7 Years 69 days Sober - Friendship7 Years 69 days Sober - Friendship
I'm Quitting Alcohol
Comedian David Boyle reflects on friendship, isolation and community while sober, talking from Madrid about travel, over-tourism and missing real mates. He jokes his way through plans to build a small, genuine circle of friends once back in Boston, tying humour to the realities of long-term recovery.
6:48•23 Jul 2026
7 Years Sober and Still Looking for a Mate: Boyle on Friendship and Recovery
Episode Overview
- Long-term sobriety can highlight how few genuine friendships you actually have.
- Travel in highly touristed places can feel fake and disconnected from real local life.
- Rebuilding life after alcohol may include consciously planning who you want in your inner circle.
- Getting involved in local activities or groups (like church or jiu-jitsu) can be a way to meet real friends.
- Even small gestures like calling or seeing an old friend can make isolation in recovery feel lighter.
“"I've seen no old friends, I've seen no friends at all, I've got no friends."”
How do people cope with the challenges of staying sober? Australian comedian David Boyle, now 7 years and 69 days off the booze, uses this short episode to talk less about cravings and more about connection, loneliness, and what friendship looks like in long-term sobriety. Recorded late at night in Madrid, he riffs on travel, over-tourism and how some cities feel like "an open air museum" where locals are pushed out for short-term rentals and tourist cafes.
Between jokes about couscous bars and Roman aqueducts, there’s a quieter thread: he hasn’t seen a single friend face to face in about ten months. As he bluntly puts it, "I've seen no old friends, I've seen no friends at all, I've got no friends." That’s why meeting his old mate Sammy near Barcelona feels like a big deal. Just hearing a familiar voice on the phone hits differently after so much time away from his usual life.
From there, Boyle starts plotting his next chapter in Boston: making a small but solid crew, "two whiteys, a Mexican and a black guy" as he jokingly frames it, and finding ways to actually plug into a community. He tosses around where you might meet real mates as an adult – church, jiu-jitsu, local scenes – and draws a line between fellow comedians and genuine friends.
He even imagines friends in Cork and Boston being shocked that he’s suddenly hugging them and saying, "Thank you for just being you." It’s loose, funny, and rough around the edges, but if you’re sober and feeling isolated, you’ll likely recognise the deeper theme: it’s not just about quitting alcohol, it’s about rebuilding a life that includes real people. Who’s in your crew, and do they actually know you?
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