Aug 18, 2026 · 42 min · 14 segments
In this episode, I answer a listener's question about what it was really like when I gave up alcohol. I chat about the adjustment period, whether people treated me differently, and what it was like…
Jessica CookeHost
So for me to answer those questions, I just wanna give you a little short backstory.
I was always a drinker, right, m- like most Irish people, from the ages of 17, 18 onwards, nights out.
All events, football occasions, going to matches, all of that sort of stuff, alcohol was in it.
There was a period of time when I drank every day, but that was when I worked in a bar in my 20s.
I would work really hard all week and sit down with a glass of wine at 5:00 on a Friday evening, and that glass of wine would lead to more glasses of wine.
Or myself and Joe would plan a meal out and go out into a restaurant or a music venue or a comedy, um, and we would have wine with our meal and drink out.
I was never drinking during the week, aside from if we were invited to a party or if I was meeting my family, et cetera, then yes.
The problem for me, I realized, was I started to feel a bit aggravated and irritated at, at me drinking.
It was around COVID time that I started to realize I was craving being healthy, eating well, and exercising and drinking water, but I wasn't really getting any of the benefits that that would bring because I would be drinking on a Friday night and a Saturday night, so I would feel desperate on a Saturday and a Sunday, desperate on a Monday and a Tuesday.
So for me to answer those questions, I just wanna give you a little short backstory.
I was always a drinker, right, m- like most Irish people, from the ages of 17, 18 onwards, nights out.
All events, football occasions, going to matches, all of that sort of stuff, alcohol was in it.
There was a period of time when I drank every day, but that was when I worked in a bar in my 20s.
I would work really hard all week and sit down with a glass of wine at 5:00 on a Friday evening, and that glass of wine would lead to more glasses of wine.
Or myself and Joe would plan a meal out and go out into a restaurant or a music venue or a comedy, um, and we would have wine with our meal and drink out.
I was never drinking during the week, aside from if we were invited to a party or if I was meeting my family, et cetera, then yes.
The problem for me, I realized, was I started to feel a bit aggravated and irritated at, at me drinking.
It was around COVID time that I started to realize I was craving being healthy, eating well, and exercising and drinking water, but I wasn't really getting any of the benefits that that would bring because I would be drinking on a Friday night and a Saturday night, so I would feel desperate on a Saturday and a Sunday, desperate on a Monday and a Tuesday.
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