Josh Brolin has an affinity for nicotine pouches, and he isn’t afraid to talk about it.
Brolin, 56, admitted on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast that while he gave up chewing tobacco, the pouches have become a constant in his life, and he has them “all over the house.”
“My wife would hear this in the middle of the night,” he said before mimicking a chewing noise.
“I don’t even know I’m doing it. I’m asleep. I have a pouch in my lip, and I’m not f—ing lying — 24 hours a day.
“Then I started taking them out and putting them on the bedside table.”
Nicotine pouches contain a powder made of nicotine, flavorings and other ingredients, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The powder dissolves in the mouth, and nicotine is absorbed through the gums and lining of the mouth.
He worried his young children might start picking up the discarded pouches but figured it could be a good learning lesson.
“If [my daughter] puts it in her mouth, she’s gonna get sick,” he said. “And instead of stopping, I try and teach them, ‘Don’t do that.’”
“Stay away from Daddy’s s—,” Maron joked.
“Daddy needs that,” Brolin added.
When Maron asked if Brolin was worried the pouches may be bad for him, the “Brothers” star was quick to answer “no.”
Brolin detailed some of his struggles with addiction in his upcoming memoir, “From Under the Truck.”
He previously used nicotine lozenges but switched to pouches after experiencing negative side effects.
“They taste like gasoline, and they got a punch to them,” Brolin said of the lozenges. “I used to keep them up by my … between my gum and my tooth line. I got seven cavities.”
He found himself using questionable pouches while filming in the Middle East recently.
“We’re in Jordan, and [this guy] 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 recalled. “And I said, ‘I can’t do that.’
“And then, one day, I start running out, and I haven’t quite run out. I probably have four or five more tins left. And I have his thing in my pocket, and I had gone to the gym. And I’m running back from the gym.”
Brolin didn’t want to waste his own pouches, so he tried the ones given to him.
“I stick 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. I literally was s—ing my brains out. It was f—ing crazy.”
