Taken from JRE #1973 w/Joey Diaz:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7nqAYG35Az9bzEkknwhA6B?si=fd951baae43541a2

When I was on the Xanax, it was basically during the pandemic.

I had 10,000 of those things at the house.

Because he was sending me 90 a month from 2012 on automatic monthly.

When I had my little situation at the comedy store that we goofed about, that was not a...

There's no way I should be in a standing walking 10 count.

That's what that was that night, when I had to follow Morgan Murphy.

Dog, I went up to, I asked Pauly Shaw, I told you this story, And then we laughed about it, but dog it now thinking about it.

I should have done something I went to the comedy store.

I think you had you were coming in later Yes, you were coming in later because on Saturdays.

I used to do the close the original room uh-huh Talking bullshit with Pauly everybody's in the back No reefer maybe a joint before I got there.

You know, Saturday night, just with the girls.

I get there, they say, Joey, you're up next.

I walk to the thing, and as I'm walking, I walk up the steps to the original room and Morgan's on stage and Paulie's standing there laughing at her And I walk up and I'm like damn.

I don't fucking feel good Like this is not working.

I was starting to get anxiety I couldn't breathe I couldn't breathe, But I went to look at that window for years whenever I had anxiety in the original room I had a window.

When I'm on stage I got a window on the right remember?

That day particular when I went in there I didn't see a fucking window so I was waiting for Morgan to get off and all of a sudden I got this anxiety joy I couldn't breathe I couldn't fucking breathe so I walked down the stairs just to look at the door and I got worse it got worse I couldn't breathe I thought I was gonna fucking have a heart attack I go Paulie I can't get on stage I'm having a horrible anxiety attack.

But I didn't explain it to you correctly, because I was cracking a joke.

I remember walking past Paulie, and that's it, Joe.

And then I remember waking up on stage and people laughing, and I was probably on automatic pilot.

I had a bit that it was on automatic pilot

No it was a couple weeks after I went to the doctor and he goes what was that?

I kept having these little panic attacks, kept having these little panic attacks, little panic attacks.

I was okay I wasn't gonna go to a psychiatrist.

We were working our asses off We didn't know what the fuck was going on.

So I started taking this annex And it would help it a little bit.

I would take him on the road if I went on a plane or something like that What

You gotta remember to it was you're a walking contradiction.

I'm talking about myself, because you said it best.

I'm eating 2,000 milligrams of THC and scaring the fuck out of myself.

Then the Xanax, I would take the Xanax to calm me down.

Those edible weed sessions, when you do too many of them, I do think they make people very anxious.

I think they just shift the pole of your brain.

You know, I brought some water But now I eat him more to sleep.

I got him on a My big problem Joe is still to this day asleep So now 2 nights 3 nights a week.

what do you do you have a hard time sleeping because you're not tired do you have a hard time sleeping because you're not tired?

Do you have a hard time sleeping because you're thinking?

I'm not looking to stay up till 4, but I'm not going to bed at 930.

So I'm tired about 9, but I push the envelope a little bit.

I like to read maybe listen to music 11 11 30.

I'm like you I like to read shit on the computer 11 11 30 try to read it now They turn the TV off Once I go up there, bro I'm thinking about the guy who came to my house who asked me if he could take an orange, but he took 3 instead.

Yeah, and you're like, that was 11 years ago, Joey.

I think about the time I bombed in the original room following Don Mairero, like does it matter?

I think about the time I ate a bucket of dicks in North Carolina Chapel Hill does it matter does it really matter that you ate a bag of dicks you know I think a stupid shit yeah and I fall asleep eventually I'll tell you what help whoop I got the whoop watch to help me with recovery.

Because I was lifting and going to do jujitsu and my back would hurt.

So I want to figure out what kind of calories I could do and I won't go over those.

If I could do those 5 days a week, that's fine.

But I can't go in there, burn 800 fucking calories in jujitsu and expect a deadlift the next day.

It's helped me sleep better because I finally realized, oh, you slept 4 hours last night.

So I got it up from 4 and a half hours of sleep to 8 hours pretty much.

Last night I only slept like 5 because of the flight.

Don't get me wrong, once every 2 weeks, I have a little hiccup.

I go upstairs, I think of something, I go back down, I smoke some pot, I read and I go back up and I'm all right.

But when I was doing comedy, there was no sleep, Joe.

You know, everybody thought I would leave the store because I was going to do something bad.

Do you know why I was leaving the store before midnight?

Because Starbucks is open till midnight in Studio City, and God forbid I didn't catch my flat white before midnight.

God forbid I didn't catch my grande flat white before midnight, And then I'll call you tomorrow and tell you how I didn't sleep last night.

So you would drink coffee late into the night?

We would always have espresso after dinner.

Now I have an espresso at 5 and I'm not sleeping.

loved it because in my world it takes you up.

I eat a chocolate something, I can't fucking sleep that night now.

I really focused on my sleep the last couple years, especially since I got this whoop about 16, 17 months ago.

That's what's really improved in my life is the sleep.

If I go to jujitsu, I do the blue belt class, I need a nap check.

I need a little nap from 5 to 6, you know?

But when I started popping the Xanax the the high point was maybe May of during the pandemic Like I couldn't leave the house without popping his annex and then when I get in the car I pop another 1 And it would stay in your system.

Can't take sleeping pills, and I can't take the strong Xanax, so I have to take the little footballs But I was taking 8 to 10 of those motherfuckers a day

And then when I landed in Jersey, what had happened was, you know how you and Tom had that conversation about my tolerance?

Okay, that tolerance, dog, I think, as you could tell, I think a lot about this shit.

You had a conversation with me a couple years ago about Yor Romero getting punched in the face and his eye socket.

And when he got into the green room, when the doctor saw him after the fight, his eye socket was healed.

I think about when you were talking about my tolerance With the edibles and stuff now, let's get back to early Joe Diaz When I was a child the doctor would have to come to my house 2 days in a row for years They'd have to shoot me a penicillin on Monday and then come back on Tuesday and shoot me again because I would never take the penicillin.

You know, I had a lot of problems with my throat as a kid and whatever, fucking tonsils and shit.

So I was always in the hospital as a kid.

All those years, Joe, they would always have to shoot me 2 or 3 times with penicillin, the same penicillin they would give you 1 shot of, they'd have to shoot me.

And even alcohol, Because I could drink something with Jamie right now and I won't fall over.

But that's what's always pissed me off about alcohol.

That I could drink a few alcohol shots, feel okay, but then if I push the envelope, That's when I feel shitty.

But my tolerance with alcohol and with cocaine and alcohol, shit, I could drink a case of Budweiser cans.

My friend Johnny, you had a coke problem.

I always used to have to take him to the corner store, the liquor store, to get 40 ounces.

He would calm himself down with a big malt liquor.

He was always trying to like bring himself down.

So when the Xanax finally, what I realized when I got to Jersey that year, I got to Jersey August 9th or something, on your birth, August something.

2 days after I got the jersey, I had something like a weird, mild heart attack.

And that was because the Xanax turned on me.

I didn't realize that until I went to the knee surgery.

Because I couldn't sleep, and they tried to give me something to sleep, and the chick goes, you're, you're,

She told me you have to flip it so I had to read a Journal about this about Transitioning you just can't quit you can't grab a hole and you can't quit benzos.

Yeah, there's that You know you could die So what I had to do is take whatever I was eating which was a those things a day and work myself backwards

You know how it is with these fucking things.

book is a lot of soul searching, too, I'd imagine.

While I was doing it, I was fucked up as hell.

You did it while you were getting off the benzos?

I didn't even know I was withdrawing, like I said, until I went to, I did the knee surgery and something happened with my heart.

And 1 of the doctors came in and we started talking and he kept looking at me weird.

And I fucking, he gave me his card and I called him when I got out and he goes, come see me.

And he did a physical, and I went back to see him, blood, that type of shit, and he goes, everything was right, you know, everything was okay.

I don't know what, he put me on a heart monitor, And he goes, your heart's fine.

I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

And his assistant said, are you still taking the Xanax?

And she goes, that's what's going on with you.

I've just been using them since the pandemic started.

And that's when she goes, no, you got to stop withdrawing.

How long do you think it takes when you're on those things before you're addicted?

See, I would take them and then forget about them.

I would put them in my top pocket and then go to the store and not take them.

There was a lot of times I would take them, I would bring it with me In case I got like a little fucking, you know.

But Joe, the funny thing about this, if I tell you, this goes back to when I was a kid.

I was a little fucking fruitcake when I came from Cuba.

You know I sucked the pacifier after I was 6?

So after like I was 3, they took them away from you, but I'd hide them in strategic places.

And whenever shit got dange, I'd go over, suck it, put it down, and then I'd fucking go back to what was going on here.

So when I lived in 88th Street in New York City, my mom had a jukebox at the bar.

So every week the guy comes in and he gives you the old 45s.

Spanish music, you know, black music, rock music.

My mother had a great taste in the jukebox.

So I would have fucking boxes of singles.

And if you go to 205 West, even today, you pull up to it, you'll see where I live, where I grew up right there on the third floor, but you'll see that there's a, like a parking garage there.

They never really, it's like an old building.

Now it's redone again, they did something.

So whenever I had anxiety, I would go upstairs to suck on the pacifier.

I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't cool enough to put them on the street yet.

I would, later in time, I would put them on the street and I would suck on them when I was playing basketball or something.

If things, if they called the file on me and I would panic.

I would go upstairs and I had a window that they couldn't see from below because it was the back of the building.

So it was like an indentation and all our windows, you can't see that from there.

So I would take those 45s and I would whip them.

I would just sit there for 10 minutes and just whip them, whip them, whip them.

And I'd hear people downstairs, what the fuck, stop it you fucking scumbag.

And then I'd run downstairs and all these kids would be holding on to their heads and shit They're like, where'd you go?

And I go I went upstairs to go to the bathroom.

You missed it The crazy guys throwing records at us.

But back to it, that's how I started going upstairs to suck on the pacifier.

You wanted something to, like, help you out.

I always had something to smoothen the humps and the bumps.


Speaker 0: The Joe Rogan Experience

Speaker 1: When I was on the Xanax, it was basically during the pandemic. I had 10,000 of those things at the house. 10,000? Because he was sending me 90 a month from 2012 on automatic monthly. So you

Speaker 0: just stockpiled them?

Speaker 1: They were just going in the closet. They were just going in the fucking...

Speaker 0: When did you take it?

Speaker 1: 2012 was when I got it prescribed. When I had my little situation at the comedy store that we goofed about, that was not a... That's not... That was not good. There's no way I should be in a standing walking 10 count.

That's what that was that night, when I had to follow Morgan Murphy.

Speaker 0: A standing walking 10 count?

Speaker 1: Dog, I went up to, I asked Pauly Shaw, I told you this story, And then we laughed about it, but dog it now thinking about it. I should have done something I went to the comedy store. I'm in the back you weren't there. I think you had you were coming in later Yes, you were coming in later because on Saturdays. I used to do the close the original room uh-huh Talking bullshit with Pauly everybody's in the back No reefer maybe a joint before I got there.

You know, Saturday night, just with the girls. I get there, they say, Joey, you're up next. I walk to the thing, and as I'm walking, I walk up the steps to the original room and Morgan's on stage and Paulie's standing there laughing at her And I walk up and I'm like damn. I don't fucking feel good Like this is not working. I was starting to get anxiety I couldn't breathe I couldn't breathe, But I went to look at that window for years whenever I had anxiety in the original room I had a window.

When I'm on stage I got a window on the right remember? Yeah. And we can look out the sunset. Yeah. I was always good.

That day particular when I went in there I didn't see a fucking window so I was waiting for Morgan to get off and all of a sudden I got this anxiety joy I couldn't breathe I couldn't fucking breathe so I walked down the stairs just to look at the door and I got worse it got worse I couldn't breathe I thought I was gonna fucking have a heart attack I go Paulie I can't get on stage I'm having a horrible anxiety attack. He goes, I just went up, dude. And I walked up there, and I told you. But I didn't explain it to you correctly, because I was cracking a joke. I woke up at the 12-minute mark.

I remember walking past Paulie, and that's it, Joe. That's it. And then I remember waking up on stage and people laughing, and I was probably on automatic pilot. I had a bit that it was on automatic pilot

Speaker 0: that was a little scary.

Speaker 1: So that's

Speaker 0: when you got on Xanax?

Speaker 1: No it was a couple weeks after I went to the doctor and he goes what was that? I kept having these little panic attacks, kept having these little panic attacks, little panic attacks. I was okay I wasn't gonna go to a psychiatrist. We were working our asses off We didn't know what the fuck was going on. So I started taking this annex And it would help it a little bit.

I would take him on the road if I went on a plane or something like that What

Speaker 0: does it do for you?

Speaker 1: You gotta remember to it was you're a walking contradiction. I'm talking about myself, because you said it best. I'm eating 2,000 milligrams of THC and scaring the fuck out of myself. Right? You're walking around fucking scaring.

Then the Xanax, I would take the Xanax to calm me down. Off the anxiety. Come on,

Speaker 0: man. That's not gonna work. Those edible weed sessions, when you do too many of them, I do think they make people very anxious. I think they just shift the pole of your brain.

Speaker 1: You know, I brought some water But now I eat him more to sleep. I got him on a My big problem Joe is still to this day asleep So now 2 nights 3 nights a week. I drink a bodybuilder Sleeping thing

Speaker 0: what do you do you have a hard time sleeping because you're not tired do you have a hard time sleeping because you're not tired? Do you have a hard time sleeping because you're thinking?

Speaker 1: I'm tired till 9.30. And I look, come on man.

Speaker 0: It's like the comedy timing.

Speaker 1: I don't want to go to bed at 930. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I never want to go to bed at 8 o'clock. That's when you know you're almost done.

Yeah. I want to bed at 8. Fuck you, man. Yeah. I'm not looking to stay up till 4, but I'm not going to bed at 930.

So I'm tired about 9, but I push the envelope a little bit. I like to read maybe listen to music 11 11 30. I'm like you I like to read shit on the computer 11 11 30 try to read it now They turn the TV off Once I go up there, bro I'm thinking about the guy who came to my house who asked me if he could take an orange, but he took 3 instead. He took 9. He took 9 instead.

Yeah, and you're like, that was 11 years ago, Joey. I think about the time I bombed in the original room following Don Mairero, like does it matter? I think about the time I ate a bucket of dicks in North Carolina Chapel Hill does it matter does it really matter that you ate a bag of dicks you know I think a stupid shit yeah and I fall asleep eventually I'll tell you what help whoop I got the whoop watch to help me with recovery. Because I was lifting and going to do jujitsu and my back would hurt. So I want to figure out what kind of calories I could do and I won't go over those.

If I could do those 5 days a week, that's fine. But I can't go in there, burn 800 fucking calories in jujitsu and expect a deadlift the next day. I don't have that. So I got the Whoop watch. The Whoop watch put me on to sleep.

It's helped me sleep better because I finally realized, oh, you slept 4 hours last night. No wonder you feel like shit.

Speaker 0: Right.

Speaker 1: So now I'm in contest with whoop. So I got it up from 4 and a half hours of sleep to 8 hours pretty much. Last night I only slept like 5 because of the flight. But I'm sleeping 8 hours now.

Speaker 0: That's great.

Speaker 1: Yeah, now I'm sleeping 11.30 to 8. Don't get me wrong, once every 2 weeks, I have a little hiccup. I go upstairs, I think of something, I go back down, I smoke some pot, I read and I go back up and I'm all right. But when I was doing comedy, there was no sleep, Joe. Yeah.

Do you want me to tell you why? Why? 8 cups of espresso a day. You know, everybody thought I would leave the store because I was going to do something bad. Do you know why I was leaving the store before midnight?

Think. Why? Because Starbucks is open till midnight in Studio City, and God forbid I didn't catch my flat white before midnight. God forbid I didn't catch my grande flat white before midnight, And then I'll call you tomorrow and tell you how I didn't sleep last night.

Speaker 0: So you would drink coffee late into the night? We would always have espresso after dinner.

Speaker 1: Yeah, no. Now I have an espresso at 5 and I'm not sleeping.

Speaker 0: That's so weird. I could sleep right after having 10I

Speaker 1: loved it because in my world it takes you up. Yeah. So you catch it on the way down. I eat a chocolate something, I can't fucking sleep that night now. I really focused on my sleep the last couple years, especially since I got this whoop about 16, 17 months ago.

That's what's really improved in my life is the sleep. And I've been taking naps too. If I go to jujitsu, I do the blue belt class, I need a nap check. I need a little nap from 5 to 6, you know? That's where I am.

But when I started popping the Xanax the the high point was maybe May of during the pandemic Like I couldn't leave the house without popping his annex and then when I get in the car I pop another 1 And it would stay in your system. Thank God. I wasn't drinking

Speaker 0: and what was that doing for you though? What's the feeling like

Speaker 1: calming me down? I? Can't take sleeping pills, and I can't take the strong Xanax, so I have to take the little footballs But I was taking 8 to 10 of those motherfuckers a day

Speaker 0: Jesus

Speaker 1: And then when I landed in Jersey, what had happened was, you know how you and Tom had that conversation about my tolerance? Yeah. Okay, that tolerance, dog, I think, as you could tell, I think a lot about this shit. You had a conversation with me a couple years ago about Yor Romero getting punched in the face and his eye socket. And when he got into the green room, when the doctor saw him after the fight, his eye socket was healed.

It was healing. Healing, okay. I think about when you were talking about my tolerance With the edibles and stuff now, let's get back to early Joe Diaz When I was a child the doctor would have to come to my house 2 days in a row for years They'd have to shoot me a penicillin on Monday and then come back on Tuesday and shoot me again because I would never take the penicillin. You know, I had a lot of problems with my throat as a kid and whatever, fucking tonsils and shit. So I was always in the hospital as a kid.

I was a sickly kid till I was about 8. All those years, Joe, they would always have to shoot me 2 or 3 times with penicillin, the same penicillin they would give you 1 shot of, they'd have to shoot me. So I don't know what- So you've

Speaker 0: always had a high tolerance?

Speaker 1: Always. Interesting. Except for alcohol. And even alcohol, Because I could drink something with Jamie right now and I won't fall over. I don't want to do it.

But that's what's always pissed me off about alcohol. That I could drink a few alcohol shots, feel okay, but then if I push the envelope, That's when I feel shitty. But my tolerance with alcohol and with cocaine and alcohol, shit, I could drink a case of Budweiser cans. So what I said.

Speaker 0: My friend Johnny, you had a coke problem. I always used to have to take him to the corner store, the liquor store, to get 40 ounces. He would calm himself down with a big malt liquor. He was always trying to like bring himself down. 22 beers

Speaker 1: and it would calm you down. So when the Xanax finally, what I realized when I got to Jersey that year, I got to Jersey August 9th or something, on your birth, August something. 2 days after I got the jersey, I had something like a weird, mild heart attack. My heart didn't stop pounding. And that was because the Xanax turned on me.

I didn't realize that until I went to the knee surgery. And 1 of the assistants caught it. Because I couldn't sleep, and they tried to give me something to sleep, and the chick goes, you're, you're,

Speaker 0: withdrawing. Oh, from benzos.

Speaker 1: She goes, you're withdrawing, naturally. That's why your heart beat's going up. That's why you're fucked up.

Speaker 0: That's very dangerous for those. So then

Speaker 1: She told me you have to flip it so I had to read a Journal about this about Transitioning you just can't quit you can't grab a hole and you can't quit benzos. Yeah, there's that You know you could die So what I had to do is take whatever I was eating which was a those things a day and work myself backwards

Speaker 0: Mmm, How long did it take you?

Speaker 1: 6 months. Wow. Worked myself backwards. Fucking tough to write, man. I'm sure.

You know how it is with these fucking things. You gotta dig deep and ask questions. Yeah, a

Speaker 0: book is a lot of soul searching, too, I'd imagine.

Speaker 1: Yeah, no. While I was doing it, I was fucked up as hell. That's why I figured I'd do it then.

Speaker 0: You did it while you were getting off the benzos?

Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I was just... I just moved. I did the knee surgery. It was like a thousand things. I didn't even know I was withdrawing, like I said, until I went to, I did the knee surgery and something happened with my heart.

And 1 of the doctors came in and we started talking and he kept looking at me weird. He was a Spanish dude. And I fucking, he gave me his card and I called him when I got out and he goes, come see me. Something wasn't right that night. And he did a physical, and I went back to see him, blood, that type of shit, and he goes, everything was right, you know, everything was okay.

I don't know what, he put me on a heart monitor, And he goes, your heart's fine. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. And his assistant said, are you still taking the Xanax? And I go, yeah. And she goes, that's what's going on with you.

Look at the charts, Doc. He's been on them since 2012. And I go, no. I've just been using them since the pandemic started. And that's when she goes, no, you got to stop withdrawing.

I didn't even know. I just had a horrible fucking feeling.

Speaker 0: How long do you think it takes when you're on those things before you're addicted? 2

Speaker 1: weeks, maybe. Really? Well, I didn't... See, I would take them and then forget about them. I would put them in my top pocket and then go to the store and not take them.

And then I would just wash them. There was a lot of times I would take them, I would bring it with me In case I got like a little fucking, you know. But Joe, the funny thing about this, if I tell you, this goes back to when I was a kid. In the simplest way. You ready for this?

I was a little fucking fruitcake when I came from Cuba. You know I sucked the pacifier after I was 6? Mm-hmm. So after like I was 3, they took them away from you, but I'd hide them in strategic places. And whenever shit got dange, I'd go over, suck it, put it down, and then I'd fucking go back to what was going on here.

So when I lived in 88th Street in New York City, my mom had a jukebox at the bar. So every week the guy comes in and he gives you the old 45s. Is that what they're called? 45s? So I don't know what they were.

They were all different types. Spanish music, you know, black music, rock music. My mother had a great taste in the jukebox. So I would have fucking boxes of singles. I lived on the third floor.

And if you go to 205 West, even today, you pull up to it, you'll see where I live, where I grew up right there on the third floor, but you'll see that there's a, like a parking garage there. They never really, it's like an old building. Now it's redone again, they did something. When we were kids, we played back there. So whenever I had anxiety, I would go upstairs to suck on the pacifier.

I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't cool enough to put them on the street yet. I would, later in time, I would put them on the street and I would suck on them when I was playing basketball or something. If things, if they called the file on me and I would panic. I would go upstairs and I had a window that they couldn't see from below because it was the back of the building. So it was like an indentation and all our windows, you can't see that from there.

So I would take those 45s and I would whip them. They're like fucking boomerangs. I would just sit there for 10 minutes and just whip them, whip them, whip them. And I'd hear people downstairs, what the fuck, stop it you fucking scumbag. What's going on?

And then I'd run downstairs and all these kids would be holding on to their heads and shit They're like, where'd you go? And I go I went upstairs to go to the bathroom. You missed it The crazy guys throwing records at us. Do you know how long I did that for? I did that for about a year.

I threw records at those motherfuckers. I caught him. I did so many things to those kids. They never knew it was me. But back to it, that's how I started going upstairs to suck on the pacifier.

So I always had something. You know what I'm saying? Like, I always had my little...

Speaker 0: You wanted something to, like, help you out.

Speaker 1: I always had something to smoothen the humps and the bumps. I didn't know that shit existed.

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Joey Diaz on Quitting Xanax