John Mulaney gets real about post-sobriety impression of drugs

John Mulaney claims his prior addictions never crossed his mind seeing his wife Olivia Munn's painkillers.

The Saturday Night Live alum, 42, made an appearance on Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson’s SiriusXM podcast Where Everybody Knows Your Name in a recent episode, discussing his sobriety journey.

Mulaney shared how despite having his wife Munn's medications in his hand, he didn't feel the urge for a relapse.

"I brought her a tray with apple juice, something she wanted to eat that her mom had made in the kitchen, and then it had Oxycontin and some sort of nerve medication and a Xanax, which they also gave just for rest and recovery," the Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney star told Danson of a particular instance in Munn's breast cancer recovery.

"It never crossed my mind that I was holding these medications in my hand. The obsession of it was gone. I thought, 'Oh, I'm so far beyond that, and I can be a good butler with the best client.'"

Mulaney, who went sober from cocaine and alcohol in 2005 and even had a relapse in 2020, opened up about how far he feels from it in his current attempts at maintaining sobriety.

"People stay the same in so many ways and I'm still the same person I was when I was like, five, in so many ways, but I will admit, it's a huge change. Just a huge way of looking at everything. I'm shocked I did it. I'm shocked I was able to do it."

"Become sober?" Danson asked.

"To actually stick to it in every way. To not have, 'Well, I still do this.' To not, ‘Well, I'm trying,’" he said. "Like, nothing wrong or shameful about relapse. I just mean I'm shocked, always, that it landed."

Danson then asked Mulaney if he ever feels "aggrieved" enough to be tempted by drugs or if he can see those triggers "two miles out?"

"Oh yeah, I’m very lucky that life's been so great that it's always 30 miles out," Mulaney explained, "But I'll be doing something and I go, 'Huh, you really want to be this exhausted, stretched thin, a little aggrieved?'"

"The word 'entitled' pops into your brain?" Danson asked Mulaney to elaborate.

"A little bit, yeah," Mulaney replied. "Luckily those things are miles and miles off. That's part of it, is just always knowing, so addicted to the self-control of it in some ways and so happy that I'm always present when I'm with my kids and Olivia and friends and everything."

"I was in a bad neighborhood of my brain for a while. You always have respect for it, that it's still there. You go, 'I see you. I know you're there. But that's not my daily life,'" Mulaney shared.