. So you're blowing him in the pool. Yeah. I didn't think people could see me. Underwater. I was so young. If I can't see them, they can't see me. But the photo I had with the split on my head is 1973. So I was five. So I know at that age I was already involved. So I have an absolute photo that dates exactly. So you were blowing kids when you were five. Yeah. So what do you think started that off? Don't know. It must have been, you know, just one kid, one kid opened the door. The rest of us fucking ran through it. I mean, I don't know. I just don't know what started. I have very vague fleeting memories. So at five years old, you were all sexually active. You and your buddies. Yeah. And then he got a little older, six, seven, eight. Like, you know, it was, I don't remember who was first, who was second. I remember when my one friend got erections and I didn't get them. Like I didn't know what they were. It was five. He was getting a run of six or seven. He might have been six or seven. Giant rods at six years old. But I remember not knowing. We used to count sucks. That's what it would do. Like, all right, I'll give you 10 and you give me 10. So you would want to do three and you would fucking count you develop technique. Did you figure out like what's the best way to suck a dick? I don't know. At that age, I don't think so. Because I think it was all about getting you to do me after. Oh, right. Right. Right. I think that was kind of the goal. Right. Of course. There was a lot of it, man. And I have it again. I can date it because I moved Halloween, a fourth grade to North Brunswick. So any experience that happened in the in this place, I know what happened before then. Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. So do you think that this kid did you know that if this kid was molested? Don't know. I mean, there had to be somebody had to be getting fucked because there's no way all of us were that sexually active for no reason. Yeah. I just don't remember. I have too many memories. Like being in a basement and they're not exactly remembering. I have weird memories, possibly with adults. Like it's kind of like watching a movie. It fades in and out. And I wish my memory was better, but it's just no one's really is, you know, that's the weird thing about memories when it comes to being, you know, a young person. No one's memories are very good. You have like flashes. I have like some things that I definitely remember. Because they're like facts. Like when I was seven, we drove across the country. You know, I remember those. Yeah. I remember we got in an accident on Lombard Street in San Francisco. You know, that's like the crookeded street in the world. Right. I remember that. Because I remember someone tried to pass us and I remember scratch the car. I remember that. But like, there's little tiny things. Like sometimes I'll talk to my sister, or I'll talk to my mom. She's like, do you remember that thing? And then all of a sudden it's like, I open up a folder like, Oh, yeah, I remember that guy. Whatever happened to him, you know, like that guy didn't exist in my brain until a couple seconds ago. And then I'm like, Look at this old folder. Let's open up my old memory of that. You know, sometimes those are scary, though. And like, I'm a no I many times drive back to that area because it's in Edison. And I'll drive back when I'm doing the stress factory or gig. And I'll just I'll drive through that neighborhood. Like, what the fuck happened here? Right. Something happened here. And it might not just be one moment, but something happened here that kind of shifted me because I don't know exactly what it is. And Dr. Drew told me I was molested. I mean, maybe he's right. I don't know. Well, at the very least, you were sexually involved with someone else who might have been molested. Yeah. Well, I mean, without the odds are, it had to be one of those. Another thing that came up this article that I was saying that the origins of homosexual. That's one of the things they were saying that I was homophobic because the origins of sexuality. Homosexuality is them people being molested when they're younger. That's not what I said. And let me explain that to people. If you're gay, if you read that you feel bad. That can happen to people who would not be inclined towards homosexuality if they're molested when they're younger. Dr. Chris Ryan, the guy who wrote Sex at Dawn, was explaining it to me is that there's a you like what is the term? Not necessarily patterning imprinting that when you're sexually active, like if someone's sexual with you when you're young. And that person happens to be a man, you can imprint and you can develop sexual feelings in response to that. Like you get your brain triggers sexual feelings towards men where you might not be inclined. So like, even if you're not actually homosexual, you're still turned on by men in a certain way because you were molested. It's one of the reasons why they say, they don't really know why people who get molested wind up molesting people. But it's really common. It's like, you know, somebody described it best, like it's almost like a vampire bites you. And this thing like you're passing it on to the next person, this this creepy thing. But that, you know, that this is another thing where people took out of context saying that, you know, I'm homophobic. Well, for me, it was all kids in my age group that I remember I have vague adult memories, but not anything concrete that I can say was sexually like you I mean, like, it just kind of it's like a smoke that comes by and it leaves. And that's kind of how those memories are. But with the with the kids, they were all kids in my age within a year or two of each other. So it wasn't like I don't like being a victim. So I feel like, you know, I volunteered, man, I showed up. There was a lot of times I wanted to play the game. Well, you were five, you know, I mean, I have so few memories when I was five. I mean, I bet you probably don't know why you were doing or what, what happened before that that started it and caused it. I bet the person who you're doing it with, you know, when people get molested, when they're really young, one of the big issues is they block it out. Yeah, they don't remember a goddamn thing. They their brain protects them from all the darkness. Yeah, I think so. And I've heard that enough. So I'm almost like I always try to find something to explain. But maybe it wasn't that bad. Maybe it was just me and my friends. And then it just kind of developed into something that was fun. And it felt good. I mean, I could. Yeah, again, I can't, I can't say there was any ominous force behind it. I just don't remember. But it's weird, because it's like, most kids don't blow their friends. Yeah, I know. By the way, that's a great name for an album. Those kids don't blow their friends, folks. That should be your next comedy album. My new tour. But it's so something we assume something happened. But it's not necessary, right? Because the first kid that blew his friends, I mean, there had to be one guy somewhere in history that was like, I got an idea. Yeah. Let me just, let me just, that looks like a valve. Put everyone's dick in my mouth and see how they feel about it. Like, people do look, who's the first guy to pierce his septum, right? Yeah, who's the first guy to tattoo his face? Who's the, who's the first guy to butt fuck? There has to be a first. Well, that one might have come simultaneously to places at once. You never know. That might have been a couple of thoughts at the same time.