>> tom is a man who can make just about everything funny. tonight he sits down with me for a candid conversation about his battle with various addictions, his brain chemistry changes, cocaine, alcohol, and all those drugs and it didn't give me what i was looking for. >> the roller coaster life. >> i was getting married a bunch. >> tom arnold for the hour. this is "piers morgan tonight." my special guest, tom arnold. tom, you've got a new dvd out, "tom arnold, that's my story and i'm sticking to it." what does if mean? >> they are my points of view on different things and i think it is just a play on that. i talk about i have a certain amount of relationships, maybe about people you know, friends of mine, most of them. >> it is a remarkably candid thing to watch. you've had quite a life. to put it mildly. haven't you? >> i think if you do stand-up, the kind of stand-up i like, you got to tell the truth and hopefully you've had some interesting things. the saddest things, most painful things, are oftentimes the funniest. so yeah, before i did the special i did some specials in '91, '92, '93, my first hbo specials. i wanted to do some more. so i spent two years going in front of audiences, finding out what they knew about me. i hoped they didn't know everything. you know? but they do. even young people. so i felt like i had to address it in this special an then maybe i can move on from it finally. >> you say the saddest stuff is often the most comic. is there anything about your life that you can't joke about? >> well, i can't think of anything. there are things that are better than others. you know? i think it is hard to find a way to make child abuse funny. sexual abuse. but i think there's probably a way. think someone could do it. since it happened to me, i own it a little bit. i can direct people where i want and nothing is off-limits. >> let's play a little clip. >> america has got the fattest forepeople on the planet. our forepeople weigh 400 pounds, they smoked four pack of cigarettes a day. i'm not too worried. you go to africa, their poor people look hungry. but we're americans, damn it! >> yes, i'm from iowa. >> you are. but you are considerably smaller than i thought you might be. >> i'm working on it. yeah. people think i'm shortder and fatder. i'm 6'2", 240. they think i'm 300 pounds, 5'6". >> have you had sort of an ongoing battle with your weight. >> my battle with core is the core of my alcoholism, everything. myself esteem is tied to that. it's been a ballot since i was a kid. >> how are you feeling these days about the way you look? >> i need to lose some weight. i've lost some weight but i need to lose more. i've never been happy. i thought i was fat when i was thin. when i was a kid i was afraid to take my shirt off in front of other kids. when you come from a farming area, that's hard. you get a farmer tan. but i think myself esteem is kautd up in it. >> you worked as a young guy in a meat packing plant in iowa. did you remember that experience well? >> i remember working at hormel really well. i have a lot of friends that still work there. it was hard work. it was a good job. i had insurance and it was the best job to get at that time. it also is a place that has windows. there's a lot of deaths. we killed 5,000 hogs a day. >> were you a good hog slayer? >> i was. my nickname was gunner. people get very upset about here when i tell them that. but they don't realize where the meat comes from. we try to do it in a humane way. >> people in l.a. are tough. were they eating a bacon sandwich? >> even turkey bacon, they had to kill an animal. but i always said coming from iowa, i'm proud of iowa. but it starts -- you start thinking about things a little bit. i think i've been a little more introspective about my time at the meat-packing plant. i mean, they are animals. >> do you feel guilty? >> probably. yeah. i'm sure. >> do you ever wonder if your life hadn't taken a deviation in stand hup, do you ever wonder if you were still there now? >> well, when i don't feel -- i got fired from hormel. got arrested for pub click nudity in an old folk's home. >> wait! rewind, slow down. you did what? >> me and mike and mo, still buddies this day, there's nothing to do in our town in iowa after 10:00. they had a strike system in the union, three strikes you're out. i always had two, one would expire. i called in sick for work. party ended at 10:00. i was staying at indian hills community college. on the way back there, let's streak. only things open were the diner and jefferson square manor. we ran through the diner, wasn't anybody there, it didn't satisfy us. we knew the nurses there at jefferson manor. it wasn't the people, they were already asleep. we ran through there, nurses called the police. got arrested, handcuffed behind my back. cold december day. >> what was that moment like? >> terrifying. i said i hope this is funny one day. you're handcuffed. people driving by i've known my whole life. i said i pray this is funny one day and here it's sort of funny. we're talking about my dad come bail me out of jail naked. >> how do you explain to your father. >> especially my father, jack. very upsite citizen. he had his little son who was crazy. so i put him through a lot of misery. >> the naked hog slayer. >> yes. exactly. >> stand-up. when was the moment you realized this could be a career and not just a bit of fun for you? >> the first time i got offered a paying job, $15, i was in university of iowa and i had done some stand-up. they had an open mike night where you could tell jokes or read a poem. i signed up for it and i loved the response i was getting. somebody said why minneapolis? come up there and i'll give you a job. i packed my stuff in a trash bag, got on a bus with $100. went to the club. thought i got a full time job. they said, no, it's one night for $15. i got scared and i went and i was a bartender down the street. i did whatever i could to support it. but getting that $15 changed my life. >> you are inexorably linked to roseanne barr. >> i haven't talked to her face-to-face in almost 18 years. >> she's on twitter. i communicate with her on twitter. do you ever? >> no. she does two tweets that are interesting. >> do you follow her on twitter? >> no. but maybe i i should. >> maybe it can bring you back together. through twitter. >> yeah, it would take twitter, it would take a lot. i'm very happy for her. i'm happy she has a new show. i hope people watch it. i want her to succeed. i'm grateful to her. i talk about her in my stand hup but it is so long ago that it seems odd. she did e-mail me in december with being start e-mailing me out of the blue. random. i hadn't heard from her in many years. i showed ashley, my wife, and she let me write her back and every other e-mail was really mean so it reminded me! she can't help it. my thing is i got to be a stepfather for five years because of her. that is the best thing that's ever happened to me -- until now. ashley and i are planning our family. and that taught me a lot. it got mow sober. is all under her watch. if i hadn't had somebody in my corner like her, i'd be dead. >> you were two irrepressible life forces when you met, two outrageous front-of-stage stand-ups who collided. it was probably destined to end in tears but i would imagine for a while it must have been electrifying. wasn't it? >> it was great fun because we met in 1983. i was 23 years old. she lived in denver, she wasn't famous at the time and she came to minneapolis to perform. we hit. off, eliked each other's act and there was something there. we were friends for a few years which we should have stayed. when people talk about ashley, my wife, was 7 when i met roseanne. it was fun. watching her career go, i was so proud of her. >> i were like the comic version of brangelina. every magazine splashing every detail of your alleged lives and real lives and were you leading this crazy existence together. didny part of you miss that kind of chi yachtic exciting, you're center stage? >> i'm sure the alcoholic part of me, the self-destructive part of me misses it. but if we hadn't played into so much of that, she and i, we wouldn't be talking about it today. but we participated in that. so we're responsible for a lot of that craziness. we're not victims. the thing when i hear people talk about, it's so terrible, people were -- looked down on me and i couldn't do anything. well, you got $150 million from your show. shut up and be happy. >> get over it. >> yeah. >> when you go past a newsstand, do you wish, oh, i wish they were putting me on the cover again? >> like i say, there's that voice inside of me, not a happy voice been that does. >> the bad boy. >> we literally were on there every week. to keep that up, you've got to do a lot of crazy you have stuff. and we did. >> pressure to keep going! >> yeah. what can we reveal about ourselves, our intimate selves. it was too much as a couple. i knew it was coming one day. everyone in her life she literally cut off. one of the head writers said that when i hired him, i said this job's going to last about two years, then you'll be let go. i'll take care of you financially but i know one day i will be let go also. so i think i probably kind of knew it. but it was sure fun -- her career just went through the roof and it was fun to be part of that. and to be important in her life. i felt that way. i felt i had to help keep her initial vision on the show. because she even changed. my job at "roseanne" was to say no, you're not going to wrestle steven segall on a train. >> i know she watches this show a lot because she tweets it a lot. >> she will he be watching today. >> exactly. what would you say if she's watching. >> i'd say good luck with your show. i've said thank you to her many times. she seems like her life is alling to together now. i'm very happy, if you care. and i'm glad things worked out the way she did. >> you think she'll be pleased you're happy. >> part of her, no. but i think deep down, i'm sure. >> we'll take a little break. when we come back we'll -- >> we're not going to only talk about "roseanne" today. >> the genie's out of the bottle. we'll talk about arnold schwarzenegger after the break. your friend. >> good guy. >> yeah. announcer: when life's this hard, it's no wonder 7,000 students drop out every school day. visit boostup.org and help kids in your community stay in school. frankly, it is going to be great. we're going to take the terrorists, beat the crap out of them, you're going to feel a lot petter. watch your head. watch your head. all right. women. can't live with them, can't kill them. >> the one and only tom arnold in the blockbuster movie "true lies." your old friend arnold schwarzenegger. >> yeah. yeah. he's a good man. >> you're great friends with limb. i know he's been hinting there might be a remake of that great film which was a huge hit. tell me about arnold. he's been through a really shattering few months. i've known him not as well as you but i've always liked him very much. what do you make of what's going on? >> you have to understand he grew up much like me in a small town in austria in his case and i think that's what we bond on. he respects that. coming from somewhere and doing something. he's very charitable. he's -- this has been tough because our relationship is based on a lot of humor and to find humor in all this has been hard. i'm just his friend. unconditionally just like he's been for me at the worst times in my life. so anything i can do for him -- i love maria and the kids obviously. hopefully this thing gets better for him. >> were you as stunned as everybody else? >> yeah. yeah. obviously people don't share -- people don't share a lot of things with me. if they're using drugs or they're getting wasted or that, you don't necessarily share it with me. and i kind of appreciate that. if he'd have told me, you know, i've been there for him. we have an unconditional friendship. >> did you speak to him a little about this? >> about what? >> about what's going on. >> you see each other, you say how are you? >> you see in your own life, the saddest stuff often makes the best material. at what point can you crack about this. >> the only joke i can crack is he can no longer make fun of the women i've been with. but he knows you got to make a joke one day. this happened and people close to him figure out what do we say? and he's got a pretty thick skin. >> how is he dealing with it on a human level? you become a kind of soap opera star when this kind of thing happens. just personally as a guy, a friend of yours, how is he dealing with it. >> he's always been tough about that. he doesn't want anyone to think he's in pain or when he's broke his limbs, he always plays it up a little bit. think this is the same. he doesn't want to be a burden on his friends or people in general and that's probably the biggest -- toughest thing about this is that people are like, oh, my gosh, i'm so sorry. i doesn't want to be that guy. i know deep down inside he's feeling all of this. obviously he is. but he doesn't share that with people. i can see a little bit -- of course, he's a human being and of course, it is tough. but i think he wants to move on. >> there is this talk of the remake. is that a go? >> i think it is a go. it may not be the next movie he does but we'll eventually do it. >> you've been talking about it? >> absolutely. it's been 17 years and i'm not giving up on it. i love -- if you work with people that you love, like him, jim cameron, obviously you want to do that again an again and again. for 17 years i've been talking about it and we're still talking about it and that's good enough for me now. >> people get very judgmental when these scandals break. unless you don't know the person concerned. what kind of a man is arnold schwarzenegger? >> i think arnold's a great man. i think everybody makes mistakes. we're human beings. i'm not saying anything he did is a mistake but he's a great man. he's very -- i learned a lot about myself being of service to other people with the inner city games that he started. he always said my movie work is equally important with my service work. my charity work. if people don't realize that, then they can't and part of me. he's going around and he's working on the environment with jim cameron and doing things that are a little bit bigger outside of the movie business. the movie business is a job and he does enjoy the hell out of it. but there's other things that he cares about and he's done an amazing job. >> you think he has physical aspirations or is that pretty well dead in the water? >> i don't know. i would guess it is pretty much dead in the water. he always wants to be on some committee or heading a committee or doing something about this or doing something about that. helping people eat. >> he has this incredible energy and is he a very good, fun guy, smart and everything else. i really like him. >> he's hilarious. >> do you feel because of that, because politics has now been shut down really for him, that the movies, which is what propelled him really into the stratosphere, that that may be the love again for him, that he may just go back to that? >> absolutely. i mean he did the political thing. he was governor for two terms. he did that. he's been the president's committee on physical fitness. he's done all that stuff. now he wants to have some fun and make some movies and people hopefully will remember him for that. >> as a stand-up comedian, do you like making movies or is this process torture? because on a stage you walk out, there's loads of people, you get instant reaction from an audience and walk off an hour and a half later with a big check in your pockets. movies, it's three months filming, six months editing, promotion, the whole rest of it. it might just bomb overnight. a torturous process. >> and it is monotonous. some directors have you do things 20 or 30 times in a row. if you started in comedy, that's rough because you wear out. but in the end, if you're working with great people, i just did a movie with dax shepherd and barry cooper and kristin bell, every day it was something different for those guys and fun. i see the joy of somebody like bradly cooper has to be there. just so happy to be in the moment and i want to get some of that. i've done about 100 movies and i want it still to be fun for me. >> you've done 100 movies. >> yeah. >> which is your favorite? >> i love "true lies" because what have it did personally. >> the biggest turkey? the one you don't like to talk about in civilized company? >> the financier's girlfriend played the lead. i took it, it was a job. i don't turn down much, obviously. but it was a job and it was rough to put her in that position. i can relate to that. so, yeah. it was rough. i can't remember the name. >> when we come back from the break, i want to talk to you about alcohol, cocaine, abuse. it is going to be a cheery thing. trying to remember if i had met you. >> now my special guest, tom arnold. tom, you have been there, you've done it, you've sniffed it, you've drunk it. you've led the party life. >> sniffed it. drug addicts never sniff anything. no, i have a lot of war stories, i have done -- i took everything, alcohol, drugs, street drugs, you know, to the max. i mean, there is nothing that i'm not addicted to. whether it be work or -- you know, food is a big issue all the time. >> you and charlie sheen go back a long way. when you were at your peak, apparently, who could out-party the other? >> charlie is a private partier. at least from what i can tell, he holes up in his cave. that's the impression i get. i can't imagine anybody doing more drugs than i did and living, and you know, especially with cocaine. and your resistance to these drugs. >> there's recreational drug taking and there's addiction. at your worst, what are we talking in terms of consumption? >> of about a half ounce a day of cocaine. >> really? >> it's crazy. and i'm so grateful to be alive. and i don't know why i am. >> did you remember how that made you feel? >> i will tell you this. the first time i tried cocaine, it made me feel great. it was in probably 1984. and then every time after that i tried to get that feeling of the first time, and i was chasing it, and at the end, in 1989, every time i did cocaine, i felt paranoid, depressed, and i -- i lied to myself and said i'll get back to that place you were a few years ago, but it doesn't happen. your brain chemistry changes, cocaine, alcohol, all those drugs. and it didn't give me what i was looking for. >> do you drink? >> i haven't had a drink since 1988. >> do you ever get tempted? >> i watch normal people having a couple of drinks. my wife and her friends, and i wonder what that's like. i know what that's like. i have 100 drinks. literally 20 drinks, get wasted, black out, get in a fight. do all that stuff. i know where that goes. i remember. it's fresh, it's horrible. and i remember waking up the next day, the shame and the guilt. that's exactly what happened. i know -- i tried to -- i went to my first 12-step meeting in 1986 and it took me until 1989 to get sober. so i know. i've tried every way possible, just drinking beer, wine, it doesn't work for me. >> for a long time, was it hard to give up things that were quite a bit of fun? >> i have regrets of how i acted when i was using drugs and alcohol. i have a lot of amends to make to people. people i had relationships with in the past, in iowa and the midwest. and i was -- i did some very top-notch women and they helped me a lot, and i wasn't a good boyfriend. >> you had a very tough upbringing, and you suffered this child abuse from a male babysitter. your mother was married seven times. clearly a pretty chaotic domestic scenario there. how much of what went on there do you think determined how you b