Josh Brolin has a penchant for nicotine pouches, and he's not afraid to talk about it.
Brolin, 56, admitted on Marc Maron's “WTF” show that while he has stopped chewing tobacco, pouches have become a constant in his life and are found “all over the house.”
“My wife was hearing this in the middle of the night,” he said before imitating the chewing sound.
“I don't even know I'm doing it. I'm asleep. I have a cyst on my lip, and I'm not 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 was concerned that his young children might start picking up discarded bags, but he thought it could be a good learning lesson.
“if [my daughter] “If she puts it in her mouth she will get sick,” he said. “Instead of stopping, I try to teach them: ‘Don’t do it.’”
“Stay away from Daddy-” Maron joked.
“Dad needs this,” Brolin added.
When Maron asked if Brolin was concerned that the bags might be harmful to 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 had previously used nicotine lozenges but switched to sachets after experiencing negative side effects.
“They taste like gasoline, and it affected them badly,” Brolin said of the lozenges. “I used to keep it close to me… between my gums and my tooth line. I got seven cavities.
He found himself using questionable bags while filming in the Middle East recently.
“We are in Jordan, and [this guy] He comes up to me and says, “I have some.” It has a skull and crossbones on top…and they're 40-milligram packages,” Brolin recalls. “And I said, 'I can't do that.'
“And then, one day, I was running low, and I wasn't out yet. I probably had four or five more boxes left. And I had his stuff in my pocket, and I went to the gym. And I'm coming back from the gym.”
Brolin didn't want to waste his own bags, so he tried the ones he was given.
“I put the thing in my mouth 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 was literally out of my mind. It was crazy.
