Katie MacBride is a professional writer whose work has appeared in the pages of such popular magazines as Playboy and Rolling Stone. Almost a whole decade ago she wrote a piece called “Five Sober Comedians You Should Know.”

That article began with the acknowledgement that MacBride herself never appreciated stand-up comedy until she got sober, mainly because she was unaware of it. “I was usually too busy hiding in my closet drinking to actually go places or do things.” But later, she made up for the neglect by discovering the delightful world of sober comedy, and in particular, the work of sober comedians.

One of her subjects was Evan Williams, who sobered up at age 19, which often indicates that some pretty serious inebriation took place before that time. In this case, we receive a heavy hint from one of his confessions: “I wasn’t a wine-o. I was a snort-coke-off-the-floor-o.”

Plenty of comics throughout history have felt that they needed a hefty hit of something or other before taking the stage, but Williams was different — it was only sobriety that gave him the courage to get up there.

Not a fan of confusion, he appreciates the clarity that is sobriety’s side effect, and is skilled at the self-deprecation that is always the competent performer’s first gambit. An audience doesn’t like somebody who thinks he is better than they are, and assuring them that he is just an ordinary fellow too, is one of Williams’ skills.

Five years after the publication of MacBride’s piece about him, Williams wrote for Instagram (@itsevanwilliams) about how he faces all the feelings, and thanks sobriety for keeping him from pushing people away, “because I wanna get better.” He wrote:

For twelve years I’ve felt every single thing that’s happened. And remembered it in the morning. Good or bad. And I wouldn’t trade that for the world because I know what not feeling, feels like.

I don’t need alcohol, I tell my friends I love them immediately. As a wise man once said to me when I was one day sober and angry, “I LOVE YOU BROTHER. AND THERE’S NOTHIN YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT”.

Another of MacBride’s finds was Jason Stuart, an obese youth who became an actor at an early age, and then, after discovering that humor protected him from a certain amount of bullying, made a satisfying second career as one of the first openly gay stand-up comedians. But he was, at the same time, “one of those suicidal kids who went to sleep wishing I wouldn’t wake up.” In the early ’90s, he came out on Geraldo Rivera’s TV show and even kissed Rivera for the cameras.

Over the years, Stuart’s career as a character actor in TV and movies flourished. His first comedy album was “Gay Comedy Without a Dress” and his second was “I’m the Daddy and I Have Candy.” His autobiography is titled, “Shut Up, I’m Talking: Coming Out in Hollywood and Making It to the Middle.” He has also been picketed by the Westboro Baptist Church on four separate occasions. A 12-step veteran of more than a quarter-century, he can also be found through recoverycomedy.com.

And then there is May Wilkerson, who got into stand-up with three sober years under her belt. Of her, MacBride wrote, “The native New Yorker doesn’t pull any punches in her act, talking openly about her sobriety as well as her disdain for the ‘war on drugs.'” The experienced writer, editor, and podcast host is associated with rehab.com. She writes on serious topics for Medium. When asked what she misses most about drinking, Wilkerson replied, “How charming it made other people seem.”

Written by Pat Hartman. First published June 13, 2025.

Sources:

“Five Sober Comedians You Should Know,” KatieMacBride.com, May 29, 2015.

Evan Williams on Instagram.

Ed Karvoski (1997), A Funny Time to Be Gay, New York: Fireside Books.

Connor Keaney, The Triumph of Jason Stuart, February 12, 2020.

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