The Comedian's Comedian Podcast - John Robins Returns

Episode Date: May 7, 2026

313 episodes later… the critically acclaimed comedian, award-winning broadcaster and Taskmaster champion, John Robins returns to the pod!John first spoke on stage with an incredible level of honesty and introspection about his alcoholism with Howl (which you can listen to on his here). This week he’s continuing to share that story with the release of his memoir, Thirst: the story of his life through the lens of alcohol, the drinks that made him, and those that broke him.In this episode we discuss:how Taskmaster was the closest he’s got to being himself on TVwhy 12-step recovery feels like a form of stand-upthe process of opening yourself up in the form a bookhow comedy careers can distort what you see as successthe problem with “ego” in comedy and how sobriety shifts itlearning to sit with yourself instead of escapingand if John plans to return to stand-up...Join the Insiders Club at Patreon.com/ComComPod where you can instantly WATCH the full episode and get access to 20 minutes of exclusive extras including:how much of stress is actually chosenwhy alcohol never actually solves what it claims toand the impact of recording the audiobook👉 Sign up to the NEW ComComPod Mailing List and follow the show on Instagram, YouTube & TikTok.Catch Up with John: John Robins' Thirst is out now on in all good book stores and is also available as an Audiobook. Find all the info at johnrobins.com. You can keep-up-date with John on Instagram, @nomadic_revery.Support our independently produced Podcast from only £3/month at Patreon.com/ComComPod:✅ Instant access to full video and ad-free audio episodes✅ 20 minutes of exclusive extra content with John✅ Early access to new episodes where possible✅ Exclusive membership offerings including weekly(ish) Stu&AsPLUS you’ll get access to the full back catalogue of extras you can find nowhere else!Everything I'm up to: Come and see me LIVE, find out all the info and more at stuartgoldsmith.com/comedy. Discover my comedy about the climate crisis, for everyone from activists to CEOs, at stuartgoldsmith.com/climate.Get in touch: If you’re listening and thinking ‘I’d love to work with ComComPod on getting something out there’ or ‘there’s someone you should absolutely have on’ - drop us an email at [e-mail]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is episode 509 of the Comedians, Comedian podcast. And in this episode, we are welcoming back John Robbins to the show. The critically acclaimed comedian, taskmaster champion, an award-winning broadcaster. Robbins returns to the pod, 313 episodes after his previous appearance. God, this is like a lot. Man, this is a good one. This is a really, really good one. John talks with incredible honesty and introspection about his alcoholism in a show called Howl,

which you can listen to on his band camp. The link is in the show notes. And this week, he is continuing to share that story with the release of his memoir, Thirst, The Story of His Life. I can't remember exactly what there's a subtitle, which I don't remember it. The book's got, the copy I've got is called First. It's the story of his life through the lens of alcohol, through the drinks that made him and the drinks that breads that breaches.

I may be paraphrasing the actual thing. The book is effectively called First. It is fantastic, and it is so easy to interview someone when you are genuinely completely blown away by a thing they've made. This is, with all due respect to John's very impressive, excellent stand-up, this is, I think, the most, and his multiple podcasts, all of which are excellent, this is the most significant thing he's made. You've got to read this book. It's brilliant. In the first half of the episode, we are going to talk about when your audience knows more about you than your friends do. We'll talk about why 12-step recovery can feel like a form of stand-up. We'll talk about ego in comedy and how sobriety can shift that problem. We'll talk about progress and not perfection,

and we will find out how Taskmaster was the closest he's ever got to himself on TV. If you listen to one episode of the podcast of this podcast this year. Make it this one. I think this is such a brilliant conversation and you can get access to it on video. You can have the full video, the audio, extra content later on in the extras. I talk to John about how much of stress is a decision that you've made, why alcohol never sold what it claims to, and the impact of recording the audio book. He's recorded the audio book, which I think we, I love, I love to compare the book read, like read the book yourself and listening to the comedian read the audio book because they can be such different and such special things. Those are all on the extras. I'll chat to you in the middle

bit. If you want to get hold of the extras, it's patreon.com slash comcom pod and you can get all the extras in the video content from every episode that has it. Here is John Robbins. Hello, John. Here we go. I'm so excited to talk to you, man. How are you doing? I'm good. It's been a while. It's been a really long while and I'm really sorry that I couldn't participate in your book tour but I'm pleased to be doing this in its stead. So we will be quite book focused if that's okay because I have read and devoured and loved the book.

It's so good and if you'll permit me, I'll just love Bobb you about it for a minute before we catch up. I was meant to catch up first but I've just literally been looking back over like notes and I was kind of turning over the bottom corner of pages to go back to it as a list of things. It is fucking brilliant. And I only realised halfway through reading it that it's not out yet.

So I felt very, very special because people are going to lose their fucking minds, John. It's brilliant. Well, I did the audiobook a couple of weeks ago and because you were going to host the Bristol tour show, which is like a sort of Q&A. And I'm going through the,

I got to the end of the recording and it took about four days and I'm finally doing the acknowledgements in the acknowledgements I say and thank you to all the hosts of the live show and I list them and I get to you and I'm like he bloody pulled out and I think that

I think that stayed in the audio book this would be very much consistent with how I like to appear in things what a treat to be nearly mentioned in the audio book I'm really

sorry I could have do it. It sounds great. Who have you got instead? Who's doing the Bristol one? Lou is doing... Lou Sanders is doing the Bristol one. Awesome. And I met her demands of a nice hotel because I'm someone

who likes to sort of live a vicarious life as a travelling anonymous salesman when I choose my hotels, but Lou deserves a little bit of luxury. Yes. Oh, that's nice. I push the boat out for that one. Every so often I'll have

lunch or coffee with someone in Edinburgh who's successful enough that they just stay in a hotel the whole time. And that's nice to see the quality of the hotel from the basis of the lobby of which you are having coffee. When we last spoke, which was God knows how long ago, I can't remember when I last saw you. It may have been Ed Gamble's wedding. Wow. Which is a long time ago. Yeah. But the last time we spoke, I didn't know every single thing about you. And now that I've read your book, I do know every single thing about you. A lot of which I didn't know or couldn't have guessed at when there were times when we kind of hung out socially or at gigs or what have you.

One of the things that was kind of most obvious to me as someone who knows you a bit is the way in which you're drinking and your alcoholism wasn't apparent. because it was all in secret. So, or a lot of it was in secret. Some of it was pretty apparent. But I just wanted to start talking about the book by talking about what it feels like for you chatting to people who now know every single thing about you. Like even though that's kind of what your stand-up is,

you know, part of your strongest suit is sort of ritually disemboweling yourself. For comic effect. I just wondered whether the book is like, it's a long old, it's a really deep, long speed run of all of these awful things that you've experienced. And some good things. And some wonderful things as well. Christ, you should have read the first draft. The starting point is, the book is magnificent.

It feels like an incredibly significant thing for you to have done. and I will recommend it to everyone, friends. And, you know, it's made me reassess my own relationship with alcohol, as I feared that it would. We'll talk about that in a bit, maybe. But the starting point is it's brilliant. How does it feel for you talking to people who read it and now know you far more than they knew you?

Well, firstly, thanks so much for, you know, you've folded in an awful lot of compliments into these first few minutes and it's really kind. and I'm glad you enjoyed it. I think there's, on the one hand, yeah, there is stuff in there that people didn't know about me. There's also stuff in there that I didn't know about me. And really that's what was beneficial for me in the writing process,

which at times was quite difficult, was to actually make these connections and learn stuff about myself and how I handle stuff or don't handle stuff. and trying to find out why alcohol was so potent to me as a, almost like a piece of technology for dealing with life, dealing with emotions and thoughts and all so much stuff I found out whilst writing the book because I wouldn't have,

I don't think I would have identified as an alcoholic before I stopped drinking. maybe I would towards the end because I didn't know what an alcoholic was. So that information all came to me when I'd stopped drinking. So that meant I could then look back at my life and sort of see events and habits and situations in a whole new light. So like I'm finding out at the same time as the reader, I think. and hopefully those connections will, you know, people may see themselves

or see people they know in that. But there is often a confusion about raw in adverted commas comedy and writing. So sometimes I'll, as you call it, disembowelling myself on stage, it's actually not what's happening. I'm disemboweling myself in the writing process,

which is mostly a, on my own or at very small work in progress gigs. And then you re-disembowel and re-disembowel and re-disembowel and cut out all the bits of the disemboweling that you are not comfortable talking about or don't work or aren't funny or too dark or whatever. And then you present a finished product. You present your battles in the way you want them to, but not all of your battles. And sometimes reviewers will say,

you know, it sounds like I'm paying myself a compliment by saying this, but they might say it's very brave or it's very honest or it's very exposing. But I think that shows that I've actually been successful in the process of writing to make it seem like this is just coming out of nowhere that I'm sort of offloading for the first time in a funny way, I hope. Whereas to me, it's sort of finished before anyone sees. it. Yeah.

And that's not to say it doesn't change and evolve over the course of like an Edinburgh run or a tour. Of course it does. It gathers with it more bits and it becomes a bit more sort of succinct in places. But I'm comfortable with everything I'm saying. Now, there's a book that I didn't write with all the stuff that isn't in there, which would be horrifying if people read because that hasn't been through that sort of process. so if it appears like I'm

I mean it is honest obviously but you can't talk about this sort of stuff without being and I think it would sort of fail to be of any use to anyone if it wasn't honest but you know there's stuff that's happened to me that isn't in there especially where it relates to other people and a friend of mine my friend Robin said it's sort of quite naked.

And what I said was, well, it's the difference between someone who walks down the street naked and someone who you walk in on them in the shower. You're not walking in on me in the shower. I'm decided to go, I'm one of those people, you know, like, who's the naked rambler.

They're not embarrassed or they wouldn't be walking down the street naked. But that's not to say they want you to sort of read their diaries or go into their bathroom. or whatever. Yes, it's on your terms. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I've got so much to ask you about it. I'm sort of struggling in my mind to structure.

I think, like, I don't know whether we should talk about the last few chapters and the conclusions you come to. Do you regard it as having stuff in the book which could be spoiled, like spoiled? I mean, as long as people are aware that, you know, it's not a, it's not a, fiction, it's not a drama, so it's not a huge plot twist, but you know, if people haven't read it yet, it's out on

May the 7th, so I don't know when this comes out, but... I think on May the 7th, yeah. Yeah, if people want to sort of experience it and then come back to this, then that's fine, but I, you know, what... sobriety for me, and this isn't true for everyone, but has been a process

of re-learning how to exist in the world. without alcohol and how to interact with my thoughts, myself, other people, the world and I'm still

in that process I probably started writing the book a bit too early and finished at just about the right time. Yeah, okay. How do you mean? I think I know what you mean, but what do you mean? Well, I looked at my initial notes. I started

sort of gathering stuff together when I was about a year sober. And I really struggled just after I hit a year. I started to go a bit mad. And over the course of probably two years of writing it, I would go back and reread and redraft. And I think over the course of that process, the book became more and more hopeful and more and more useful. Yeah.

And I'm really glad I had that time. And I've always been quite good. at hitting deadlines like my my edinburgh shows are usually ready um so i was able i've probably read it 30 times all the way through which is a lot i wouldn't recommend anyone else that's not the recommended dosage um and there are sections of it i may have read a hundred times okay so all the words are in the right order and i there's nothing having read back now with a bit of distance that I go, oh, I don't think that anymore. All that sounds a bit harsh or chill out, mate, you know?

Yeah. But by the end, when I was writing, sort of finishing it, I sort of still feel in the place I was then. So my big fear was I would finish it and then it would be, because publishing is mad, like how long everything takes. Okay. It's extraordinary. And I had no experience of that really. My worst nightmare was that sort of between finishing.

it and it coming out, I would have changed all my opinions and regret everything I'd said, but I don't think that's the case. I think anyone would find a book to take a long time, publishing a book to take a long time, but particularly for a stand-up comedian who is kind of match fit for have idea, say idea, know whether idea is good within the space of seconds sometimes, you know, like that seems like the absolute opposite. When you say that you learned about yourself, let's stay with that for a moment. I've certainly

had that experience as I'm sure we all have of having a conversation with someone and then as you say something you realise that that's what you think. A hundred percent is a great bit in the Royal Tenenbaum's where Royal says something and the narrator goes

it wasn't until it came out of his mouth that Royal realised he meant what he was saying yeah and that was a very I mean that's what I love about writing stand-up is it's basically working out how I feel about things. And I don't know until I've sort of, you know, told, say I've got a funny story. I may think, oh, that's quite funny.

But it's not until I sit down and sort of really attack it and retell it on stage again and again that I'm able to go, well, where does this sit in terms of what I think about the world and how I interact with myself? And definitely what was nice about, I guess, being a comedian and right. writing a memoir as opposed to fiction is I could kind of go in the prose of the book, oh, this mad things just come back to me. I'm just going to talk about this now. And I'm discovering, like, on the page, I'm not going back and thinking, right, I need to now present this as a bit of wisdom or a sort of pithy anecdote. I can go, I'm only just realizing

this as I say it, and it's a hard thing to realize in real time, but blah, blah, blah. And there are moments in the book where I was really able to articulate exactly what I felt about alcohol and what it does that I didn't know and I wouldn't have known without writing it. There's almost like it's not a good example of that. It's like a silly, a light example of that is the bit where you're talking about the different clerks and outfits on the front of his various DVDs as you sequester yourself in a It's a remote village kind of Airbnb location in order to get over it. There's a thing that you sometimes see when you're reading a book that you kind of go, or often at the end of books. I know Stephen King will often finish his novels by putting the date and then the place that he was in,

you know, Cape Cod or whatever when he was writing it. And that's a card you play numerous times in a very vivid and very funny way when you're like, as I'm speaking this into my, as I'm writing this into my phone on a train, or as I'm saying this into a dictaphone as I drive from place to place. So it becomes very, very vivid. There's a real sense, kind of, that sense of working it out as you go along

is, like if I were writing an essay, and who knows, perhaps people may one day write essays on your book. But I feel like you've got the sort of fandom where some of them might. But if I was writing an essay, I'd want to go, oh, look, Robbins is, you know, showing us the liveliness and the kind of vividness of the fact he's discovering the stuff

by finding himself in places and talking about the places in which he finds himself. Not to mention the kind of the structure over the course of various different types of drink. Yeah, I think that's what appeals to me about stand-up is I don't really have to pretend and perhaps what I've found difficult over the years about TV is you do have to pretend.

And even though, though what I'm saying on stage, you know, is prepared. My friend said you seem to have made a career out of being John Robbins professionally. And that's exactly true. Yeah, sure. And that's great freedom. It also, you know, can, there are difficult elements to that. Like you just want to run away or escape or take things back or have never have been a comedian and live in the Alps on your own.

You feel sort of viewed and seen. but I'm, you know, that's, I'm willing, I'm a willing participant in that exposure, so I can't sort of have it both ways. And in the book, it's really nice to be able to go, yeah, I'm crying on a train as I write this as an iPhone note. Because I'm, that's me, that's really real. And I like those real things. I like reality. It's even though, you know, I use alcohol to escape it. But I like tussling with reality.

I like the struggle of reality. Whereas I think in the past, what I've got wrong about Telly is like suddenly feeling like, oh no, I'm pretending now. What would a comedian say? What sort of jokes do comedians write? What are they looking for? And that's because it's so geared towards that.

They kind of want you to behave like how a comedian would behave on this certain type of show. and I perhaps struggled to translate myself onto other formats in the way that I feel I'm able to as a stand-up. I think that is such, I've never heard that articulated that way before, and I think you're absolutely right. Patrons who get to watch this interview will see that I shifted excitedly in my chair when you said that was like, oh, this is good gear. You get to, yeah, being a stand-up is not having to pretend and being on telly, having to pretend that is exactly how I feel about it.

And I completely recognize that, that shifty, uncomfortable, oh God, what are they looking for feeling? Where you, like all the magic of the thing that you do that's your most honest self, you go, oh, am I supposed to do something different to that now? And then trip yourself up or it's possible to. And often you're surrounded by people who do it brilliantly and are able to do both things. Yeah.

And are able to completely communicate who they, who they are as a person as a comedian in 20 seconds. And I think it's probably not helped by the fact that my main job is talking for an hour and a half with one of my best friends every week. Because that doesn't, as listeners will know. It doesn't tighten you up. Well, no, it doesn't lend yourself to sort of being like, right, sell yourself in 20 seconds. Because what's 20 seconds in a thousand podcasts?

a thousand that's mad but I'm very lucky you know I think in the past I was beating myself up going why didn't you get rebooked for that why aren't you this person why aren't you that person is like

hey man all the while you were worrying about that you've built a really wonderful career being exactly who you are which is so freeing so now I'm in a position where like I don't ever have to pretend, and I'm terrible at acting. Ellis once said,

it was one of the most astute observations anyone's made about me. He said, you are the worst person at pretending I've ever met. He didn't necessarily mean it as a compliment. He was like, if you've had a bad day, every single person in the room knows you've had a bad day. Yes. And I am trying to work on that, but it's true. I just haven't got the energy.

and you I think something we talked about last time you were on the show which was like an eye-watering nearly 10 years ago or maybe more maybe 10 or 11 years ago but we talked briefly about I think at the time Ellis was in Josh Whitacom's sitcom and you were talking about it was clear that like being in a sitcom and acting was one of the things you were jealous of and I think that's a really emblematic kind of

do you mean it's like you would have been terrible doing that Matt I mean completely Unworkable. I mean, I think it was 11 years ago. And yeah, things, things were difficult at times in my career. Like, I was very much finding my feet in London. You know, me and Ellis were doing, it would have been maybe XFM or Radio X then. Weren't getting paid much. So it couldn't like, couldn't sustain my life. I still needed stand up and I definitely, definitely needed to make the most of any. telly or radio opportunities that came. So the pressure was really high. Like, I need this. I mean, I literally financially need this. But what I learned, and I do talk about this in the book,

is that all the stuff I was quite frustrated about, was stuff I wasn't very good at and didn't really enjoy. And I think I would find, let's say now Josh made a new series of Josh, said, John, I want to cast you as this, but I would be like, I would immediately like nerves, anxiety, doubt, self-criticism, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this. I don't want that to be my job. I don't want my job to be, I can't do this, I don't want to do this. It's like when I used to have jonglers weekends booked in my diary, they would just sit there like molten lead burning through the pages. A dread, I don't want to feel dread about what I do. And I remember I was chatting to Lou. This was a Matthew Crosby's birthday, probably nine years ago or something. No, I can date it exactly because there was a specific season of Taskmaster

and they'd just announced the lineup. And I knew I'd been sort of in the mix and I didn't get it, which is just the way these things go. And I was probably sounding off about that. And she said, John, no one gets all the stuff. Yeah. And it was just like, wow, yeah. You know, when I list what I do have,

I'm really, you know, punching above my weight. I've been very, very lucky. And you can spend your whole life, no matter how successful you are or, you know, how comfortable things may look. If you are always focusing on what you don't have, you will leave a very negative existence. So now I'm really grateful.

and sobriety is a big part of this because alcohol drives that sort of that self, that, you know, main character energy of being able to go, you know, if ever I'm feeling slightly out of whack, I just list 10 things I'm really grateful for. And I could not have designed a better career for myself. But, you know, tell that to me on your podcast in 2015.

Well, even though I still, you know, I was enjoying stand-up. I was doing okay. When we, I look back over the, I didn't have time to listen to it. I kind of scanned over the log of that episode and I was like, oh, right. Some of what you're saying now, we talked about then in terms of like letting go of resentment and stuff like this. But now you're a different person. Like your whole, the pace that you're speaking at, the kind of your, the vibe, if you will, is so different. I don't know if that's because it's particularly early or.

You've just, your vibe now is that you've just been meditating for an hour. I don't know if you have just been meditating for an hour, but you're a different you. And I'm thrilled for you, man, because I feel like we did talk about this stuff. And I would have, I think, you know, it was a two-way conversation in which we're both going, yeah, you've got to let go of resentment, haven't you? That kind of stuff. But now I feel like, oh, you're so, you're way past that and you mean it. You meant it then, but now you kind of ultra mean it.

Well, I had the theory then, and it would come and go. And it would come and go often dependent on how hungover I was or how drunk I was or how desperate I was to get somewhere around booze. But also, I had just, if it was September, I think he said it was October 2015. Yes. I just kind of had an epiphany in Edinburgh, which I would probably have mentioned. Just about really enjoying a performance of my show. Despite, you know, not getting nominated for this, not getting that job, not this, that and the other. And I did have this moment walking across Edinburgh in 2015, across the meadows, where I just had this flood of gratitude, just to be a part of this world, just to be like a speck and let go of so much stuff about what I wasn't getting.

And it's difficult because once a year, or, you know, if you're doing going up for telejobs multiple times a year, comedy has turned into a competition. And you're made to think that what someone else has means you get a little bit less. and what I've learned is no, it's just better to keep expanding, expand and expand, because there's limitless listeners and limitless minutes on stage and limitless TV programs that will always be made, and no one else is denying you anything. But really, I only had the theory of that then, whereas now I've had the practice of it,

and, you know, you said, you sound like you've been meditating for 20 minutes. I haven't got in my meditation today, but I did it yesterday. and it's daily work to just expand that calm center, which is what I guess I've been doing for three and a half years, is bringing some level of calm and stillness into my life because alcohol is a very agitating thing and hangovers are very agitating and regret and anxiety and me, me, me, I, me, my.

I know when I've slipped into a bad place because my thinking is I mean my. Ah, okay. And it's like, that feels like a useful tool. I want this. My thing is my friend isn't listening to me. This traffic light is making me late. And it's like, okay, we just, let's just sort of dissolve into the insignificance that you know you inhabit because that's been a great gift is realizing I'm completely insignificant.

Oh gosh, there's so much to talk about In terms of like the I mean my thing And then throughout the book there are So many kind of there's your own wisdom and experience And then there are numerous kind of literary References That poem is it the I can't remember the guy's name the poem

Like getting back to the house and there's just an empty house Oh Raymond Carver That's it Carver yeah But a few of them I'd heard before The alcohol one, the man has the drink, the drink has the drink, the drink has the man, which is just a god, do you know who wrote that? That sounds like kind of wildian or something. Like it really feels like, well, some deep archetypal.

I would imagine that's just 12-step wisdom that's been passed down for 90 years and at some point got wrote down. It's like a pub joke, isn't it? It's just like the perfect, it's been sanded down like a pebble. Yeah, yeah. There's no edges on it. It's like, that's the whole idea. There it is. Do you know, I've found, so in 12-step recovery, a big part of it is someone will share their story.

They'll have 10, 15, 20 minutes. They will share in a meeting and then other people will share back. So it is a performer and audience relationship. And America has a strong tradition of these what they call speaker tapes, which is sober alcoholics talking to an audience about their experience. of drinking and getting sober, sometimes for over an hour. And I've listened to some of these tapes from the 70s, the 80s, the 90s. It's stand-up.

And it's really good stand-up. And it's like pre-stand-up. And I've definitely thought, were I living a different life? There is a PhD to be written in the links between alcoholic sharing on stage or in a room and stand up because there are some there are some people who would clean up in our industry going around places where alcoholics gather talking about their experience for an hour big laughs and because of the sort of comedy that I enjoy and I write this is like manor from heaven for me because it's someone talking about how you know literally the worst experiences of

their life and getting a laugh all the time. Because they're looking at it from a perspective where they can see how ludicrous it is and how pathetic and how shocking and how mad they were. So I listened to them. There's a couple of examples that are sort of anonymised, but there's Earl H. is one of them. And there's Clancy B. This is just like comedians giving themselves stage names.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is like the incognito of their day. I mentioned cogs in the book. You do, I had a little cry when you mentioned cogs. It was lovely. It was difficult to know how to handle comedy in the book because comedy is a big part of my life, but I didn't want it to be like a book for comedy nerds.

Yes. But I do... There was less comedy than up. there was less life of a comedian than I was expecting, and I think the book was the better for it. Yeah, I, there's a limit to like how much people want to hear about what it's like to eat in services and drive long distances and, you know, about how crazy Edinburgh is. But I've used examples that speak to my relationship with alcohol. And, you know, Edinburgh is a part of that.

It's been a big driver of my drinking and being a pain somewhere. times. But I think also that letting go of sort of wanting any kind of fame was a big thing for me. And I didn't realize quite how important that had been until I wrote the book. And that ties in also to what I was saying about my career. I couldn't sort of have picked a better one because I'm relatively anonymous outside of comedy circles, really. And you know, you told me in 2010 that would be my goal. I would have been like, what? You want to be the most famous guy in the world? Let's just talk briefly, just on this subject, let's divert briefly into Taskmaster, specifically because I saw a bit of a podcast that you and Ellis did where he was saying the joy

of watching you on Taskmaster was seeing how much you were pretending not to care whilst deeply, deeply caring. And I think that might be a fun way to explore the thing we've been talking about, about how can you, like that's like, that's like a pressure test of these kind of Buddhist or meditative ideas about the self. Like, oh, okay. So you, John Robbins now are over the desire to be famous and you have found peace in yourself. Well, now do taskmaster. see how that lasts see how long that lasts can you talk a bit about

about it through that kind of lens well yeah do you know I'll tell you something mad I mean I've known Alex Horn for years we're very good friends we had a golf YouTube channel together I what series I do 17 so

you'll know the numbers you know I've probably been really close to him since series four maybe I got that I got that gig the first time I appeared on stage after having stopped drinking. So people from Avalon came to watch me and Ellis doing a show the first time I'd appeared on stage since stopping

and I got the call that week. Now that tells me something about how I am as a person and a performer when I'm not focused on alcohol. even though I was really focused on alcohol because I was like it was all around and, you know, they were very kind, made sure there was none in the dressing room because that was like like gripping on my fingernails early days. But I remind myself of that a lot when I'm struggling, I'd be like, it's just good for you. And good stuff happens because of it.

So then going into Taskmaster, I can't remember when it was. it would have been the next year. So maybe that was, we started filming in 2020. I'm so terrible with years. Anyway, I was just really grateful that there was a format

where I didn't have to pretend and I didn't have to think how would a comedian do this and am I getting in enough lines and should I do this bit of material here? And something that really appeals to my brain, which is problem solving and puzzles and I could just completely didn't really think about the camera as much at all while we were doing the tasks.

And I was able to be competitive. But I was also, there was a little voice going, don't, yeah, be competitive, don't be unpleasant. Yeah. The studio I found more difficult because despite creating the most welcoming atmosphere in front of the most attentive and, um, a kind and enthusiastic audience. Like these are real diehard fans who love the show and the crew love the show.

I was still conscious of like, what does my face look like? Is my hair in the right place? Oh, Greg's going to come to me. What do I say? How do I make the edit? And all these things come into your head. But I think it's as close as I've ever got

and probably will ever get to just like being myself. Because yourself was, you really desperately wanted to win. Yeah, 100%. You wanted to win by outwitting Alex. Yeah, and I wanted to win by a margin. And also letting go of being able to say, yeah, I'm not going to be the most entertaining person

in the history of Taskmaster. I'm not going to be one of those Taskmaster finds. Sure. Like, they did the 100 guests of Taskmaster. they did this video this was about a month ago and put it out on Instagram and it's a clip

of every single person who's on Taskmaster I am the only person who you don't see their face it's just my back and like old John would have been like thrown up his hands in despair

I've been like oh yeah of course it is one out of a hundred but it's like doesn't matter because it was great fun and I really enjoyed it I saw a really funny YouTube comment about it on like a compilation of your best bits on Taskmaster,

which is, it said, this is brilliant. But if everyone had played it like this, it would be unwatchable. Because of like the, you know what I mean? Like as an ensemble, it's fantastic to have one person like, I will undermine every riddle and rules lawyer my way to victory. Well, you should check out my series of House of Games with Dom Jolly. that was two men willing to sacrifice all entertaining for victory at all costs. I see. Okay. I'll look forward to that.

We were talking about kind of, I'm really, I'm really addicted to this idea of you spotting when you're going back into the more frantic, nervy, I, me, my kind of state. I've not heard that kind of, that catechism before. And I think that's really, like I certainly, from my own struggles with anxiety and depression, I remember years ago realizing that a trigger, not a trigger exactly, but like a flag for me of like, oh, I'm going there again. I think in the book you talk about being able to say to yourself, it's coming and it's here and being able to say those things out loud. For me, one of the ones I felt was like if anyone ever said to me, oh, it's all going to be all right. And that would make me cry.

Like, that would make me tear up. Like I'd unclench something like, oh, is it? and I'd realize that I'd been clenched for days or weeks or months. My question is, how do you, with all of those strategies, and you move in the book from like coping strategies, alcohol and hiding and pissing in a cup, and those kind of, you know what I mean, like coping strategies, you move to really healthy, effective coping strategies and tools and mantra and things like that.

And I suppose my question is, how do you make those things habitual? because I feel like in life, and maybe you're the same, I learn something, I have a revelation about myself, about the way I fit into the world, about what I'm habitually doing to make myself unhappy. I learn it, and then I forget it. Do you mean, how do you, how, because the, the, the negative behaviour is habitual. You're just sort of in the habit of doing the wrong thing over and over again. How do you make the changes in your life that you've made? How do you, not just how do you remember, that's a very ADHD thing, but like how do you, how do you actually turn them into

habits rather than learning a thing and then just going back into the morass? Well, what is a habit? Is this rhetoric? No, no, I'm asking what's a habit? Well, a thing you do all the time. There you go. So you do it all the time and you do it daily and sometimes you have to do it hourly because the pathway, there's a neural pathway in my mind.

head which leads from discomfort to alcohol and it's very well maintained and it's been travelled thousands and thousands of times it's like it's like the sort of the bypass motorway the path in my head that leads from discomfort to meditation or exercise or calling someone or um writing is like a, it's like a few footprints in the long grass. You're like, is it you allowed to walk there? Someone been there before, is that a rabbit been there? You have to keep going down that unworn path again and again and again and again and again. And it will feel like it's never going to become automatic.

and the more I consciously go down that new path, I'm now creating a new link which hopefully in time will become as well maintained as that bypass and that bypass will overgrow and people will forget it's even there. So the great thing about 12-step recovery, which by no means has a monopoly on being sober, people get sober very happily without it, but it's about daily action.

And it's so drilled into me that here are the things you do every day. Here's what you do if you're struggling. Here's the stuff that you do, even though you think this isn't working. And that might be calling someone as soon as you think about alcohol. It might be

reminding yourself to stay in the day. So like when you say, said anxiety and depression, I automatically think tomorrow and yesterday. Because tomorrow is anxiety, yesterday is depression. So we go back into today. And I can give you 50 things I've been told to do every day. And I don't do them every day, but I certainly have done a lot of them most days to the point at which I can actually get my subconscious to start doing them. So if I'm on a train now, like I was on a train the other day, and it just suddenly, a load of people got on out of nowhere. There'd obviously been some cancellation, and I immediately tense up. And my instant

reaction now is to go, deep breath in, slow breath out. And I no longer am going, why didn't you remember to breathe on the train earlier when you just got really overwhelmed? It's just instant and automatic, because I forced myself to do it. it again and again and again and again and again. And that process will continue and I will gather new things hopefully and I will forget some and I'll be like, God, it's a month since you've meditated. No wonder you go mad. But it's not about being perfect. It's about making progress. Do you think that part of why you have taken to this so effectively is because it suits your slightly obsessive personality that wants to be excellent at something?

Was there a point with 12 steps where you went, I'm going to be the best person that's done 12 steps? It's a very good question. I'm glad it's a good question. I hope it wasn't offensive. I didn't mean I'm not making fun of you at all. Not at all. And like people might say to someone who's sort of very full of sobriety and recovery,

they might be like, you've just replaced one addiction for another. And you're like, you could be, you could quite legitimately go, fuck, yeah, I have. And it's not going to kill me. And it's not going to make like my family, like, afraid for me. And it's not going to mean I lose my job. And it's not going to, you know, so what? But I think it was, you know, humility is so much a part of that program. And I think one way of describing the 12 steps is like a progressive, gentle ego death.

every single step if you think about them is going, hey, you're a good guy, but you're not the most important person in the world. You're not the most important person in the room. You know, so if ever I feel that like ego kicking in of, you know, for example, if I'm asked to share about my experience of alcoholism, sure, the performer part of me kicks in and is like, I want to make these people laugh. But when that doesn't happen, if I panic, I can, you know, I just click into another mode of thinking, which is like, it's not about you, it's not about you, it's not about you. And that's useful in so many areas of life. It's not about you.

It's not about me. It's about the world and it doesn't really matter. and that, I guess for me, sobriety is creating a calm space where it's not about me. And that doesn't mean I don't have like little rooms leading off that central relaxing atrium where it's all about me. But I can kind of now go, there's somewhere to return to, which is a sort of more peaceful, calm. Because that's what I never had drinking. Like when I look back on past Edinburgh's, the one thing, it was never at any single point was calm, more peaceful or accepting.

And I think back now to that guy who was like, you know, so frustrated and so grasping for stuff. And like you would out till four in the morning. You, what are you thinking? Like, if this matters, like, if what you claim to really matter, matters. And what the fuck you doing is four in the morning? Like, does, does the Edinburgh

Comedy Award matter more than drinking for eight hours? Because if it does, you need to stop drinking for eight hours every day. Like, if you care about this, you know, care about it, show that you care about it, write more, work harder, be disciplined, Get the job done because you're at work. And it is a party, but it's a working party as well. So this is John. He's a changed man, right? I mean, certainly since 313 episodes ago, who wouldn't be?

But it's so different talking to him. And I'm so grateful to him for coming on and being really real and really himself. And this notion that you don't need to pretend anything, we will talk more about that. You and I and you and he. No, not you and he, me and he, he and I. The book Thirst is out now in all good bookstores, and I imagine really shit ones as well,

but let's focus on the good ones, and let's try and buy it from like worldofbooks.com or scholastic or somewhere, which does good. But it's also available as an audio book. You can find out all of the information at john robins.com and keep up with him on Instagram at nomadic underscore reverie. I mean, that's the most John Robbins thing I've ever heard. You can come and see me live.

You can find out all the dates at Stuart Goldsmith.com slash comedy. By the time you hear this, I think I will be at the Netflix's A Joke Festival in Los Angeles, glittering Los Angeles. And I've just found out moments ago that the Stampedown crew

are all living in a big house in Silver Lake. And when I arrive, I'm immediately going to go and hang out with them and feel much less alone and wobbly about being halfway across the world. So find out more about that. You can sign up to the ConcomPod monthly mailing list as well

at Stuartgoldsmith.com. That's the bottom of the page. I've been wrestling with the footer. I've been wrestling with the footer, guys. If you visit the page on mobile, you will see that the mailingness subscription thing is roly. And I just can't fix it. Wicks and Brevo don't want to talk to each other, and that's that. But nonetheless, it is functional, even if it's not the prettiest thing ever. So sign up, you get the regular monthly Comcom mailing list, which are stuffed with suggestions of shows to watch looking back at various episodes that have gone out, information, and what have you. I think we should start putting transcripts in there, but that's a chat for me and Callum to have, not by the medium of him editing me saying this. But we might start

doing some kind of like summaries or something like that as well, but lots of good gear in that. So, Stuartgoldsmith.com slash comedy for all of my live dates and various stuff about the pod. Now, in the second half with John, we're going to talk about how comedy careers distort what you think you've achieved. Yes, more on this. The difference between writing a show and writing a book, learning to sit with yourself and how you do that, and gratitude replacing resentment and why that changes everything. Here's John. I'm so lucky to be a part of this sort of family of people who I've become my friends. I'm still in contact with maybe five or six friends from a union school, but the vast majority of my correspondence is with other comics.

That's lovely. I love the idea of a family of comics. I think it's so easy to perform with people, maybe in the early days, maybe more recently, get on with them, and then not necessarily be able to stay in touch with them due to geography or work or whatever, or the rest of it.

And I was chatting to someone a while ago saying, look, we all get it. We all get it. It says, you know, you can't speak to each other all the time and no one has, like one of the challenges with comedy is that you meet hundreds of people who you like, who are funny, you know, charismatic, interesting people and some terrible bastards, of course. But, you know, trying to keep up with everyone is next to impossible. Actually, just seeing it as a family and going, oh, yeah, you're part of the family,

and you don't have to go on a road trip together every single day to remain part of the family. No, and like seeing, so like flipping, I often think that one, one thing that can be difficult psychologically about being a comedian is there's so many different revenue streams, so many different things you can be doing. So, like often you could go into a bar in Edinburgh, say, at the festival, and there's six comics there. One of them's written a play. One of them's on a panel show. one of them's written a book, one of them's got a podcast, one of them's going to Montreal, one of them's going to New Zealand, you know, one of them's got a filming a special, one of them's tour sold out, one of them's got a good review, so you can sit down and think,

oh, there are eight things I'm failing at, because I don't have a book, a podcast, a sold-out tour, a Netflix special, you know, all of these things, I'm written a play, I'm not in a sitcom, I'm not in a sketch, blah, blah, blah, blah, or you can think, wow, what a diversity of possibility there is. Like, isn't that incredible that six people who started by standing on a stage and struggling through five or ten minutes of material one day years ago, like Steve Coogan got nominated for an Oscar, that's insane.

Because he used to do impressions of sports commentators. So you can either see that, which I have done in the past, is like, I'm not getting that, that, that, that and that. I need to be a writer, playwright, actor, all of these things. And go, do you know what? You have no idea what the next year is going to be like. You might get nominated for an Oscar. Now, I won't because I don't want to do any of that work.

But there is a world in which I could get nominated for an Oscar. I could write a thing that gets made into a film that gets a screenplay for a, I don't know. like so see the positive in that see the possibility and not the lack not what you don't have because then you forget what you do have like like when Lou said to me no one gets all the stuff I had a radio show I you know wrote good stand up I'd been on the odd bit of telly

I'm still I'm even at that point I was the 1% of people who've ever stood on a stage with a microphone in their hands and that's why I love about the my job is not knowing And I think I, one thing I do vividly remember saying to you on the last podcast is something like my comedy wouldn't make sense in front of a thousand people. Yes. And I do remember you said that. Like I am delighted to have proved myself wrong quite soon. Like not long after that, maybe a couple of years.

And to explore the world of, well, what would it look like in front of 2,000 people or 3,000? and are so lucky and work out how to play those rooms and work out what needs to be different. And, you know, book tours that people were enthusiastic to come to and not be a sort of slog of like, well, does this venue have a mailing list? Will 20 people turn up who go to see all of the stuff at this art centre? And go, well, actually, how do we want to structure this?

Is that room right for that show? And all of these choices that I could never have guessed would happen when I was sort of going, I won't work in front of a thousand people because I'm too special. Should I subtext? We just returning to, well, I said to you in a text last night, I was talking about the book and how much I loved it.

And I said, God, it's like 12 Edinburgh shows in a row. And it's like, oh yeah, that's what a book is. You know, I just want to talk a little bit more about the process of writing it in the scene through the lens. of someone who's written 12 Edinburgh shows. You know, you've written show, or however many you've written, you know, you've written show after show. I think it's 10, I think. Okay.

But I think the, like, the idea of, you know, what are the similarities and what are the differences in terms of structure and narrative arc? And the fact that, you know, there's a brilliant chapter on gambling addiction and how angry the gambling industry makes you. And like, but it sits in the right place in the show. And it sort of struck me in like in the Edinburgh show of that book. That's like a pleasing diversion into a passionate thing that sits alongside the narrative. Do you know what I mean? It's structured and well written. It's like I'm really just discovered reading for the first time.

But do you know what I mean? It's like in the context of this podcast about comedy and your experience as a writer of shows. Yeah. What are the, yeah, I don't know. It's a nebulous question. You can give me a nebulous answer. It's a really good question because it's a slightly different discipline. There are similarities and differences.

I would say the difference is I can work towards something being close to exactly what I want it to be with a book because I get to reread bits and add punctuation and change bits and I have quite a long time to do that. So I can refine it and kind of, you know, I do think, though it's not perfect, no book is perfect, but I think I can still hand that to someone to say, that is what I think in the right order with the jokes I want to make. in the right place. And that is me. And what is both delightful and calamitous about stand-up is you've got that.

You know it's in there. But this audience isn't quite right. This mic doesn't cut out at the start. So you had to sort of fumble around for 10 minutes and the lighting and the sight lines and no performance of stand-up is ever perfect. And that's why you keep coming back because you get a taste of it.

That bit really worked tonight. that whole section worked, but you forgot this bit, or they warmed up in the second half and all this stuff. There's no warming up in the second half of a book because I get to go back to the first half and rewrite it if I want to. So that was a real, I was always very jealous of musicians, be like, you can just get to hand over an album and say, that's it. That's what I wanted to do.

Whereas because our job is alive, there's just too many uncontrollables. whereas the book I'm sort of in total control. Though I had to really accept my internal writing clock in a way that I have managed to do with stand up but had not. You know, there's so much stuff like do 300 words a day, get up at six and write from seven to eight and or whatever it is. And I fought and I fought and I fought and I fought to do that. And it made me very depressed because I just. couldn't go near it. And then sometimes, like after two weeks of nothing, I would sit down for

five hours and write 3,000 words. And then I would have to step away. And I'd be like, you should be writing today. You need to do this. You need to hit that deadline. And I would get very depressed again. And when I say depressed, I mean I had periods of depression. And then I would sit down and another 3,000 words come out. And I don't think anyone would teach that as a way of writing, but it doesn't matter because that's just how my, that's how I work. So I can look at that in a negative view and go, if only you'd been disciplined and done your 400 words a day or whatever. Or I can go, that's your skill. Your skill is being able to think in prose very quickly, and in an articulate way.

And that's because of lots of things that have happened in your life that have made you an overthinker and have made you isolate and have made some things difficult. But what you've got at the end of all this, if I was to name one skill I have, it's to think in paragraphs and think in chapters and think in sentences and say that on stage with no notice

or say that in a book with a year's notice or say that in a podcast with Eleanor. every week, just that muscle of trying to be funny or trying to articulate what you feel in a memorable way or in a structurally pleasing way. So I had to lean into my strengths and not get too bogged down by my weaknesses because my weakness was like disciplined daily writing. I couldn't do that. It was just too hard. So go, okay, I'm more like a Sherlock home type figure, like lying on the sofa, taking cocaine for two weeks, and then suddenly leaving the house and not coming back and solving the mystery. That's just, that's who I am as a creative person.

There is so much self-acceptance in how you operate by the end of the book, how you describe your situation, you depict this self-acceptance. And here, talking to you now, I just have to realize that's who I am and that's who I, how I work and what I do. And I think it's like that's one of the, one of the things I most hope I take with me, having read the book and employ in my own life, is being able to go, I'm just like this and this is fine. Because there's so much anxiety and angst and why aren't you this and why aren't you different and that, you know. I think there's a temptation to, some people approach comedy a bit like they're walking into dragons den. they think it's like one idea if I just get this

if I just get the theme or if I just get the niche or if I just need to have one if I have a thousand ideas and one of them's good then it will all kick off and it's like no they're not investing in the idea

they're investing in the person like because it doesn't fucking matter what the invention is it's how that person presents themselves and to like use a sort of corporate analogy the decision is made in that interview with the person.

Like, do you like them? Are they authentic? Can you trust them? Do you think they're going to work hard? It doesn't really matter how they answered this specific question about this specific thing. And I think the more you see comedy as like a sort of nut you have to crack, the more you'll just end up with a nut. It's about like me, like my friend says,

you made a career out of being John Robbins. Well, that's sort of it. And there are areas in which that really doesn't work very well. And there are areas in which that's hard, but give it a go and I can learn this. Or there's areas in which that flourishes. So the more you're able to accept, like, what am I in terms of my output and what I like to make?

The more what you make will be authentic and people will go, I can't remember a thing he said, but I really enjoyed that. Like I sat in a room for an hour and a half listening to someone. I couldn't tell you. What was that line? He said,

the amount of times I've been completely misquoted in reviews. Like, whole, they'll do that first thing, which is really annoying of, like, copying out a joke. But also, I didn't fucking say that. I've never said that. But you realize that it's because

that's not, that's not quite what the experience of stand-up is. but being with a person. Only you know the words as well as you know the words. They actually were just having a, they were on one side of a really one-sided conversation with a person they enjoyed hearing from. Yeah, and it doesn't matter that they don't remember the word play

and the beats and all the rest of it, because it worked, it worked so well that they came away happy. And, you know, I'm going to have, I'm looking forward to giving this book to the world, or a very small portion of the book buying world, but to release it into the wild so that my relationship with it can end. Because I've had it in my head

and on my hard drive and printed out for like two years now. And there's a great freedom in that because it doesn't really matter what people say, though I hope they like it, because it's like, well, their relationship with it begins now. And I will read comments about it and quotes them like,

and it doesn't say that, and I didn't say that, but it doesn't matter because everyone has their own relationship with everything I put out. And, like, my last tour, Howell, was the hardest tour I've done, even though I think it's the best show I've done, because I was really, like, in between two worlds,

sort of drinking world and sober world, and that show was written partly whilst I was drinking, partly while I was sober, and I was sort of, it was a lot to carry round in stand-up. And I think perhaps the book was a version of that that I had slightly more control over and was in a better place to cope with the writing of. Because I still remember the dread of performing that show,

which is not to say I didn't love the audiences and love the experience of sharing it with people and I'm really, really proud of it, but I don't want that feeling of being a dressing room going, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this. And having to really dig into my toolkit

for like, how are you going to get on stage tonight because you want to cancel every single date. And I did stuff like slapping myself, like it's a Tibetan Buddhist thing and breathing exercises and like praying, and doing anything I could, walking around fidgeting, anything to get me in a position where I could walk on stage

and then it would be okay. And I think that was a similar feeling I had approaching the book in those days when I couldn't write. It's like, I can't do this, I don't want to do this, I want to cancel it, tell them, I can't write it, I can't do it, and then suddenly, there it is. And if I accept that, as soon as I accept that feeling of dread before going on stage, oh, it's here, I feel heavy. I feel like a rock. And I'm going to think about

calling my promoter and telling them I can't do this. Sit with it. You know, where's the feeling? It's in my stomach and it's in my like, arms feel heavy. Okay. Well, let's not attach a thought to that physical sensation. Let's just be a person who feels heavy for a bit. How do we stop feeling heavy or you slap yourself and you do squats and you breathe in and you breathe out. So it's a much less stressful process when you're just treating it as like a physical sensation. And I learned to do that with the book. It's like, okay, you are so down, you're going to lie in bed all afternoon. That's okay. I'm here. That's a much better place than being, why can't you fucking write? You're supposed to do your 500 words. Why are you so useless at this? You waste all your time. You're

pathetic. It's like, no, I'm just going to sit with the sensation. And that's another way of creating that neural path, which used to lead straight to alcohol. I'm depressed. I can't do this. I'm going to drink. Or I'll get through this so that I can drink. It's the reward at the end of doing the thing I don't want to do. You know, the more time I say, it's okay. You feel heavy. You're not going to go out. You're going to cancel that thing. You're going to lie in bed. Now you might cry. That's a Okay. And it's gone. That's less of a disaster than you're an awful person

because you can't operate in the way you think you should be operating. You've, um, have you fixed yourself? I know you say in the book, I'm not broken and nor are you. And I think that's a lot. That's, you know, you know how much I love the book. You sound really like, I'm wondering, are you, Where do you think you are in the process if one is a disaster blackout drunk and 10 is hovering Buddhist happiness? Where do you feel you are in the process?

Because everything you're saying, I'm like, oh my God, he's fucking cracked it. This sounds great. And I'm wondering, like, because all I want to do with this podcast is just steal everyone's best ways of coping with their life and their creativity and everything else. And I'm thinking, what can I steal from this? What can I take as someone who has felt so many of the same things that you're talking about? How can I, like, do I need to, like with the nicotine, do I have to regard myself as a recovering anxious person for the rest of my life and remind myself to do the thing every day? Is that what I have to do, John? But I think that's a still, that's the Dragon's Den approach.

You know, that's what's the, what's the thing I can take? It's like all those podcasts about like, what, duh, the 1% of successful people do do that? It's like so tempting to go, you know, I've got loads of self-help books, some of which I've read, some of which I haven't, some of which were. And I, you know, every page, like, oh, yeah, I'm underlined that. That's me now. Sure. That's not how it works because you say, like, where are you in the process? It is only process.

It is just experiencing it. And there's no way on earth I can impart on anyone what is a lived experience. And my lived experience is, I don't know, around 1,300 days of not drinking and learning through trial and enormous errors, how I live without alcohol. I can't tell you that. You know, I can't, in a way, I can give you, I mean sort of you plural. I can, it would be enormously arrogant of me to say, I've got this program for how to do this thing. I can't. You need to be in so much pain that your pain forces you to make the one change you were just not willing to make before.

And I can't give you that pain because, you know, my pain is different to someone else's. I just woke up one day and I was like, I am exhausted fighting alcohol. I'm exhausted. I can't do it. I can't do it anymore. I'm completely and utterly sick and tired of this. And that may come at a different point for someone else. That may never come. You know, there's a phrase, some people's rock bottom is death.

That's just true. That's how much pain they can take. They can take it until it kills them. That's how they can, you know, how resist. to change and how that's not a criticism by the way I'm enormously sympathetic but I can take so

much of this that I'm going to let it kill me wow I just couldn't my I sort of ran out of energy thankfully a little bit further up the sort of slide down but I can't I can't make you have an experience

do you know what I mean I can tell you something that you may think oh yeah I like that I agree with that I'd like to do that and that's you know that bit of wisdom in the book that was passed on to me by a therapist of like I will do anything to feel better just don't ask me to change and that is so true that is me that is so many people it's all of us really it change is really really hard and there are many parts of my life that I've not been able to change that you know I've yet to be in enough pain to really focus on and I'm not perfect. I'm not like wise. I'm not solved. I'm not fixed because there is no destination. As soon as I put a destination in my place, I begin to fail. So even happiness,

am I happy now? That's not really what I'm looking for. I'm looking for some kind of stillness and some kind of calm to create the work I want to make. to retreat, to create the work, to retreat. And as soon as I go, well, this is dependent on this thing, this is dependent on that thing, I'm going to fail. Because you mentioned earlier about like sitting with yourself, well, I meditate irregularly for probably not long enough. But there is only meditation and not meditation.

You can't do it badly and you can't do it well, in my opinion. but I have been in scenarios where I have had to meditate for long periods of time, which is the most basic form of sitting with yourself. And what I learned is every single feeling goes away and comes back and goes away, comes back and goes away. So as soon as I go, well, you'll be happy if you get to this place, I'm always going to feel discontented. And knowing me the way I know me, when I get there,

I'm going to be pissed off anyway. Something will have annoyed me. someone will have sat next to me with their dog or someone will be talking too loudly or won't be wearing headphones or you know whatever it is so now

here now talking to you or whatever I'm doing that's the destination and you know trying to be present you know I've got stuff to do today and tomorrow and a week and a month and a year

and if I live there that's anxiety and if I worry about what I said on the podcast I recorded yesterday, that's depression. But here, now, chatting to Stu Goldsmith, you know, grateful to be on Comedians' Comedian podcast, grateful to, I don't know,

have my cup of tea next to me. That's as far as I'm really willing to look. Thanks, man. That is so, like, although that was framed as this question is not answerable, that was a sensational, answer. Oh, that's very kind. I mean, yeah, I'm just, I'm very grateful. And I think that's what makes the chapter about Lou emotional is because it sort of represents so much that has been given to me

for free by people who were under no obligation to give me. To give me. me the things like nothing I have said to you has not been said before. You know, and this is not new. I've got this from, you know, alcoholics and friends and books and YouTube videos and meditation instruction. All of it was free. And a lot of it is thousands of years old. Some of it's quite recent. And I'm sort of overwhelmed. by the fact that when you just sort of put good into the world, it's its own reward. And so to talk about Lou in that way, I'm sort of, I'm talking about the whole family of hundreds and hundreds of people who have, for no personal gain, helped me.

And that applies to comedy as well. Fuck, I used to be a right pain in the ass. And I really try to say, like, John, the show's going to go up 10 minutes late because we're struggling at the bar. And old me was like, fuck's sake. Pub closes at 11. Do you think I'm addicted to this? I'm going to be late. New me goes,

I'm so grateful there are people working really hard to serve at a bar who are like working their ass off to try and get this show up 10 minutes late as opposed to half an hour late or whatever, you know. It's the same situation. It's just how I choose to interpret it. And finally then, what's next with your standard? up? Are you writing stand up at the moment? Are you more, the life you depict in the, in the book,

towards the end of the book is, this is my week, it's podcasting, it's doing this podcast, this podcasting, this writing? Are you, do you still need stand up? Do you seek stand up in the same way? Here we hit upon a very difficult element of the sort of this way of trying to be present because sometimes you have to think about the future. You have to. like I can say, you know, I'm not going to worry about the train tomorrow, but I do have to buy my ticket today. You know, there are things I do today. So the interaction with tomorrow is quite interesting in this framework

because, of course, I need to know, you know, I have to plan. I have to, this stuff takes months and years to write sometimes. So I do have to engage with tomorrow. And the power of now actually is really good. good on this? Like, what's the difference between being present and what's the difference between it, like, how do you use your brain to plan without getting into anxiety? So, I, you know, to be totally honest, I've got some gigs booked in this year, just festivals comparing, and I'm really, if I go to that place, I very anxious and I dread them.

But I also know this is how I always feel before, you know, after taking a break from stand-up, as I forget that I can do it. And I know I can use my mind in a more useful way to tune into what it feels like walking off stage where I'm being like, what was all the fuss about? You're surrounded by friends, you know, even if the whole gig is a complete disaster,

still your friend booking it, who will sort of tease you about it. I haven't written stand-up for quite a while, while I had to cancel a load of tour dates from my last tour just because I couldn't face it, but those dates hadn't been put on sale yet, so it was sort of not like a big drama. So I'm sure I will do stand up again at some point. I don't know what that's going to look like now. Me and Ellis have just launched a sort of an expanded Ellis and John world with a Patreon and videos every month.

A cinematic universe? Yeah, the Ellison John's a cinematic universe. So we're basically like making an episode of a TV show a month because sure as hell no one in TV wanted to do that. And we just thought, well,

you know, we have the power now. We have the technology. It's not, doesn't break the bank to film three people pissing around for a day. So that's available on Patreon. We set up a production company. so we will be hopefully bringing on board some more podcasts. That's as far as I'm looking, really.

I've got book tour, which will be almost over by the time this goes out. And that's like enough to not sort of feel overwhelmed. And I've got a new series of How Do You Cope, which is out now. And I'm sort of looking, I've, you know, that me who can't get, down to the laptop to write, I kick in with quite critical, like, you've done fuck all. And then actually when I list it, it's like, no, you've done a lot over the last year. That's a lot of stuff. So I'll probably have a slight fallow period over this summer and Christmas maybe. But I say that. And then I, you know, I have my two days off in a row and I think, God, God, is this?

is it this? Is it you again? Like I obsess. Let's think about like the destination, the destination of a week off. And I don't mean that, you know, I'm not working nine to five, but, you know, with a week with nothing to think of,

and as soon as I get there, it's like, oh no, this is why you work to avoid this. So it's that constant push pull of like... I remember like being very beguiled, as were many people by the title of the book, the four-hour work, and going, oh, could I optimize my life such that I only do a four-hour work week? And any time you get even slightly close to it, you cut a thing out and you're like,

I've got free time now. Oh, actually, a four-hour work week would be hell. This would be awful. Like, optimization, when did we start with all of this? Well, I mean, I guess it's tough. Maybe it started in the 80s with like deregulation and free markets and all that. like because essentially optimization means more money or it means maybe better fitness or longer life. And I was listening to an interview with my favorite musician, Bonnie Prince Billy, because I was

interviewing him and I was doing a bit of research and he said, I'm not interested in perfection. I'm not interested in anything even striving for perfection. And I was like, fuck yeah. Yes. like why am I beating myself up about not doing the perfect stand-up show when it is not possible? It's not, as soon as you let go of perfection, it's like, oh, wow, it's process, it's work. And that was so important to me to hear him say, I'm not interested in perfection. I'm not interested in anything that's even striving for perfection.

Oh, okay. I can live with that. So that was John Robbins. Right? Right? Thirst is out now in all good bookshops, and it's also available as an audiobook, Johnrobbins.com for all the information you need. And Instagram is at Nomadic underscore Reverie.

You can follow at ComcomPod as well, because we've got on Instagram, and we no longer collab on all the posts between my own one, Stuart Goldsmith comedy, and Comcompod. because we made a decision not to do that. And Comcompot is doing very nicely on its own, thanks. So you can get loads of clips, including clips with John, from that.

If you enjoyed this episode, patreon.com.com.com. We'll get you all your extras on stress being a decision, why alcohol never solves what it claims to, and we will hear the inside story of John recording the recordioing the audiobook. So go to patreon.com.com and support the pod there. Stuart Goldsmith.com to see me live and join the mainlist and all the rest of it. Thank you to John for coming on the show and being so thoughtful and considered and articulate. And honestly, I can't recommend the book enough.

You heard how much I was about it. I always, you know, if you're podcasting, you're interviewing someone and you talk about their book, and you go, hey, everyone, it's a great book. There's no one on the show has written a bad book, right? This is something else. So check it out. Thank you to Evil Producer Callan. Thanks to Susie Lewis, the award nominated Susie Lewis.

And thank you as well to our insider producers, L.A. Oh no, I was going to try and change it up each time, but it's not fair to tell people who read their names and then just do their initials. I'll do it as one word as if I were German. Thanks to our insider producers. Lukaka Roger Spiller, I cave, Dave, Daniel, Palky, Simmence, Sam Allen, J. Lucas, Gary McClellan, Chris Swarbrick, Dave McKearroll, Paul Swaddle,

Alex Wormall, James Burry Koppf. That, I believe, means head. And a big thank you to our special insider executive producers, Neil Beghead Peters, and Andrew. Headwig, Dennett. I've lost my marbles and to the super secret one as well. Thank you. Will I post-amble at you? What's going on? Yes, I will. I went to see a thing last night that I want to tell you about, and it's going to sound, there's a danger it sounds boring. I'll try and keep it as succinct as possible,

because it is a worthy thing that you should do. And the danger with any kind of activism, political action, climate action, all the rest of it is a thing that I call climate action. It's a climate cringe where you say to people, hey, something sensible like, the building's on fire, we should leave the building or try and put the fire out. But you say it in the tone, come on, guys. And I think that's murder, right? I'll call that climate cringe. And there is a risk of that. Still with me?

This isn't a cringy thing. This is an interesting documentary film that you should watch. You should. Come on, guys. Go to, what's the, what's the, hang on, I'll find the thing. It's N. N-E-Brieving.org. Go to n-ebriefing.org to find out about the National Emergency Briefing.

Do you remember those comedy clips with people like Joe Brand and Kiri and Nish translating climate science in a funny way? Well, the people behind those, Nick Aldridge and his brother, whose name escapes me, Simon, I think, they have come up with this amazing thing. It's a national emergency briefing. It was like nine or ten top scientists in their field, briefing a load of people outside the houses of parliament or nearby inviting members of parliament to go. Very few of them did, but there's a great big audience for it.

They taped it and now you can see a screening. You can't watch it online. You have to go. If you go to the website, any briefing.org, you can find a screening map and find out where it's on near you. And I'm looking at it now and it's on near you. It's on everywhere. Are you in Norway? It's on in Norway.

Actually, it may not be on in Norway. What did I just think it was in Norway? Well, it's British. Oh, there's not. Norway on the map, but that's not where it is. That's embarrassing. But it is, well, if you're in a hull, you're going to get in touch with them and start one, because I can't find one near hull, but almost everywhere else, there's a lot of them on. So what it is, is edited highlights from these speeches, from the scientist, difficult information said in a very meaningful

apazite, easily digestible, accessible way. And then the bits with the presenter, Chris Packham, is that he's sort of hosting it. There's video footage, Gogglebox style almost, a slightly different tone, of him watching sections with members of the public, celebrities, Adam Buxton's on it,

Adam Buxton is on it, Jennifer Saunders, Deborah Meadden, loads of loads of other people, watching the clips and then responding to them and going, how did that make you feel? What was that about?

This is, it is a should, it is a come on, guys, because I think it is very necessary. And when I went in to go and watch it myself, part of me felt like, well, this isn't the thing that I'd choose to do for fun. but it's really good

it's really interesting there were stuff I did know I did know and a lot of stuff I didn't know and the point of it is to get everyone to watch this and put pressure on the government to because as they say in the film our response to the climate emergency needs to be not on a pandemic level response

it needs to be on a World War II level and so what they want is to get this film shown across all platforms all channels on national TV, they want the government to do that and go, right, everyone should see this, because everyone should see just how much this is going to affect every aspect of British life. Apologies if you're outside of Britain. Just apologies because it's so great. That would have seemed a bittersweet years ago. But this one is a British one, but it's of interest to everyone because all of the climate shocks that they're discussing

will apply to everyone in different ways. So it is, I will say, and I don't know if this is because I'm going to, quite invested already. I didn't find it a painful watch. I found it a fascinating watch, but if you're less read up on some of it, elements of it are painful. And they are painful and they should be painful. But it's not a hard watch. It's not like a, I don't think you come away from it like you would after something like, what was that? Was it blackfish or something? What's the, or, you know, like real hardcore bleeding activist, like visibly bleeding type activism films. it's not that kind of a tone, but it's very accessible, very digestible,

and you really should get yourself to a screening, start a screening, especially if you're in Hull, and then pressure your MP to get at the very least watch that fucking thing, and at the bare reasonable minimum, pressure the government themselves to get it shown. So that is a slightly more serious post-amble that I would normally do, but, you know, Robbins is a popular lad, and I hope a lot of you will have, listened to this bit. So crack on with that and don't come on guys instead just fucking crack on. All right. All right. And exciting news. I've just recorded some blind, absolute blind of an episode which I'll tell you more about soon, which interfaces with that

in an interesting way. But enough said for now. I'll speak to you soon. Try and retain in the meantime, not only a consistent sense of self, but if you are going on stage, if you are yourself a performer, a comedian or any other public speaker. As John said, and this is the one bit that I will write on a, I'll write it on a strip of tape and put it above my monitor. You don't have to pretend anything. So let's all not pretend anything and I'll speak to you next week. Bye for now.