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I'm Quitting Alcohol
David Boyle shares a raw account of coming home from hospital, dealing with intense pain and prescribed oxycodone while staying sober. His dark humour and honesty highlight the tension between needing pain relief and fearing addiction.
7:38•10 Aug 2026
Back Home, In Pain, and On Oxys: David Boyle Keeps It Sober and Brutally Real
Episode Overview
- David Boyle describes leaving hospital and returning home while still in significant post-surgery pain.
- He talks candidly about being prescribed oxycodone and his awareness of its link to addiction.
- The episode highlights how strong painkillers can both ease pain and create restlessness and unease.
- Humour and blunt honesty are used to talk about fear, discomfort, and the risk of developing new dependencies.
- Boyle plans a few days of full rest at his riverside home, focusing on recovery while remaining conscious of his sobriety.
“They’ve prescribed me the perfect amount to begin an addiction… 28 oxycodones and I can take four a day.”
Get ready to be moved by real-life accounts of sobriety that don’t sugar-coat a thing. In this short, punchy instalment of *I’m Quitting Alcohol*, Australian comedian David Boyle is back home after a rough hospital stay, and he’s brutally honest about the pain, the pills, and the mental games that come with both. Still in bed and hurting, Boyle talks through his recovery from surgery, describing “very very fucking intense” pain and a single stubborn wound that keeps flaring up.
He’s been prescribed oxycodone and jokes darkly about its reputation: “They’ve prescribed me the perfect amount to begin an addiction… 28 oxycodones and I can take four a day.” As someone who’s built a podcast around quitting booze, that awareness of addictive risk hits hard.
You’ll hear him describe the strange comfort and unease of strong painkillers: drifting into “a wonderful beautiful sleep” as the pain fades, then waking up with headaches, restlessness and that edgy, craving-style energy: “It feels like I need to go out and fucking steal a VCR or something.” It’s funny, but it’s also a sharp reminder of how easily dependence can creep in. Amid the swearing and gallows humour, there’s a softer side too.
Boyle talks about the relief of being back in his “picturesque little fucking house on the river in Kinsale”, with kids, a dog, and Irish green hills offering some calm while he plans a few days of full rest and recovery. This one’s for anyone who wants to hear sobriety talked about in real time, through surgery, pain, and tempting prescriptions, without any polished self-help gloss.
If you’ve ever worried about pain meds, relapse, or just staying sane while you heal, you might recognise more than a little of yourself here. How do you balance genuine pain relief with a history of addiction?
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