Comedian Nikki Glaser’s Sobriety Journey in Her Own Words

Comedian Nikki Glaser has been open about her journey with sobriety since she stopped drinking alcohol in 2011.

“I drank every single night of my life and it was, like, the only thing I looked forward to in my life,” Glaser said in a December 2024 interview with CBS ahead of her first time hosting the 82nd annual Golden Globe Awards on January 5, 2025.

Glaser has also quit smoking both cigarettes and marijuana and is also in recovery for several eating disorders. “For me, drinking was the worst of all of them,” she continued. “And it’s been kind of whack-a-mole with all of those. But those have never caused me as much pain as drinking did. So, I’m glad that drinking is just not an option.”

The Someday You’ll Die comedian has been sober for over a decade. Keep scrolling to see some of Glaser’s most candid quotes about getting sober — and staying that way:

October 2019

Glaser quit drinking on December 9, 2011 — at least, that’s what she said while appearing on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast in 2019. During the interview, the comedian recounted waking up with one of the worst hangovers of her life after only drinking two beers the night prior.

“I was at a point in my life where it was like, this has got to stop, because my hangovers were getting so ridiculous and debilitating for a whole day. I would black out from like, two drinks,” she recalled.

“I woke up the next morning and I was just the sickest I’ve ever been,” she continued. “So I was like in the shower, in the fetal position, thinking, ‘This is how I should feel if I’m dying. I really don’t want to feel this bad unless I am on my way out. So, I’m not doing this anymore.’ And I read a book and I was done.”

Glaser credited her sobriety to Allen Carr’s book The Easy Way to Stop Drinking.

October 2021

Glaser opened up about her history with disordered eating and smoking marijuana on an episode of “Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown” podcast.

“I quit drinking 10 years ago, then I was bulimic, then I had to quit doing bulimia because I was getting mouth acne that I just couldn’t stand,” she explained. “So then I started starving, exercising, exercising, bulimia, then smoking a ton of pot.”

Glaser noted then that she was thinking of putting down the pot for good as well. “Recently I just got to the point with pot where I was like, ‘It’s affecting my vocal cords, it smells, I’m burning holes in everything, it’s illegal in many places that I go to,’” she said. “I can’t be smoking weed all day long. … I’m committed to not doing it again and kind of putting it down in the same way I did with alcohol.”

May 2022

In an interview with the “Addiction Talk” podcast hosted by American Addiction Centers, Glaser observed that “no one wants to inconvenience everyone in their life” while talking about a therapist of hers who had a stutter. He told her other people would get frustrated while he was talking that he could not just “spit it out.”

“I really felt a lot of empathy from him and he said, ‘Why don’t you look at your illness as like The Exorcist? That girl that gets possessed by the devil? Why don’t you think of it like that? Like a little voice. That voice that says, don’t eat, you need to exercise. You’re not allowed to have this many calories. Acknowledge the voice, but it’s not you. Be separate from your thoughts,’” she explained, adding, “And that was the first step for me of a long journey. I mean, that was 20 years ago at the very beginning of my recovery. But that was actually the essence of, ‘It’s not my fault. I’m not a bad person. I am not a weak person. I’m not, I’m just doing my best.’”

Glaser went on to say that “what really freed me was that you’re not choosing this, no one would choose to be an addict.”
“I’m always doing my best, and sometimes that looks really messy,” she said. “But if I was able to be better, I would. I can’t. And I think once I forgave myself for the things that seemed under my control and I let go and I stopped trying to control things that truly were never my fault to begin with, I was able to be free of it.”

October 2022

Glaser confessed, “I don’t think I’ll ever drink again,” on an episode of “In Depth With Graham Bensinger.”

“I can dance now without it, I can have sex without it,” she said. “Like, I used to drink because I was nervous to be around people — I don’t need that anymore. I don’t have social anxiety in that way.”

She added that after giving up alcohol her “eating disorders cranked up,” but she noted it was “a better thing to be abusing at the time than alcohol.” She said, “Alcohol was like, I was going to get a DUI, which was going to financially destroy me and, potentially, physically destroy me or others.”

March 2023

“I was just at a point where I was drinking every night,” the comedian told Triad City Beat, adding that often young comedians “get paid in booze” when they’re just starting out.
“Then I started to see the hangovers. I quit because I had just gotten a pilot and it was my first big shot and you can’t make a show sleeping until 4 p.m. every day,” she said. “I saw all the comics that got the most work done weren’t drinking; the most successful ones didn’t drink. It wasn’t a fix-all for me, but I think it was the greatest decision I ever made for me.”

July 2024

Glaser further praised Carr’s book, The Easy Way to Stop Drinking, on an episode of the “Plan Bri Uncut” podcast.

“You’re brainwashed to think you need to drink to be fun or to have a good time,” Glaser explained. “That’s what you think, but it’s not true. He pretty much disproves it and by the end of it you’re like, ‘Oh, wait, I guess every reason I had to drink doesn’t really make sense anymore.’”

She added, “Your life definitely changes. You pick up other things, you know, but nothing as detrimental as drinking, at least for me, have I picked up yet.”