Looking back it is easy to see how alcohol drains your time, but for a long time Anna couldn’t quite admit what the problem was.

But Anna is not looking back, and her positive attitude is helpful for us all.

Welcome to the next round where we explore how you fill the space once occupied by wine, hangovers, and the mental weight of drinking culture.

When Ex advertising exec Anna Donaghey stopped drinking, she found herself with a new problem – time. What do you do with it? For Anna, the answer lay in something she’d been drawn to for years but had never quite pursued – podcasting.

“I had many obstacles in my mind—confidence, self-doubt, perfectionism. But just cracking on and doing it proved to be easier than I thought.”

Anna launched The Big Drink Rethink, a podcast exploring our relationship with alcohol, the culture around it, and what life can look like without it. It was a creative outlet, a way to channel her curiosity, and, unexpectedly, an anchor that kept her steady in her alcohol-free life.

“It keeps me very intact in this world of alcohol freedom, which is very important to me.”

But her journey to this point wasn’t smooth. It was a long, slow unraveling of drinking habits that had once felt normal, even essential. Anna’s story isn’t one of dramatic rock bottoms, it’s one of creeping dissatisfaction, of realising that drinking wasn’t just stealing her time, but also her sense of self.

Advertising, Drinking, and a Life on Repeat

Anna spent over 25 years in advertising, an industry where drinking wasn’t just acceptable – it was expected. She remembers long lunches, late nights, and the endless socialising that blurred into work.

“I sometimes think about whether I was attracted to the industry because there was permission within that space to drink.”

She wasn’t an outlier. Alcohol was woven into the job – client meetings over wine, celebratory drinks, networking events. It was an industry where drinking was both professional and personal, making it even harder to see when it had crossed the line from social to habitual.

When she got married, her drinking didn’t slow down. In fact, it ramped up. Parenthood brought a new challenge: identity loss. Motherhood was disorienting, and the reality of maternity leave was nothing like the glowing, fulfilling image sold to women.

“I found maternity leave deadly dull. I found being a young mum incredibly boring. And I felt shameful that I wasn’t reveling in it the way I was ‘supposed’ to.”

The loneliness, the shift in identity, the quiet grief for the life she had before, Anna managed it the way she had always managed difficult feelings: with wine.

“I knew that life had changed forever. I was no longer the advertising girl, but I wasn’t quite an established mum. I worried I never would be.”

You can find Anna on instagram at bigdrinkrethink and The Big Drink Rethink podcast on all platforms

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