Long before Stephen Colbert became a household name, the comedian was struggling with crippling anxiety that would only subside when he was on stage.

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, the 54-year-old Late Show host opened up about his anxiety, recalling how he would walk in circles around his couch after he married his wife, comedian Evelyn McGee-Colbert, in 1993.

'I had a bit of a nervous breakdown after I got married — kind of panic attacks,' he explained.

No laughing matter: The Late Show host Stephen Colbert, 54, has opened up about his struggle with crippling anxiety, which started when he was a child

'My wife would go off to work and she’d come home — because I worked at night — and I’d be walking around the couch.

Looking back: The comedian revealed that he had a 'bit of a nervous breakdown' after he married his wife, comedian Evelyn McGee-Colbert, in 1993. They are pictured in March

'And she's like, "How was your day?" And I’d say, "You’re looking at it." Just tight circles around the couch.'

Colbert took medication for his anxiety when he was a child, but he said he didn't feel like it was an effective treatment for him when he got older.

'I was actually medicated. I mean, in the most common, prosaic way. Xanax was just lovely. Y’know, for a while. And then I realized that the gears were still smoking,' he said.

'I just couldn’t hear them anymore. But I could feel them, I could feel the gearbox heating up and smoke pouring out of me, but I was no longer walking around a couch.'

At the time, Colbert was 29 years old and still performing the Second City show that he had created with his friends Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris.

His friends had moved to New York, and he admitted that he was in a 'weird panic' that he would never create anything new without them.

'I would go to the show, and I would curl up in a ball on the couch backstage and I would wait to hear my cue lines,' he recalled.

Throwback: Colbert revealed he used to take Xanax to treat his anxiety as a child

More than stage fright: When he was 29 years old and performing at Second City in Chicago, Colbert said he used to 'curl up in a ball on the couch backstage' while waiting for his cue

'Then I would uncurl and go onstage and I’d feel fine. Which occurred to me at the time: Like, "Oh, you feel fine when you’re out here." And then as soon as I got offstage, I’d just crumble into a ball again.

'Nobody ever asked me what was wrong!' he added, laughing, 'It went on for months.'

Colbert eventually realized that performing helped curb his anxiety, and he opted to focus on that rather than take medication.

'I stopped the Xanax after, like, nine days. I went, "This isn’t helping." So I just suffered through it,' he said.

'I’d sometimes hold the bottle, to go like, "I could stop this feeling if I wanted, but I’m not going to. Because I know if I stop the feeling, somehow I’m not working through it, like I have got to go through the tunnel with the spiders in it."'

'And then one morning I woke up and my skin wasn’t on fire, and it took me a while to figure out what it was,' he continued.

Family: Colbert and his wife have three children: Madeline, 22, Peter, 19, and John, 16. They are pictured in 2008

'I wake up the next morning, I’m perfectly fine, to the point where my body’s still humming. I’m a bell that’s been rung so hard that I can still feel myself vibrating.

'But the actual sound was gone [because] I was starting rehearsal that day to create a new show.

'And then I went, "Oh, my God, I can never stop performing." Creating something is what helped me from just spinning apart like an unweighted flywheel.

'And I haven’t stopped since. Even when I was a writer I always had to be in front of a camera a little bit. I have to perform.'

According to Colbert, comedy has saved his life in more ways than one.

'I’m so grateful. Comedy was my savior as a child. And still [is],' he said. 'Last night, I went home and murdered a pint of ice cream and I watched three episodes of Veep. Season Two. It was fantastic.'