Blocks w/ Neal Brennan - Nick Swardson

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

Neal Brennan interviews Nick Swardson (Grandma's Boy, Bucky Larson, Specials, Pretend Time, Adam Sandler movies and much more) about the things that make him feel lonely, isolated, and like something's wrong - and how he is persevering despite these blocks.  00:00 Intro 2:35 Congrats Marc Maron 3:10 Rebellious teenage years 21:48 Sponsor: BetterHelp 23:56 Sponsor: ExpressVPN 26:38 Addicted to Performing 29:30 Starting Comedy 34:47 Drinking on the Road 41:00 Quitting Drinking 49:35 Sponsor: Modern Mammals 51:08 Sponsor: Mando 54:07 Dark side of Alcohol 1:07:12 Anxiety from Alcohol 1:13:09 Key West Bender 1:21:03 Diabetes 1:25:30 Lucky to Be Alive 1:30:19 What He’s Proud Of ---------------------------------------------------------- Follow Neal Brennan: https://www.instagram.com/nealbrennan https://twitter.com/nealbrennan https://www.tiktok.com/@mrnealbrennan Watch Neal Brennan: Crazy Good on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81728557 Watch Neal Brennan: Blocks on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81036234 Theme music by Electric Guest (unreleased). Edited by Will Hagle ([e-mail])  Sponsors: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://www.betterhelp.com/neal and get on your way to being your best self. Visit https://www.expressvpn.com/NEAL to get an extra four months FREE! Visit https://www.modernmammals.com to shop for hair products. Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with Mando and get 20% off + free shipping with promo code [NEAL] at https://www.shopmando.com! #mandopod  Sponsor Blocks: https://public.liveread.io/media-kit/blocks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today, this is a do-over. This guy, we recorded this a couple weeks ago, and he, it's a rare thing to want to do a podcast over. He's been frozen in place since the two weeks, when we shot it two weeks ago and recorded it two weeks ago. And, but he's a, he's a, oh, Jesus. Hey, Neil, I'm back. He's an old buddy of mine, 25 years we got, and rough, roughly. and he's made movies, stand-up, writer, producer, all kinds of stuff. He did a TV show.

And his name is Nick Swartson. Hi, everybody. Hey, buddy. Thank you so much. Good to see you, Neil. Great. Great to have you back. Yeah, it's going to be back.

New blocks the last three weeks? What happened? I went on a total spiral. No, so truth be told, I thought this was going to be a writer's podcast talking about writing. Basically, what happened was he watched the William H. Macy clip where me and William H. Macy that we're talking about improv. It's not an actor's job to be funny. It's the writer's job to be funny.

The great thing about that clip, if you look on Instagram, is the amount of people telling me and William H. Macy about life on sets. You were the only person qualified that I saw to talk to me and William. Not like we're fucking doctors. I'm just like, it's a bunch of people going like, you got it's all based on what interviews they've seen with Judd.

Right. So, stay down. He thought it was a writer's podcast. it's a it's an emotion podcast right also got into it but he wants to re-approach it yeah which i yeah i have emotions yeah um so yeah i just wanted to come come at it with them more because that my topic was going like i wanted to talk about sobriety so i'm new not newly but pretty you know i i quit drinking so and that's a very important topic you know what i mean well it's important in that i want to do address it from a very acute angle and not just kind of flippantly like

Because, again, I came in thinking we were going to talk about writing and comedy. And so that was my fault. By the way. I'm watching just a clip. But you told me stuff I didn't know about you. I didn't really, it turns out I didn't know anything. Turns out I'd never seen you. You know nothing about me.

You didn't know I was made entirely out of wood. A lot of people don't know that. Your Wikipedia page was all I, I just kept, I watched all your clips. The, from childhood. Yeah, from, from, but he's. started at a thing and then he was headlining quickly and you've talked about another podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Watch another

podcast. What was the best one? I don't know. Why just Google watch them on. By the way, congratulations to Mark Maron on finally finishing podcast. Congrats, Mark. Another thing to be mad about. Congrats.

Hey, would you say to, why do you, why? Swartzinson, what the fuck? Hey, what the fuck, man? Motherfucker. You look at Neal and I I wouldn't say he's a great poster child for anything, you know, like... Okay, so you've been, you started doing well, well, one know, year two, three, where you're making like a... So, yeah. Like, wildly good living compared to just, you were in high school.

So we can, yeah, we can start from basically, um, my parents got divorced when I was 13. Mm-hmm. Um, I started hanging out with, um... Yes, that was interesting. With kids that were, we were just, like, rebellious teenagers. So 13 years old is a very, um, I was a very, um, I started hanging out with, um, um, I'm, crucial age in a child's development. So I just kind of did the stereotypical, like, parents were fighting, they were, you know, separate, just not going well. My mother was

a single mother, and she was working like three jobs. So my older brother and sister were off at college, so it was just me. So I started, what's up? Where did your dad go? He moved like a mile away. Okay. So he didn't like vanish. So he became my friend, which is always a mistake. Oh. Because it's like they were pitting each other against me, so they both wanted to be the cool ones when they should have just been the parent like hey i have a question i and i i think when when parents get divorced uh-huh does it feel like a team breaking up or something like some it's like golden state trades clay tombs like does it feel like well it's weird because my dad was clay thompson fuck so you know you're really bringing no um it really

depends divorces are so different it wasn't like a team where you're like you're like like, whoa, what do you mean? You know what I mean? So they weren't doing great. Yeah. You could see it coming a mile away. You were getting high draft picks in the lottery. You were not doing well as a team.

Yes. It was, yeah, it was kind of like Tom DiBito brought us to the finals, but we've got to caught him. We weren't like, wait, what? So, yes. But there were no other players in the game. Right. I'm just going to keep going with the sports analogy.

This metaphor is has been, is limping along. So it just towards ACL. Yeah. It's not coming back. Okay. So your dad becomes your friend. What's that look like? Aaron Rogers.

You know, I can do my own research, which is so vilified. So any, no, um, so my dad wants to be my friend, whatever, blah, blah, blah, I, I just go off and just start rebelling. When you, when your dad. So there's no flow to be a friend. What? There's going to, we're going to find a flow. We're both very, way too energetic.

Right. We're both screaming at each other. Yeah. Um, did you. you, I like how you just look to camera and kind of smiled, like, to ingratiate yourself. You're with me. When, what does that go from to, like, what was your relationship with your dad like? And then when, when then you go to his house the first time and does.

His apartment. Ooh. Yeah. One bedroom, two bedrooms. It was two bedrooms. Okay. Um, not that. In the basement.

Ooh. Yeah. Um, true story. And do, does it, is it like a new day? Like, oh, wait. this is different now or was it like a slow creep into the new relationship my dad was of this mold where he when I was a little kid it was very like Rockwellian house we had a pool it was great like my parents were fine and then like around maybe like the fifth grade I could see it the

the wheels started to come off you know what I mean like it was like any kid knows when you just see it you get a sense they were fighting it was getting weird it was like it just was weird And then my mom started kind of putting things in my head. She's like, your dad's a fucking asshole. You know, and your dad's a fucking loser, which don't do that. Did you, what did you think of that when she would do that? I was like, well, dad's cool. And then he'd be like, hey, your mom.

He wasn't as vehement as my mom was. He was like, hey, your mom just so, you know, she's like kind of crazy. Just so you know your mom, you know, blah, blah, blah. So I was like, okay. And then my dad was just being cooler to me and, like, you know, bought me like a starter jacket. And New York Mets. Okay. Yeah, I like the Mets.

I'm a Minnesota kid, but I like the Mets. So anyway, yeah, so then they got divorced. My mom found an apartment like a mile away. And so I moved, she moved out, like, literally it was like a rogue mission where one day I came home from school and all of our stuff's being loaded out. So she called my uncles and everything. And she's like, we're getting out of here. And I was like, wait, what? And she's like, we didn't tell your dad, blah, blah, blah.

So long story short, she moves away, like only a mile, but my dad is like blindsided. And then I start junior high school. So I, look, a lot of my friends from grade school went to other schools. Does she ever explain it? Does she say where this is temporary? This is, we're just daddy and I aren't getting along. What was it? It wasn't like daddy and I.

It was like your dad's a fucking asshole. I'm out of there. There's no like gray area. I like that they never say my husband. They say your dad. Yeah. It was, yeah. She has nothing to do with it. But anyway, so we go off, start our own life. You know, my dad's just picking up his pieces, finds that basement apartment and whatever. And so I start this new path in junior high school. And now everything's like, you know, that age, it's like people are smoking cigarettes. I'm from Minnesota. People are chewing tobacco. People are like drinking beers. I mean, it's like game fucking on. It's a whole other level. And pretty much everybody in your grade is doing that. I mean, the people. I associated with were like, yeah, it was it was great. I mean, we were all starter jackets. We were

little thug assholes. We were stealing cars. We were vandals. We turned into like fucking vandals, dude. Like not even fucking around. Like there were fights. They know how to steal cars. Just, you know, the group that I hung with, we just figured it out. It was screwdriver in the ignition. Really? Yeah. We stole a car. One of the highlights of that whole era was, we were going home, walking home from some park or whatever we were doing, probably getting high. And we were walking home, and we were like, it was cold. And my buddy's like, let's fucking jack a car.

He's like, I don't want to walk anymore. So we go, and it's a church parking lot. 13? You're 13? 13 or 14. Okay. Church parking lot. So my buddy's like, let's get this car. So we pile in this car.

Jimmy's the door, gets in, jacks it, screwdriver, turns it on, go in the glove compartment. There's a Bible and a rosary. And I'm like, dude this is a priest car wants this to happen yeah so I'm like

this is a priest car I think I go I'm not I'm not doing it so I fucking get out of the car and they're like do what the fuck and I'm like I'm gonna walk in you grew up Catholic no no no I wasn't even that religious I grew up but you know I was Presbyterian okay so me and I think another friend

but you know a priest car when you know it was a priest fucking car I mean it was in the parking lot of a church so I mean I'll just assume that yep so you know There was child porn pornography all over the floor of the seat, et cetera. Yeah, no. You're not gonna meet me on child pornography, joke about priests?

I'm trying to get into a story. Fine. I'm just, I'm sniping. Just yes, and it, go on. Okay. Yeah, but no. It's like, I know, no, it's fine. I know what you're saying.

But no, so like we steal this car. Me and my friend Josh go, we don't want any part of this. This is like, I do believe in karma even at that age. So we leave, my friends take the car and they go, and they decide to go joy riding. they get pulled over and they get clipped you know so that was one of many things that happened but so i kind of i got away with that but so i just started down that path of like would your would you what did your parents think was going on were they just too busy with their own

shit to even notice you were sort of my mom was working like two jobs she's on like i mean she was like so overextended that she didn't even and i was like this cute little sweet blonde kid so i knew how to like play that card where i was like what are you talking about yeah like i would never you know but she wasn't she grew up in like the burbs and like the 50s yeah so it was like very you know don't say anything like anything's going wrong everything's fine my grandpa's alcoholic and a war veteran so it was just say no more you know yeah so anyway so i'm so i get into that groove and then it's like then all the sudden weed comes in the picture we're drinking we're selling weed selling oh yeah and then how did you get weed to sell oh i mean there's older brothers i mean there's a

Myriad of, you know, that's so complicated. The older brothers, you want to talk about a gateway drug. Oh, yeah. Older brothers, it's like, it's, it's, they're the worst, I mean, they're the, they're the, they're the catalyst for it. Yeah, they're Al-Qaeda. You know what I mean? Like, they are the, they're it. Yeah, totally.

And you have to hope, you have to hope you get a good one that gives you some, but won't give you enough to sell. Yeah, but I think it's also like, you know, you. have the older kids that use the younger kids. So you know what I mean? Like you've got that contingent too. So then cut to then I go to high school. And I am fucking like full on stoner. I mean, this is the era of two like Cypress Hill, the far side, Beastie Boys, Snoop Dog. I mean, this is the one of the apexes, if not the apex of hip hop of just Tripl Quest. I mean, those early 90s was fucking. And then you had grunge, whatever. So like, it was just everywhere. So we you know, we're smoking weed, selling weed, and then I've turned into pills and then

mushrooms, and then it became like anything. Are you driving it or is it sort of like somebody else just goes like, hey, I have pill, but you're not like seeking, you're not like seeking, you're not going to Minneapolis and you don't know, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not the catalyst in anyway. I'm on board for this whole thing. I'm like, it was fun as shit, man. And then I'll, that comes into play later on. But so it was fun of shit. So I'm like, you know, starting high school. And it's a really, St. Paul Central High School is very inner city school.

I mean, we had every fucking kind of gang. It was, I mean, it was, it was great. It was really artistic, but it was also dangerous every, every, yeah, totally. It was awesome, though. Great. But so anyway, I'm totally into this fucking world. I mean, there was a point where I was selling weed and I got a call. This was one of my favorite moments.

I come home from school and my mom is just like frozen. And she goes, what, what is going on? Yeah. What is going on? And I go, what do you mean? She goes, I just got a call from a guy who threatened to kill me and you because you're selling drugs on his territory. And I go, what? That's weird.

I probably had the wrong number. And she goes, is your fucking name Nick Swartson? And I'm like, yeah. And she's like, yeah, it's not that my mom never would say something. And she was like, it's not wrong. She goes, whatever you're doing, stop. And this is with a Minnesota accent? Yeah.

So I had to go to fucking school. And I'm like, hey, um, what's going? I had to like go to it like a fucking gang and somebody would go like, hey, um, did Tony call my house and like threatened to like kill my mom and me. And what territory was you talking about? It was like by kind of like in my neighborhood. It was off like, I don't know. It was in St. Paul.

But did you guys have it broken? And was there like, no, I didn't realize that he was like, I don't know if it was in, like they were just fucking with me. Yeah. But I was selling. How much were you selling? Not even that much. It wasn't like a crazy, I mean, like maybe the most I would have is like a quarter or maybe an eighth. It wasn't like psychotic.

I wasn't in any way like, I'm not like, right. You know, so you have like a like this much weed for a month? I have a, yeah, a bottle of weed. Well, you know, what? whatever this is it whatever yeah no that would be more than that would be like almost a quarter pound oh all right so you were like less than that yeah yeah it wasn't life for death so i mean until he called but like i don't think we would have died but anyway so yeah so that was like that was just one story of like and did you and did they say did tony ever say like yeah i called because you were

or just yeah they were like okay cool just stop doing what you're doing and i'm like okay cool so you stopped smelling weed at that point yeah so i got out i got out of the drug game Oh, fucking, yeah, it was a real ceremony of retirement. I mean, you went through the whole arc. Yeah, no, it was pretty quick. But, yeah, so whatever, that was fine. So then I'm selling drugs, blah, blah, blah, blah, smoking weed, everything. And then I decide to make the choice, and this is kind of a funny full circle.

So during the day, during school, we skip class, and we go, we have two blunts, me and my friends. So we go on the balcony of the theater, and it's kind of roped off the balcony because they're having school. And they're having, like, you know, on the stage doing class. It's a child school. Yeah. So we smoke two blunts. So for people out there, a blunt will make a lot of smoke. So the smoke went down.

Because of the paper. Yeah, because of the paper and the marijuana. And so it, like, went down like a Disney genie, like down to the stage. Teachers smelled it called the principal where we have police officers on duty at the school. police kick in the doors of the balcony arrest us cough us we get walked all the time there's cops there yeah all the time this is like a real inner city school it's like it was weird like dangerous minds yeah it was like it was hilarious but so yeah I mean our doors were magnetically locked during the day like you wouldn't get out like a good amount of violence there not like crazy but I mean yeah

it could explode like at the drop of the hatch you could go down yeah fuck yeah like multiple people fight it like maylays there could be maybe There could be, you just, you never knew what was going to happen. There could be, I mean, there wasn't a rugby ball. You know, there wasn't like passing. I've always wanted to do a joke about the fact that people fight at school. It's so weird because no one fights at work. Yeah.

Just fights break out and like teachers are kind of okay or used to be okay with it. There's kind of nothing you get, it's like hockey fights where you just kind of go like, oh, I don't know. Right. They're 16 and they're very strong and they'd smell. One of my favorite moments, I was just watching Family Feud. I love Family Feud. I think Family Feud should be what the world should be. It's just different families, different ethnicities.

It's just everyone's laughing. It's fucking great. Steve Harvey's there. Everyone's wearing church clothes. Yes, it's perfect. So this is a real episode. It just happened the other night. And there was this Black Family on and they're doing the final round.

So there's two people that go through the final round. They ask five questions in 20 seconds. So Steve Harvey asks this dude and he goes, how many fist fights we asked 100 men how many fist fights have you been in your life and this black dude goes five and then he goes the next question

blah blah blah so they're doing the thing and it was like you know he goes and asks the questions to see the final answer and he was like how many questions blah blah blah blah and it was like five and he goes five and he goes come on man

I'm black you know how you grew up it's like he was just like that's how he grew up you know what I mean did Steve think five was a crazy answer did he act like no no no he he was like he felt like that was a lot because people forget they're asking a hundred just general public people so that's what you know if you're ever on family feud know that they're not asking you about your life they're asking like the general consensus so they he the answer was zero so i thought that was way low because i'm like that's how many best fights have you been in probably two this is and this is back in school right I got jumped the first day of third grade I don't know if that counts if that's like a fight I've almost got kind of

yeah yeah I mean mine wasn't like any rational it was just stupid I mean I got jumped when I first started comedy at the comedy seller did you get jumped at the comedy cellar yeah by all the comics Kevin Brennan I love Patrice O'Neill fantastic Jim Norton wonderful so anyway so I get arrested and I have to go to like court ordered in like not staying overnight but

rehab so i had to go to like a drug counseling and bullshit and so then um i like had to clean up so i was getting drug tested can i go back a couple comics i thought would have been funny caroline ray caroline ray if she did the shit out of you Greg rogale uh Greg rogale Dan Natterman estie estie got in there uh Bonnie McFarland d fiddler he was more comic strip you were absolutely he wouldn't he came down he got on the train he didn't that's how important it was go ahead so i go ahead so i go to drug constantly whatever and then I've got to dry out so then my friends just kind of they like abandoned me essentially did you they were like like press charges it was like one of those

things like we're gonna press charges or you have to dry out I don't I mean I don't know the logistics of it legalities like I don't think it was that in extreme it should be smoking weed at school yeah I mean I don't know if it was just the the time I don't know if like now you would go to jail I like I don't fucking know but I mean I was 16 so I clean up and then my friends abandoned me and now I'm starting my junior you're high school and I've got fucking nothing like my friends are gone they're still doing drugs oh my god yeah a lot of them dropped out or half of them did they like quit and went to art school and they were like fuck this so I was like shit so I'm like going through my classes and I'm like

okay I'm gonna do theater to get like an easy grade I need to get my GPA up so I'm like I'll take acting and so I did and then I met up with this a kid in my class Colton Dunn who became he became an great comedian great actor he was phenomenal still is phenomenal And so he and I became really close. And so I started acting, sober, dried out, and then just found this whole new world of like, I did my monologue for the first time, and my acting teacher, Jam Mandel was like, who are you?

Like, what the fuck was that? And I go, what do you mean? And she's like, that was really, really good, what you just did. And I'm like, oh, I don't know. And she's like, no, she moved me up into the advanced touring company. She said, you're teaching the class.

Pretty quick, yeah. She's like, you'll know Adam Sandler someday. No, but she was like really great. And so between her and Colton, Colton was a member of this thing called Comedy Sports. So that was an improv, clean improv company. He's still in high school? Yeah, we're both in high school.

When he became a member of comedy. Yeah, so they had like a high school league. Got it. So he got me into that. So then long story short, I became obsessed with acting in comedy. It was from Danny in the Deep Blue Sea, which was an old school play. And it's a great monologue.

John Patrick Chandling, guys. Yeah, okay. Don't know. I don't know theater. Neil is the theater. This is an ad by BetterHelp. A lot of people complain about workplace stress. I have it as well. I was working on a job recently,

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ExpressVPN. So had you ever, you'd never thought of... never thought of did you love movies you loved acting you love i loved comedy so like going back later on in life i was like my grade school yearbook i was always really silly yeah like i was really like you're going to ask anybody i grew up with we don't have it we'll take my word for it but in my grade school yearbook it said like you're going to be a comedian someday you're the funniest all of those things i was full on class clown yeah so i mean i did like have an inkling for because i was the youngest and i was again grew up and you know tougher schools

So, like, you kind of had to be a goofball to not get punched in the face. It's kind of how I looked at it. But, yeah, so that just, I don't know. So I just became addicted to performing. And were you able to perform? You did theater sports that was, like, on the weekends? Yeah, so we would do it on the weekends, and it was great. And then I just started becoming obsessed with comedy.

I studied, like, Saturday Night Live, like, that era of, like, ironically, Sandler, Spade, Farley, Rock, all those guys, Kevin Neal and Phil Harmon. So I became enthralled, just completely enamored with comedy. I was obsessed with it to the point where, like, I was going back and like studying Charlie Chaplin, watching all of his tapes, watching his whole body of work, which is monster from even his early short films. I was obsessed. And so that took over my addiction.

I became addicted to comedy. Did you practice a lot? Would you watch Chaplin and like, do try to do the shit in the mirror? No, no, no. I wasn't like, I didn't have a muscle. stash. I like, I didn't have it. I wasn't like, mom, got me a cane and some fluffy shoes. I thought you were committed. I thought you said you were, damn it, Neil, you broke, you, well, you went, well, you

watched all those tapes. Yeah, um, well, you do with two girls one cup. Um, you study that like a, so the silent, the silent two girls won't cup is pretty good. Um, black and white, so yeah, so anyway, so then I don't have the grades to go to college. I don't have the money. My, you know, my parents obviously still broken up. And so I just was like, okay, okay, I'm going to take a year off, figure out what I'm going to do. And so I decided my, the comedy sports company had folded Minneapolis for a minute. The owner just kind of fucked up. So we were kind of in limbo.

So I'm like, okay, well, then I'm just going to, I need an outlet to perform. So this is, how long has this been a year since you got arrested? Do you think? This two year, two years. Okay. And I started junior high, junior year. Zero drugs since. Zero drugs since you got popped.

Completely zero drugs. Just performing. Yeah. Are you, do you take school any more seriously or whatever? Yeah, take school way more seriously. And I'm, like, I'm getting A's now. Great. Because, like, I know how to write.

My parents were both writers. So, like, I inherently, I don't know, whatever, fuck. But, um, so anyway, so I'm like, okay, in that limbo after high school, no improv, no theater. There's no outlet. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to try stand-up comedy. So I go to the open my, Colton and my friend Will were supposed to join me. And they didn't. So I just went by myself.

I'd written out a set. I was a bus boy at Planet. Hollywood. That was my day job, which was phenomenal. In high school? In high school, out of high school. Yep. Oh, you're now you're out. I'm out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I graduated high school. I'm taking a year off. I'm in limbo. I do have a job. I'm a busboy, a planet Hollywood. And so I'm like, okay, I go to the open mic. I've got my three minutes of material, you get three minutes, and you automatically go. It's a great open mic. It's

Acme Comedy Company, which, you know, it's a phenomenal club. And so I go and I do this something I could do three minutes and it was a blur it was just a like you don't remember anything but I remember being really high energy and I was acting out like my cat vomiting stepping on a dog Nick Nick Nick Nick Nick it was very like basic broad and it went great like it just killed and then the booker came up to me and he was like what what was that and I'm like what do you mean and he was like that was really good that's your first time and I'm like yeah and all these comics were coming up to me and they're like where did you where did you start and i'm like

what do you mean this that was it yeah and they're like that was your fucking that was it yeah your first time yeah and i'm like yeah i did i came from theater i just graduated high school i came from theater and improv yeah i got planted hollywood dog so you know you want to fucking go on my turf i know you see it go ahead so yeah so then um and then they were like okay well the club was like okay you need spots and then another club a rival club knuckle has in the Mall of America. One of the comedians was like, you had to see this kid.

So this guy, Dan Krollchak, came to my show at the open mic again, and he was like, I want you want you to be the house MC. So he made me a house MC. This is after three months of doing it. And then I just started doing nonstop sets. And him and the other booker, Diana,

just kept telling me to write. They were like, keep writing, keep writing, keep writing. And I was... You said they would, like, challenge you, too. Yeah, they would challenge me to write. Like, before I went on stage, he would hand me a piece of paper, and he'd be like,

and it would just have the word, leaves on it. And he'd be like, here, do a joke about leaves or I'm not paying you. And I'm like, what? I'm going on in like a minute. And he's like, well, think of a leaf joke.

So I was like, oh, fuck me. You know, they would kind of mock me and said, new improv. So then I would have to make up a joke and shit. But like, I would kill with like my 10 minutes. Yeah. And then I would get offstage. I'm like, oh, that car was great.

That was awesome. And they were like, well, do another 10. And I'm like, what do you mean? They're like, well, yeah, so you can already do that. You know, you can do that. Yeah. Do another one. so then I would write another

and that was fucking gold advice as a young comedian and I tell that to other comedians that I meet that are coming up just keep writing write everything down any idea even if it doesn't make sense now write right right right

so I just all of a sudden I'm like writing getting more and more gigs doing road work and then I get HBO comes into town and they're doing the Aspen Comedy Festival and so they have a contest for like 80 people during the day at Acme Comedy Company and you did two minutes

So I did my two minutes, and they picked me in the final 10. And so I go up and I'm like super nervous and I do my set and I get off stage. And the headliner during that week was Dana Gould, who is still a great friend of mine and became a really great mentor, great person. So Dana was like, I walk off stage and he goes, oh my God, you won. And I go, no, there's like five more people. And he goes, no, no, no, you won. And I go, no. And he goes, just stop talking.

Trust me, you won. So I ended up winning this contest After doing the stand-up for six months Then I went on and went against people from Chicago in St. Louis in Chicago Then I won that Then I went to the HBO Comedy Festival Did you beat anybody that's still a comic? Frank Caliando

And he'd be doing it He'd been doing it a while He'd been doing it maybe a little bit longer Than not much I'm trying to think of who else was on that But yeah And everybody fucking was so they hated me. They were just so mean because, you know, they've been doing it 10 years and blah, blah, blah.

And so I just had this Minnesota, and I still do it. I was just like, why? I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Like, I just did my thing. So anyway, I do the Aspen Comedy Festival and, you know, that just exploded from there. Then I was on TV. I was doing Louis Anderson's Comedy Showcase. I was doing Make Me Laugh on Comedy Central. It just became fucking insane. And you're 1920. I'm like, at that point, I was 20 years old. Great. And so then it was just, gangbusters from there. Okay. And then you still not drinking, not doing drugs, you're not doing that. No, I started drinking, but I quit

smoking weed and I quit doing drugs. Okay. So I would like kind of like drink casually. Yep. But I really focused on like being, the thing I did was I was like, okay, when you do stand up, just be accessible to everybody. Don't be super provincial. Don't be super local. Tell a joke. I was really clean, which came to be a factor when I moved to New York

because like the best of I ever got after Aspen was like, don't move to LA. Move to New York, because I wanted to develop as a comic. Yeah. So I moved to New York and then just started working, honing my craft and like really getting kicked in the teeth, big time. I had no friends there. My only friends were Colton, my friend, who had moved there for improv,

and John Bush, and Grigoldo. And when do you start drinking a lot? So all of a sudden, everything just is so crazy. Like, I'm doing the road, I'm drinking, but not like, not too much, but I mean enough but it's like did you feel lonely or you just felt excited I was really excited so I was young enough to where everything was excited yeah I wanted to do any club I wanted to do whatever I was taking trains from Minnesota to Gulfport Mississippi really yeah I mean like I drove one of a story like a stick and a

yeah I was on the raft and everything but um yeah and then so one of the other ones was I my manager at the time that you had a slave with you named Jim Jim Carrey in Blackface. Jim Carrey in Blackface. So then the big one was, I told my manager at the time, I'm like, hey, I want to do road work. So he got me a run in San Francisco. And then I went through Denver. Somebody got me a gig in Denver. And so I drove by myself in my car just all alone, losing my mind.

You know, when you drive... Do my girlfriend, I just want to say this so people can hear it, how crazy it is? She will drive four hours in her car with no radio on, like a psycho pass yeah that's kind of bizarre insane but she swears by it anyhow what does she do meditate or just no she just i don't know enjoys it right i guess focus is on the road i don't know that's a good thing yeah like is in the experience i don't know what the hell she thinks she's doing but yeah why not i mean yeah i it's possible it's to try it it's not as bad as you would think yeah i mean i'm in i'm indifferent yeah um okay so so you're driving you buy it you own a car you buy a car i bought a car

with my busboy money from Planet Hollywood, $1,200 for a Dodge Shadow. And I drove and I did stand up along the way and then my car broke down in San Francisco and I just slept in my car and I slept in the park. It's like a story that people talk about like in those days where it was like so bizarre.

And so now I've got like a fake ID. I'm on the road. I'm drinking. It's fucking great. I'm writing. I'm just, it was so exciting. It was a great time to be in that world because the country was so different then.

Like San Francisco was a way different city. Yeah. All these cities were, you know, when I think about it now, it's so bizarre. Like, back in the 90s, it was just a different, way different vibe. Yeah. And it was great. I mean, I was doing, I did commercials in New Orleans. I became the Barks Rupier boy. What's that? And I was the Barks Rupier is a Rupier. It's like A&W, but I became the spokesperson. So I was this kid behind a stand. Barks, the one with bite. What do you mean Barks has bites? Here, try some of this. Ouch. I haven't seen him that excited since he got his heels. Ouch. You tell him, Johnny. You tell the world. And we filmed in New Orleans, and, like, it was great.

New Orleans was awesome. The difference, I think, back then was, like, you'd go to the city and then, like, they weren't connected. It was, like, it was almost like the 1800s or something where it'd be like, he's in San Francisco and he's like, well, there's no way to get in touch with them. right like he's in no one like all right well i guess we'll just wait till maybe he'll call us long distance calls cost money yeah you needed like a phone card you had like your own credit card yeah or yeah you had to use a landline and like type in a credit it was like you'd have to dial 20 numbers pay phones were gross pay phones were gross you would get away from people yeah you could get away couldn't be touched like you were like you were you couldn't be reached

Yeah, I remember I would just hang out at bookstores. I mean, if I wasn't drinking, I just started, I would, I would drink on the road because it was amazing and I had a fake idea. Like, wake up, drink, wake. No, I wasn't at that point yet. I would like have a day and then I would go out drinking at night. After the show? Oh, yeah. Were you headlining? Oh, no, no, no, no. I wasn't even featuring. I was emceeing. Jeff Wills, who now is one of the main guys over at Live Nation, who's still a very close friend of mine. Yeah. I remember we still laugh about it because I'm like, I drove across the country. I had a big manager I just done Aspen, and I was emceeing, and some of the features were like just really bad. But, you know, it was cool because I was excited to meet headliners.

So, like, I met, like, I headlined. I mean, I'm emceed for like local guys, Larry Bubbles Brown, Bob Rubin, Sacramento, I opened for Kevin James. I'm seen for Kevin James in 1998. Now Kevin and I, you know, that's full circle. And so it was really great. I was such a comedy addict that I just, I loved it. I loved every part of it. Okay, so you start drinking because it's, you like, you love drinking.

Yeah, and then everything just kept going. It just kept going like this. I mean, it was like I started getting on Comedy Central. I became, and then I got my Comedy Central half hour. Yep. I'm living in New York. I'm doing more. I'm auditioning.

I'm using my acting chops. I'm getting, you know, in the room with directors. I'm getting testing for pilots. I mean, it would just started going crazy. And then I moved to L.A., and that was great. And so everything's going great. And then, you know, it just kept everything was, it was a good, it wasn't like that. It was like a, a rise that was a perfect rise of going well, but not overwhelmingly psychotic.

People call it the perfect rise. Yes. When they look in showbusses, they go, it was a Swartson rise. That's what they also, that's also how they describe your erection. I love it. Now, do you, uh, help you. Do you, okay, so. So I guess we can.

And you're just. excited the whole you're just excited and you did you ever you never really got arrogant you never I never got arrogant I never because I was always like this is so fun I was just like a long for the ride yeah I was on the ride I was just like somebody that it was cool and then

you know and then like my first album was called party and it fucking blew up good cover it was a solid album cover but also it was like that was kind of when I embraced the lifestyle of like I just became all about it. I became like a drinker and I became like game fucking on. Loved it. Do you dislike being sober or you just love being drunk or on drugs? So for people that are listening, it's June 4th right now. Yep. I quit 25. I quit drinking mid-August of last year of 2024. There is an asterisk because I did drink a little bit over the holidays off tour and it was during the football playoffs. So I did drink a little bit, but it didn't turn into a better. But I just, I would just, I would. I

There is an asterisk in case people are, ooh. But so anyway, I don't mind being sober. I think it's really fun. It's like I dried out for months and months at a time, but I would always go back to drinking. So that's the difference between this now is when, I know this is a big jump cut, but now I'm 48, I'm going to be 49 years old. And I had this moment of where I'm like, I've got more to do. I kind of wanted to check out during COVID. I lived in Key West Florida.

I went for 10 days and stayed for a year and a half, totally fine with quitting the business. I had been, I was, I was like, I've done it, you know what I mean? I've done everything I could possibly do outside of things like hosting SNL, blah, blah, blah. But like, I started movies, co-started movies with huge people. I've written movies, I had my own TV show, I was on hit TV show, specials, you know, all of it, and I was done. And then I kind of, you know, I was drunk for a year and a half, and then I kind of woke up. What is that like?

It's phenomenal. It is really, really great. If your body can handle it, which somehow mine did, and that's another thing about drinking that I'll mention, but, you know, it was great. The thing about COVID was, you know, a lot, you could kind of handle it in any way. I moved to an island and got drunk and listened to live music and got off social media. Yep. I didn't even watch TV. I would kind of watch sports, but I was off the grid.

And it was really a happy, awesome time. looked forward to trivia nights at the bars. I looked forward to my buddies at cover bands playing at night. I'm guessing Key West wasn't running the tightest ship in terms of masks and... No, there was like a thing for like... Yeah, the first week I was there, they would take your temperature if you walked into a store. It's so weird looking back. Like, they'd take your... Okay. It was so bizarre. But, but in the... From my mindset, I was great. I drank and then I kind of came back to reality and was like, wait a minute

I'm not done I like I can't just quit A lot of people are like What are you fucking doing? You're just going to quit And I got kind of mad Because I was like well yeah I can do whatever I want

I'm not like a slave to this business Of like oh you can't just not do it Well yeah I cannot have an agent And a manager I can like go back to Me being me And just being like a person And getting a job I was like I'd love to be a bartender

That'd be fun Yeah Like, to me, that sounded great, you know. And I remember my friend owned a bar in Hawaii. And he goes, hey, I just got a bar in Hawaii. And I go, no way. And he goes, yeah, anytime I got a house, you can crash there and, you know, hang out if you do a show. And I literally go to the guy, go, can I get a job?

And he goes, what do you mean? And I go, like, well, you give me a job. Can I be a bartender? And he goes, yeah, for like a week or what? And I go, no. Like, I'm done. Like, I want to just relax and write a book and just live. And he was like, yeah, sure.

And so I told my manager, and he was like, what? No. Well, you don't tell your manager. I know, but I was like, yeah, but my manager was really close friend of mine. But he was like, yeah, no. He's like, okay, and I go, but I can do that. He goes, Nick, you can do whatever the fuck you want. But he's like there's more in you.

You really feel like you're done performing and bringing laughter to people and creating, bringing more movies and, you know. And I was like, well, and he goes, yeah, if you want to do that, wait until you're 60. Like, at least put in, like, 10, 15 more years and really max it. He goes, you've got more in you. And I kind of sat on that and I was like, valid point. So I call my buddy in Hawaii and I'm like, yeah, I don't think I can be a bartender. And he goes, fuck, we were counting. Yeah, fucking no shit.

He's like, I didn't want you to quit. He's like, I felt bad of like, if I hired you and you just quit the business, he's like, you know, not that I'm like. It would have been good for business, but it would have been great for a while, for a while. But going back to drinking, yeah, I was like, I need to, I just have to quit, you know. And people had been pushing me for a long time. Well, yeah, because what you're undercounting is like, there have been some episodes of. I skipped a very big chunk of the thing. 30 years, more or less you skipped.

Yeah, a good 20 year block of where, and it goes back to when you establish yourself as like the party guy, you know, and that's like a lot of my jokes were like, like talking about blacking out and drinking and having fun. And, you know, you look at guys like Bert Kreischer, you know, who's a good friend of ours. And, you know, when you become the party guy, and that's what happened to fucking Farley. And that was another level of extreme. But you get, once you get married to that, you're fucked, because anywhere you go, and this happens just in general if you're a comic. People like, oh, you wanted to do a shot? I bought you a shot. You want to do a shot? Oh, can I buy you a drink? People offer me antidepressants. Go ahead. Yeah, I mean, Exactly.

They're like, do you want a shot of Zoloft? No, in your eye, physically with a needle. So, you know, I got into that rut, and I became, and the thing that's different, there's different kinds of drinkers, obviously, very extreme different drinkers, but there are the party guys, like me and Burt, I just loved drinking. I didn't drink and drive. I gave my car up a long time ago. I was like, I just love it.

I love going to a bar. I love meeting people. I love watching sports. I just loved it. And, you know, like I said, when I live in Key West, I love going to see live music playing trivia. When you say you love going to a bar, you love, what does it feel like? Because some people, I can tell you my, my experience going to bars is I'm like, who are these people? What are we doing?

Right. Is that guy too drunk? Am I, what's going to this? I really, like not, it's not like hyper that, but I'm definitely aware of like the surroundings. Right. And for you, it's just like, these are my people. I was like, yeah, I would walk in. I'm like, who's that guy? Is that guy going to fucking punch somebody? Does that guy have a knife?

I was like, game on. Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, so, I mean, I was all about it. But I just loved, it's the drinking culture, you know, when you take a step back and look at it, it's not great for you. Spoiler alert. Well, it's poised, but it is poison, but it feels like candy. Well, it can be really fun. and it goes back to there are way different kinds of drinkers.

Like, I've been to AA a couple times, and it's not, that's probably not enough. It didn't stick with me. You know, and it helps a lot of people, and I'll never knock AA at all. Yeah. But I just remember being in meetings, and I'm hearing people, and their stories were fucking gnarly, even though, like, I've been hospitalized for drinking and, like, total. I've almost died, literally, but they have stories that are like, I don't want to paraphrase other people's lives, but that are like brutal.

I mean, there's people that can't walk past a bar. There's people that can't look at an empty drink or a beer bottle. There are people that have trouble going to weddings. There are people that can't be around it. I mean, there was a guy I heard that had to cross the street. He couldn't walk past a bar. I can sit at a bar all day and not drink and drink water and watch a game. I can drink iced tea.

Because it just feels like... I mean, I don't do it like I used to because if you're not drinking, you're not involved with everybody. You know what I mean? It's a real camaraderie. Yeah. And when you're quitting drinking, and this is a very, very important thing, you have to want to do it. Yeah. You really have to go like, hey, I'm tired of this. I have to stop. You can reach out for help. And even then it doesn't work a lot of times. Even if you really want to. No, and you can reach out for help. But I'm saying in general, you've got to go like, okay, this is a fucking, yeah, because I had people pulling. me constantly. Like, you got to quit. And then I would get really immature. And I don't know what that is, if it's just me being a comic or whatever. But I would be like, I don't have to

do anything. Like, fuck you. You're going to tell me what to do. Yeah. How about you go fuck yourself. I'm going to go to the bar right now. What are you going to do about it? Yeah. You know what I mean? So I was like in that mindset of like, I do, I want to do, you know, whatever I want. Guys, there's no promo code in this ad. There's no, there's no like, hey, go here. There's going to be graphics and stuff. It's for modern mammals. which is a new hair cleaning product. So, again, I hate the term hair cleaning. There's no other way to put it.

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time shopmando dot com promo code neal 20% off site wide do you love it or do you love it bye Did it feel like when you say like, I don't know if it being a comic or just being addicted to alcohol? Yeah, but I mean, see, that's where the question is of, you know, I can sit at a bar all day right now. I could go to a bar and watch a baseball game and not drink. So it's like I don't have that physical. Do you like being at bars? I mean, not as much as I used to, obviously. When you say like, I could go, I could also.

I would, I just wouldn't enjoy myself. But what I'm saying is, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't. Did you, have you done that? like been in that six month not drinking period and gone like I'm going to go to the bar and not drink and watch a game. Yeah, I mean, I've done that before on the road, of course.

And then, okay. I mean, usually it's like a hotel bar or a restaurant or like I'm not going to go to a dive bar right now. You know what I mean? Like that there's a difference between that. Okay. And so when you would talk about the like what other people would consider

like, I should stop where you didn't. Because you would get dark, dude. There were times, like, I feel like you've, I watched you pass out and hit your head on the bar. I've, like, seen you do shit where I was like, yo, I assumed you were going to die. Right. There were a lot of people that assumed I was going to die. I never got like dark, dark. I was never, um, I would never fight with people. I was never like inappropriate. Yeah. Like I was, and people can attest to this that have drank with me over the years. I would agree. Yeah. I was a fucking blast, dude. Yeah. And that's also a catch 22.

where for the most part, I was a functioning drunk where, like, I would do shows. I would do shows I didn't even remember. I remember doing Vegas, sold out like 1,200 people. And my buddy after the show was like, or the next day, we'll be like, dude, that was one of the best shows I've ever seen you do. And I'm like, I don't remember it.

Did that scare you or you were just like, I was like, no, it fucking worked. Yeah. You know, I mean, I would push myself really hard. And then some shows, you know, a handful of shows were not good. And I'll definitely admit to that. There was one recently, right? There was one last year where, and this, again, I go to Colorado, which I performed out many times.

Sure. I was also hospitalized there. But I did a show in Vail, flew into Denver, acclimated, was in a great mood, drive to Vail, go to the bar, have a couple cocktails. Somebody gave me an edible. I'm like, hey, I like edibles. I usually take them before I go to bed. But I pop an edible. And then I'm like going to the gig, and then all of a sudden, I'm at the show, and then I hit the stage, and I'm doing a whole new hour.

and I usually have my set of notes and I forgot it and so now I'm just like trying to piece it together in my head totally brain fart my set to the point where I'm like trying they all hit me the altitude the alcohol and the edible

and it was I was so frustrated because I was like telling the crowd I'm like I got I got it and they're like hey Nick and then some people like didn't know who I was was veil so they were like just came to a show and they were like boo and I'm like

no no and I'm trying my best party guy I don't say that But so like And then they told my opener after the fact He told me this They were like we're gonna cut Nick's mic and pull him And my friend Ari Manus was opening

He's really funny and he was like Don't do that Nickle just figured out He knows how to handle himself And they were like nope They pulled it and pulled me off Physically came on They're like come on

And I was like Bye I don't know what's going on And then it was a shit show And then somebody filmed it Went on TMZ Got picked up by news outlets I mean I'm talking like Yahoo news It went fucking everywhere

My phone, I got like 200 texts of like, people like, you got to go to rehab. Oh my God, are you okay? And I was like, yeah, I just, I fucked up and I owned it. I was like, I felt bad, but I was like, yeah, it just shit happens, you know? Yeah. You know, nobody died. It wasn't like, I didn't pull a Michael Richards. You almost died though, right? I've almost died, but I didn't die. At that time, at that time I did not almost die. That was not the time. No, no, no, no, no, no.

I'll say that if it's, I did not almost die in that time. It was a different number time. It was a different number time. Got it. I said I almost died in Denver. I think he used to stay at Denver. Yeah. I mean, even though it's- I believe in the altitude.

I think you're doing, you're doing everything right. Yeah, I'm nail- Tell the what happened in Denver the first. Well, so anyway, I go back after the Vail incident where I did not die and I just was like, what the fuck? And then I just picked up my tour and then all my Denver shows sold out after that. And then the tour went great.

They gotta see what happens. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there was part of that, but it was great. And I addressed it and then, you know, my other bouts with Denver in Altitude. There was one time where I would finish a movie. And the thing that's really dangerous with drinking, too, are benders. And that's one thing that I loved.

I loved starting to drink, like, detoxing for like three months. And then I would go on a bender for either a month, two month, three month. You know, QS was a year and a half. When you're in the bender, well, okay, when you're detoxing, do you feel like you're training for a fight? In a way, it's like I always knew I was going to drink again and I would pick that time

so most of the time when I film I don't drink so you gotta be on camera like you know it's early hours so and I would produce the movie so I'd had to be there and be alert so I would always go though like all right fucking July game on so I had set aside this time

it was Memorial Day I believe it was 20 I'll say 2019 or 18 and I'm like I'm gonna go on a fucking bender. I'm going to take the whole summer off. Maybe I'll do one or two shows and I'm going to fucking drink my tits off. And I'm going to go to sporting events. I'm going to go to as many baseball games, all this shit. And I did. And I had this summer of just crazy what does that look like? It was a blast. Give me a two day period. If you're a serious drinker,

it would be, it's waking up and starting to drink. So it would 10 a.m. Not even. I would wake up some days at 5 a.m. And I would get, I would find a bar at six in the morning. morning and I would start drinking. How? Google? Yelp? Yeah, you're just go on your phone and be like, what bar is open right now? You can always find a bar. Okay. So I would find a bar and I would start, you know, this was-

When you walk in at 6 a.m., are you like, this is going to be fun, these are my people. Yeah, if there's people there, yeah. You'll, you can usually find a partner in crime to drink with you. I would like hit my buddies up and they were like, dude, no. But then at the bar, you can always find, there's always some other, That's like, man or woman, it doesn't matter age, like, you know, whether they're, you know, you know, 25 or 75. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I would, so some days I would drink from 6 a.m. to noon and then I would go to

another bar that I like that would like open around 11 or noon, and I would drink there until 2. Then I would go pass out until 4 or 5. And then I would go back to the bar. Is there a drunkenness to it, or is it just sort of like a, a. area. I would just hit a wall where I would know when I'm like, okay, like, I'm starting to like sway a little bit

on the bar stool. So then I would go and pass out for a couple hours and then I would go back. And then the games would come on and then I would watch and the night crew would come in and like the night drinkers and then it would be great. And I would drink until 2 in the morning. And then you'd go pass out until 5 a.m. And in L.A. or various cities? L.A. or various cities.

But I mean, you know, worst case scenario for me was like, I would tough it out until eight in the morning and then start drinking at eight. Like you couldn't, nobody was game at six. Yeah. Or I couldn't find a bar at six. Like just squares. Yeah. But the thing I never did is, would you drink in your hotel?

No, that's what was really weird is I didn't, I didn't like drinking alone. I liked being a part of something. I liked going to a bar. And I liked any bar. A hotel bar, an airport bar. Love it. And I would, you know, show up early for flights and drink. I'm assuming you tip great, people love it.

Oh, I tipped amazing. I would always tip amazing. Picture of stories, yeah. So I would, you know, I would tip great and I would just have fun and I would, you know, I still talk to people that I met at an airport bars 10 years ago. People would be like, remember it's me, Stacy from Philly Airport. I'm like, oh yeah, what's up?

I mean, yeah, but it was like, it was great. It was a fun time. Why are you doing this? I just, I fucking was over it. I was like, you know, I just had my life. I was happy with my life and I was like, I just liked. It was a celebration of your life.

I liked being a drinker. Yeah, I was essentially throwing my own retirement party for years. It was so fun. Is there somebody you look up to like Bukowski or 100,000 or 100,000? I would always reference Bukowski, famous author. I think a man can keep on drinking for a century. He'll never die. I became fascinated by alcoholism and drinking.

So, you know, I would always reach out to like Dave Attal. You ever black out or as I call it, time travel? You ever do that? Who spent sober a long time. Yep. And then Doug Stanhope. People say, yeah, I don't have to drink to have a good time. But that means you have to have a good time to have a good time.

How do you pull that off? Still a big drinker. Yep. Those were two staples where I would be like, and I would ask him questions. I'm like, hey, yellow stuff is, I'm vomiting up this. What's that? Was that bad?

Like, there was, like, drinking questions where, like, there's blood, like, coming out of my ear. Is that weird? Like, I would, like, reach on. And it didn't feel self-destructive, even though it was self-destructive. Yeah, I just was, like, fucking on board with it. I'm like, let's go. And then so at the end of that bender, I went on for a summer, I'd wrap this movie the wrong missy. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to just.

A very funny movie. Thank you. With the great David Spade. And Lauren Labkus, phenomenal. And you guys shot in Hawaii? And we shot in Hawaii. Yep. So I wrap that.

Did Tyler directed? Yes, Tyler Spendell, great director. I love everything about it. So Summer Bender after that. And all of a sudden, I'm in Minneapolis, and I can't remember what I'm there for. I think some twins games. I went to go watch baseball. And I'm in my hotel room and I'm throwing up bile.

So that means it's like yellow green toxins. And that's not unusual. for me. So I'm like, okay. Do you eat at any point? Do you like make a point to eat? When you're on a bender, you need a couple drinks in your system to eat. So like you'll need, I needed like two or three cocktails and then I could have a full meal. You need to drink to eat. You needed to drink to eat. So not the opposite. You get to a point where your stomach won't, you'll get diarrhea or vomit if you put anything, like, especially anything like rich in your system. Like, so like once you have alcohol,

it kind of settles and numbs your body. It's super weird. And then I would eat. And you never did, or maybe you did do the thing where you would do coke to stay drunk? I was never that guy. That was like a rumor I'd heard about me, but I was never a Coke guy. I've done Coke, but that was never a part of my regimen. It was never, ever a thing to me.

I never, I didn't like, I liked passing out. I didn't like going the distance of like, you got to be. Yeah. The cocaine people, because you can see him a mile away. It's not a good look. I mean, sloppy drunk is not a good look, but I wasn't sloppy. But when you get people that are koki, it's like, no judgment on you people, by the way. I'm friends with a lot of people.

Well, okay. Well, from my experience of you when I would see you in the middle of drinking, you would, you like weren't there. It was like trying to connect with you. Sometimes, yeah. And it was like, I could be a space cadet. You just like there was, it didn't matter what I said. It was like, just pull a string and you would just say a random thing. Right. And then, I wasn't like upsetting, but it was just like, okay.

All right. And then you'd like try to catch up and then you'd switch the pull of another. It would just be like a. Right. So, but from your point of view, it was a fucking blast. I mean, I, one thing I did like was I liked checking out because like for a long time my brain was just wired to where I was just constantly like obsessed with work. I was obsessed with things where I'm like, okay, why isn't this script getting made? Why didn't, why isn't this going? like, okay, why am I not? You know what I mean? So like, there was a frustration with the business of where I was like, I was just kind of over it.

Like, you know the deal. Like the business, like people don't realize, it doesn't really matter what level you're at. There's always gonna be rejection. There's always gonna be things that are frustrating where it's like, well, why didn't my pilot get picked up? It's super funny, you know what I mean? Like, why isn't this?

So there was a lot of that stuff where I was fucking over it. So like the numbing and people can relate to that where alcohol frustrated in general or I was just I was just again I go back to the term over it I was just over anxiety anxiety would so

your anxiety that's a catch 22 with alcohol because you get anxiety and then you drink and numb it and then when you come off alcohol your anxiety is now 10 times worse which is like what it's it's just chemical yeah from withdrawal and all that shit yeah so that's where

like you know I would have to I had a fear of flying, so I would have to drink on flights. I would have a fear of, you know, I couldn't go into like a concert crowd or something. You know, I couldn't do things where I couldn't go into a stadium if I didn't have a couple drinks, you know, and then the come down, the next morning. You had a fear of houses, you would have to drink to go into houses. Oh, my God. If I saw a flying house.

You knew you were going to have to walk with your legs, you'd have to drink. Oh, my God. If I saw a cloud. It was really dark. Oh, my God. Um, did you, um, somebody told me what time it was, the internet. Um, Adam Sandler, which I was like, why work with him, Nick? You're afraid of him. Um, did you, okay, so you have anxiety and. Well, so I just, so then you're in a cycle. And then how do you get? So, so what you do is so hold. Let me, let me go back to what you brought up. So I do this bender over the summer. Yes. I'm in Minnesota. I'm throwing up bile. My assistant comes and picks me up to take me to the airport to go to Colorado. So I go, hey, I'm fucking throwing up bile. And he goes, you're just hung over, you're fine. And I'm like, no, no, no, something feels different.

And he's like, whatever, just get on the plane, go to the bar, get a drink, you're fine. I'm like, okay, and that's what I would always do. I would always drink through it. That was always a solution. If I had any issue, if I just had the shakes, anything, drink through it. So I go to the bar, get a drink, get on the plane, sitting on the plane, something's off. Like, off, off. I get a cocktail, drink it.

Now I'm like, open my carry on. I throw up into it. So the guy next to me is on his laptop Just pretending like that didn't happen So I throw up into it We land, I get to the airport Go to the bar in Denver, know the bartender He's like, hey Nick

I'm like hey, let me get a fucking Tito's In every Terminal you know barter? I'm pretty I mean I know a lot of bartenders You know you are bro What's up dude So I fucking Drink a cocktail at the bar at the airport

Go to the bathroom throw it up Get another one go to the bathroom throw it up Order some food eat it throw it up and I'm like fuck and now I'm like worried this is where you call customer support yeah so now I'm worried because I'm like okay the alcohol is not working so now I don't feel well physically and I call my agent and I go hey I've got shows in Colorado Springs I go I think I need to go the hospital and he goes really and I go I either need to do that or just take a nap so it was either or I either get a hotel room and sleep it off or go to the emergency care or urgent care so I made

the choice thank fucking god i went to urgent care walked in i go hey i think i need to see a doctor and the nurse goes nope you need an ambulance like now didn't even ask anything called an ambulance they put me in i go to the ICU Colorado university and they i was there for three weeks and i literally was supposed i was going to die so like i was on tubes everything blacked out don't remember anything. I tried to check out on my own, I was told. And I was in these tubes. My family flew in to say goodbye to me. I didn't know that. I was told I had a 10% chance of living. Turns out they lied to me. I had a 0% chance of living. And they came in to say goodbye. And for some reason, I don't know what happened. I walked out of it. I had pancreatitis. I had pneumonia. I had blood

sepsis. I had alcohol poisoning. I had altitude sickness. I had like five things. One of those things can kill you. And I'd all five. And the doctor goes, I don't know what the fuck is going on with you. But here's your free t-shirt for having all that. Yeah. Here you go. Here's a catheter. But so I walked out of there. And it was like crazy. And that's before Key West. That's before Key West. So then I dry out. COVID hits nine. Why dry out, is it hard? Is it like you have the DTs and you have the? No, because I was coming down onto the hospital. I've had the DTs before. People that drink no when you're when you go on serious benders the come down is brutal like i'm talking like if you drink a lot the shakes and the it's like the shakes is nothing i'm talking about like full on hallucinating

full on like you're in your house you're in your house and you're like hearing and seeing shit it's really brutal and do you think i should just drink to get this over with no because you know that it's you've got to you've got to you've got to you have to i mean if you're smart and by the way this is another piece of advice, get assisted detox because you're rolling the dice. If you're on a serious drinker and you've gone on a long bender, or maybe you're just an alcoholic that wants to quit and you've drank steadily for 20 years, have somebody assist that if you're really serious because it's very dangerous. What's the difference?

What's assisted detox? They give you drugs? Yeah, they'll wean you off. You'll go in and they'll help you, you know, there's somebody there that'll help you, you know, chemically just wean off of it. So no hallucination. Yeah. I mean, if you go cold turkey, I mean, you might still have to deal with that shit.

But, um, but it's, that's very, very, very important. I rolled the dice and I'm really, really lucky. Okay. So you, you live and are you like newly sun life, grateful, whoa, though I was stupid, that was close? Any of that? Are you just like? Yeah. No, no, no. I wasn't flipping about it at all. I was like, holy shit. Like that, like I, you know, I felt like you, you know, I felt like you, you, you kind of go like, oh, I'm living, I'm living on borrowed time. We know when people say that. Yeah. That's how I felt where I'm like, I'm lucky to be alive. And I just completely like had a

different mindset and just was like super healthy. It was like I got to get my shit together. Got to get back in a stand up. I've got to start writing again. I've got to just, you know, blah, blah, blah. And then COVID hit. So then it's like, and that didn't push me to drink. So, but all of a sudden, COVID's going. I'd booked a trip to Key West before COVID. just as a vacation to just see what Key West was like. Because I was a fan of the show up bloodline. I was fan of Hemingway. It always just seemed interesting to me.

Did you see the Ken Burns Hemingway documentary? No. Is it great? Ken Burns did a Hemingway documentary? Yeah. And dude, it's really, like I read Hemingway afterward. I like the documentary better. Oh, wow.

Okay, good. I love that. Yeah. So, yeah, then COVID hit, and then my trip to Key West came up. And then I was like, I checked into my hotel. I had all these books. I was going to write a book. And then it was like a few days after COVID hit, right?

But you'd already booked the, you'd already booked the vacation. I had booked the, I had booked the trip to Key West December 2019. COVID really, really hit, what was that, February? Yeah, February March, like mid-February. So then it wasn't until my trip to Key West wasn't until June. Oh. So I didn't drink at all. So I didn't drink until Key West and I got there.

And I didn't know what was going. going on with the world, like everybody. It was so surreal that I was like, okay, I'm fucking done. I'd gone to the doctor. I'd gotten a clean bill of health. So my liver, everything. Are you diabetes at this point? No. Okay. I'm not diabetic at this point. So. But stay tuned, though. Stay tuned. But so anyway, I got a clean bill of health. I'm in Key West. The world's fucking crumbling. I'm from Minnesota. So, you know, George Floyd, that whole thing exploded. There's riots everywhere. There's riots everywhere. So I'm like, I'm just going to stay on this island and I'm like, I'm going to have a drink. And the culture down there is so conducive

to like chilling the fuck out, having a drink. Had you been to Key West before? I'd never been before. That's why I wanted to go. So that's a key detail. Did you think you were going to drink there? I had an inkling that it might tip me. But that's a key point. It's very alcoholic. It's very alcoholic, but I had never been. I was intrigued. I wasn't doing a show. I'd booked it just as a voyeur. So when I got there, I was like, holy shit, it was like, they call it Barnia, where it was like a Narnia for bars. So I was like, oh, this is epic. This is exactly what I need. No TVs, no social media. Everything, it's great. It's everything's great. It's like, it's all like patios. It's great. It's beautiful. They have a butterfly museum. Come on. Kelly McGillis lives there.

Yes. So it's what I needed. So I just embraced it. I mean, it's what I needed mentally, but then I just drank. And I drank for, I stayed for a year and a half because everybody was like, just stay there. They're like, the world's burning. And did you hit it as hard as you had before Denver? Nonstop. I drank at a.m. to four in the morning and smoking cigarettes, chain smoking. And did you think I'm going to end up back in the hospital? I didn't know what was happening. They told me they didn't have a good hospital there. Like if you are in trouble, they fly you to Miami. So if you're in serious trouble, like they have hospitals, but it's not. Or if you really need implants, they will metavac you to Miami. Did, okay, did you feel like, Nick, this is not good or you were just like, this is great? I was like, I loved it, dude. I had people calling me that were like, what do you do?

You're still there. You can't just do that. And I'm like, yeah, I can. So then that triggered me going, yeah, I can do whatever the fuck I want. If I want to live on an island and sell dream catchers made out of pubic hair, I'm going to fucking do it. Yep. So then it made me just go, fuck everybody.

And I made all these friends. I'm still friends with all these people on Key West. And it was great. I just, I just, I really, really loved it. Okay. And it felt like if you die, you die. If I die, I die. I didn't plan.

I didn't want to die. But I was like, you know, if this is it, then this is it. Do you feel like it would. But I wasn't, like, suicidal. There was no. Your behavior was, though. Not really. Well, I mean, you could look at it differently.

I always just, it was conducive to me because I loved drinking. Right. So it wasn't like, I wasn't, I've never been thrown out of a bar. I've never been 86. I've ever been banned. Yeah. I was just excited to meet other artists down there, musicians, and just have fun. It was like the island of misfit toys with like Pinocchio.

where it was just everybody, you know, that didn't end well. But you know what I? Like, there's donkeys smoking cigars. But, yeah. So then I'll do a big jump cut at the end of Key West. And then I did, I got diabetes. I had to go to the hospital because people were like, hey, people are starting to talk. Like, my legs were starting.

I was sitting at a bar so much that I was getting muscular atrophy. So my muscles had dissipated from my leg. So you could see my bone And I was walking with a cane This is a true story So I'm walking with a cane And then my friends What do you think's happening?

Do you think about it? I was like, whoa I noticed it one day My vision was going to shit And I'm like And then people, my friends down there were like, hey, you got to go People are now getting worried

Like you're fun and you're great And we love you But take nothing away From what you've done here We're still going to retire your jersey So they brought me to the hospital and the doctor did blood work And he was like, yeah, you're diabetic now, you've got diabetes And I'm like, okay

And then so I had to make a choice I literally sat there at the bar and I'm like, okay You're back at the bar. Yeah, so you leave out. Oh yeah, yeah, I went to the doctor and then went to the bar after the doctor. Correct. And I was with my cane. They delivered the results to the bar. Yeah, in a shot. I saw it and did it. But I was like, okay, now I have a choice. I either I'm literally going to die here or I'm going to go home and COVID's kind of gone or whatever. So like, I just was like, I've got to get my shit together, man. I've got to, I can't do

this. It's not, this is not the end of my life. This is not the final chapter for who I am and what I'm doing. And I, you know, I took into account, you know, my family and I took into account. Do you worry about like your mom, sister, brother, dad? I started to, I just started to be like, like how fucking sad and how fucking lame that you're going to do this when you know you were given like a talent and you were given you're and I was a good you know I'm still a good person and it's like I've got more to offer and then I thought about you know the years and decades and I'm people would run into me and down there that were fans they'd be like oh my god next sports I love you your specials your movies and they'd be like what are you doing and I'm like oh I'm just here I think

I'm going to retire and every time I said that people would get so bummed the look on their we're like, what do you mean? And I go, yeah, I'm done. And they were like, why? And then I never really had a good answer. I was like, well, you know, and they were looking my legs. Yeah, they were just kind of like, oh, well, that sucks. Yeah.

Nobody was like congratulating me. Nobody was like, oh, yeah, man. It was like, oh, really? How old are you now? And I'm like 42. And they were like, okay. And then that, all of that hit me all at once. and I just was like, I gotta go, I'm gonna go home.

So it doesn't feel like living Las Vegas or something. It doesn't feel just like, no, no, no, no, no, no. This bleak thing. No, I, I pulled my plane up and was like, I gotta go home. Okay. And so I did, and I just, I really buckle down. What did you do about, what's your diabetes approach? Well, that's another thing.

And take diabetes fucking seriously because it's, you really have to take it seriously. So you're losing, your vision gets like shorts out, right? Yeah, but they equated that more to my, age and just the older you get your vision kind of but like don't you like get like blackouts within diabetes like you will just go like if you don't take care of it got you've got to take care of it you've got to check your blood so i reversed my diabetes you did so i went on a three month diet of just clean pure protein no sauce no ketchup no anything nothing no sugar so clean protein and uh steam vegetables little bit of carbs but i did that intensely for three months i was fucking miserable it was

like the worst thing ever but I reversed it and it came back because I just I like food too much so I kind of um but anyway long straight short so yeah take care of your diabetes don't fuck around with it get checked to make sure like especially the older you get and if you if you drink a lot or even if you don't if you just eat a lot of shit like if you eat too many carbs if you eat too much sugar growing up in the Midwest it's like inherently like you eat dessert you have to have dessert at the end of a meal. And also, you're a big drinker. I mean, a lot of my friends, the Midwest people know, I mean, it's also

everywhere, but growing up in the Midwest, it's like, people fucking drink. Yeah. Like, it's crazy. Yeah. People, I mean, I've out drank guys that are 6,9, 400 pounds that are, you know, major huge people. Yeah. And I've out drank them, and they're like, how the fuck did you do that?

Show me, I do. Yeah. You're like, so, dog. Okay. So, hey, how are you? So wait, hold on. I remember one time I'm at a bar in South Beach. I did a show staying at the Ritz on South Beach. And the bartender comes over to me and he goes, I would get to the bar at 80 in the morning. And at the Ritz? Or maybe 10. Okay. Whenever they would open. It was a beach bar. So they would open pretty early. But I was like, the bartender comes over to me at 6 o'clock at night. And he goes, hey, Nick. How are you? And I go, good, man. What's going on? How are you? And he goes, good, man. I just check it in. And I go, yeah, can I get another? Um, Grey Goose tonic. And he goes, yeah, I just, you drank a whole bottle of gray goose on your own just today. You've drank a whole bottle of Grey Goose in the span of eight hours. And I'm like, oh, do you have more?

And he's like, yeah, I just want to make sure. I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. I drink a whole fucking bottle of Grey Goose on my own. It's true story. Like, that's, my tolerance was that high. Yeah. Where I could drink a bottle a day and it was, I could, it's fine. But it doesn't, you don't tell this story, but it doesn't seem like you're,

regret it or you're sad about it or whatever but even now like well don't yeah but i'm only saying that and i'm not saying you should i'm just saying well no don't do that i'm not saying i'm not saying i'm not those aren't i'm not bragging i'm just saying that's the level of how much i drank yeah so it doesn't sound like you're bragging and it doesn't sound like you regret it it just sounds like that's what happened and well here's the here's another thing if people trying to get sober regrets and living in the past and being upset at the past fine but you can't you can't do that to yourself you can't drag yourself through the mud you can't go oh my god i wasted you know like i don't look back at q west and being like i just wasted a year and a half of my life getting drunk

i don't think of it like that i'm like that was a part of who i am i'm lucky to fucking be alive yeah i'm lucky to be here and i learn from it so it's like all those things that happened in your past You gotta go, okay, that happened, fuck, but forward, move forward. So most people when they, when they drink a lot, are trying to escape, they don't like the feeling of being like sober or they have a lot of anxiety or they're trying to, they self-medicate and you don't think that's really your story other than the anxiety stuff. I don't think, I mean, honestly, like.

I both kind of believe you, like I swear to God, there's so many different levels of drinking, there's so many different kinds. And there are people that just love drinking. Yeah. Like if I, you know, it's hard to explain, but I really, really loved it. You get to a point where you get dependent on it. If you're on a bender, you're like, you've got to drink through it. And then you hit a wall and you end up in the hospital.

I've been to the hospital a handful of times. Denver, Colorado was not the only time I've been to the hospital for drinking. Don't get confused. Yeah. But I'm saying like, you know, I'm lucky enough to be talking about this. but you do hit a wall and then, you know, the older you get, the more you're just destroying your fucking body. And did it affect your career, do you think?

I don't know. I mean, I know that I had a reputation for being a drinker. I mean, I was never fired from anything. Right, that's what I mean. Like, you never. Yeah, I never was fired from anything. I mean, I had shown up on sets hung over a couple of times where, you know, I'm not proud of that.

But I mean. Like, like not helpful hung up? over? Well, like, just I could have been better. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Like I wasn't firing on all four cylinders. Yeah. But there was nothing catastrophic. I don't have a DUI. I was always good about drinking and driving. Um, you know, I've never, I don't have, you know, I never gotten fights or anything. It was, it was very much I loved drinking. I really truly did. And I never got, you know, there were drunks where I'd friends that would just get fucking angry. They would get mean. They would get racist. I mean, it was like

crazy. I'd be like, what the fuck is going? It's pretty cool, you know, Mel Gibson, though. You are provocatively dressed all the time with your fake boobs. No, but there were, you know, there's so many different types, but I was just one of those people that you know, and the other thing is my life is different. My lifestyle's different. When you're a comedian,

you work an hour or night, sometimes two hours a night. So when you're a touring comedian, you have time. And when you have time, alcohol is right there. You know what I mean? So that's that's a very, very tricky thing. and you'd rather and you'd rather it was like your favorite hobby yeah loved it love drinking love meeting bartenders loved opening a bar love closing a bar do you so have you changed your

the thing about regret or the thing about uh obsession have you made a point as not to do less of that well the thing about the thing about like they're not doing my thing they're fucking me do it have you done anything there well so that's a good question because it's like now I just I just have all my confidence back in terms of like I'm finishing my fourth screenplay right now so I just went out gangbusters of like

Not of your life of like the last year I've just well yeah the last I cleaned up like a couple scripts wrote one from scratch and then cleaning up a fourth one that I'd written like 15 years ago okay so I have four screenplays so I'm just filling my time with things that now I am in the mindset of like if these never get made

Fuck it. At least I put my time into creating something that I use my brain and, you know, I'm going to do everything in my power to get a made. The first one that I wrote is in the process of getting off the ground. And, you know, I'm like, you just have to channel your energy and your obsession into like, hey, I'm just going to not drink. I'm going to put all my effort into like, I don't need to drink. I want to be happy. I want to go back to like learning and like reading books again and not just. counting on a bar and counting like i don't know i just want that's the thing it might it take it took up and i'm not saying it in a regretful way it's just like if you like do another i guess other people have video games or reading or whatever but like this was your thing yeah i was a drinker but it's like just replacing that and going you know you just take take pride and power in who you are and look at your life and go hey this can be better i mean i remember so many relationships fucking imploded from my drinking. Just people just take advantage of you.

I just want it. I want control of like who I am, who's in my life, and what do they mean to my life? Yeah. And that's important. It's important for everybody to like, you know, if the drinking does make you weak. It weakens your perception.

It weakens your effort into shit. Were you better, and I knew that and I just... Were you a better comic when you weren't drinking? I could do both, man. Yeah. I could drink and go on stage. I could not. I mean, I, like, do you like jokes you wrote, like, you have no, it doesn't make it different.

Like, when you people go, that's my favorite joke. Is it, are they generally from when you were drinking or when you weren't drinking? No, I could, I could do either. Yeah. I definitely don't put, like, my career in success was not dictated or by drinking. That wasn't like, I didn't get into it to drink. It wasn't because I drank. I love comedy.

I love being a comedian. And I made, even when I was drinking, I made a choice in my late 30s. where I was like, I don't want to start to talk about drinking anymore. I don't want to be a drinking comic. I don't want that to be a part of who I am. Yeah. I just don't, you know, I had been there, done that. And it just, you know, what old are you get?

It's just like, you know, I don't know. I just didn't want to be the, I don't want to be a party guy anymore. Yeah. What are you proud of yourself for? I don't know. No. No. I think I'm proud of myself for just believing and staying true to myself. Like, I'm glad that, and I had the help of a lot of people, and I've got great people in my life.

But I'm really glad that I, you know, just was like, hey, you're important in this world, in this scheme of things. And all my fans and all the people, the people at Key West that were like, you're quitting. Yeah. And it goes back to all the messages I've gotten from. from people in hospitals, people with cancer, troops overseas that were like, hey, like your comedy got me through like horrible situations. You know, and you hear these things too.

Yeah. Where it's like, hey, grandma's boy, I watched that in Iraq and it made me fucking not lose my mind. And those things, you know, I'm just proud of me to just hear those voices from people. And because it really is, and this is a big thing with addicts, you really have to want to go like hey I'm important I've got to get my shit together however that is whether you need help

ask for it whether you need anything but just you've got to really believe in yourself to go there's more to me than just you know being a fucking loose can and idiot you know there's a whole world out there so I'm proud of myself to just every day sticking to that and just trying to bring you know more laughter and joy to people's lives in a world that's just always chaotic. It's just, it's always crazy. Nick Swarton, guys. I hope you're happy. I have three penises. I know that she was 19 years old She never knew she was a lady to love

She never knew she was made a goal No But they're loving you so many don't I can tell you to love yourself And you know what you've got to do I'm trying to do it too I know I see you so far at the time shelf

and you see it's in front of you I know just the first time we miss.