Josh Brolin Talks About His Constant Nicotine Use: ‘Even When I’m Asleep’

Actor Josh Brolin, 56, with credits in The Goonies and No Country for Old Men, has been open about his far-extreme habit for nicotine, using them “24 hours a day,” he said. The actor joins Marc Maron’s WTF podcast Thursday and is talking to Marc about the incessant nature of his nicotine through pouches. “Even when I am sleeping,” he explained, “I am using them.”.

“I’ve got a pouch in my lip, and I’m not f–king lying, 24 hours a day,” Brolin said during the interview. He further revealed how he would even remove the pouches at night only to put them on his bedside table. “Then I started taking them out and putting them on the bedside table.”

A Sleeping Nicotine Fix

Brolin confessed more in saying that his addiction has gotten so bad that he even resorts to nicotine pouches even while asleep. “My wife would hear this in the middle of the night,” Brolin shared, demonstrating how he pops open a Zyn nicotine pouch. “I don’t even know I’m doing it, I’m asleep.”

Yet at the same time Brolin frets over the amount of exposure that a cigarette has to his kids. “My kid would pick it up at 2 years old, which is really—maybe there’s not any nicotine, maybe there’s not any danger, but if she puts it in her mouth, she’s gonna get sick,” he admitted. “And instead of stopping, I try and teach them, ‘Don’t do that. Stay away from daddy’s s–t. Daddy needs that.'”

From Lozenges to Pouches

Brolin had been using nicotine lozenges before he quit smoking to use his way to transition to nicotine pouches. But he ended up with a serious case of cavities – seven of them. “They disappear in two seconds, but they taste like gasoline, and there’s a punch to them,” he said. “I used to keep them up between my gum and my tooth line.”

The cavities sent Brolin into pouches, but not without a nasty nicotine lozenge dabble that took its toll. “I got seven cavities. That’s why I switched to [pouches]. There’s a ton of sugar [in lozenges],” Brolin said.

The Pain of Nicotine on the Go

Another weird and terrifying experience Brolin shared happened abroad. The actor was shooting a movie in Jordan and ran out of his usual nicotine pouches. A local merchant approached him with an alternative, but unfortunately, the dosage was much stronger than he was used to.

We’re in Jordan, and he comes up to me, and he says, ‘I have some,’ and it has a skull and crossbones on the top, and it’s 40-milligram packets,” Brolin said. “And I said, ‘I can’t do that.’ Yet with a dwindling supply of his own pouches, Brolin agreed to give it a shot.

“I put the thing in my mouth for no more, and I swear to God on my kids, for no more than 20 seconds, and I had to cancel dinner that night,” Brolin said. “I literally was s—ting my brains out.”

The Addictive Nature of Nicotine

In fact, Brolin’s nicotine addiction may not be a new problem; he said earlier that he becomes addicted to nicotine lozenges and caused his dental problem. His talk of how the high-dosage pouches ‘really take it up a notch’ reveals the intensity of the habit.

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