Williams was known for being a hard partier during the late 1970s and early 1980s and developed an addiction to cocaine. According to the documentary, it was the death of friend John Belushi in 1982 (and the birth of his son, Zachary) that led to him quitting drugs and alcohol. However, many of those interviewed allude to comedy being another addiction that Williams couldn't shake. During a clip of Williams doing improv in class at Juilliard, the comedian says it was "like sex, only without the guilt."
Williams's close friend, comedian Billy Crystal, confirmed that he needed that attention from his audience. "That laugh is a drug. That acceptance. That thrill is really hard to replace with anything else," Crystal said. Williams's son agrees. "His pathos was to entertain and to please," Zachary says in the documentary. "And he felt that when he wasn't doing that, he was not succeeding as a person. That was always hard to see, because in so many senses, he was the most successful person I know. And yet he didn't always feel that."