# Ep 123: How Big Is Your World? | Rethinking Alcohol |

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-big-drink-rethink-6691442/ep-123-how-big-is-your-world-rethinking-alcohol
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-big-drink-rethink-6691442/ep-123-how-big-is-your-world-rethinking-alcohol.md
Podcast: [The Big Drink Rethink](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-big-drink-rethink-6691442)
Published: 2026-05-21T01:30:00+00:00
Episode link: https://www.thebigdrinkrethink.com/podcast
Audio file: https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/304033ca-1733-43b9-8a03-beafd1dda52e.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-big-drink-rethink-6691442/episodes/ep-123-how-big-is-your-world-rethinking-alcohol
Duration seconds: 1228

## Resource

What if alcohol isn’t just a habit, but quietly shrinking the size of your world, dulling joy, and making ordinary pleasures feel like “not enough”? In this solo episode, Anna Donaghey shares honest insights from her own journey, exploring how drinking can subtly narrow both what you do and how much you feel. She unpacks the concept of the “hedonic threshold,” showing why your favourite activities may start feeling flat, and how even small milestones (like a child’s birthday) come to feel incomplete without a drink. Anna also gets real about what happens when you start to cut down: why everything can feel dull at first, why that’s normal, and how given time, colour and excitement quietly returns to the things you love. This episode is for anyone curious about changing the way they think about alcohol. Here are the Highlights: 00:00 Intro: When the world starts to shrink 01:19 The subtle ways alcohol “shrinks” your world 04:44 When joy becomes muted and life feels flat 06:14 The hedonic threshold: Why dopamine matters 07:55 Why ordinary pleasures start feeling not enough 09:53 The key questions to ask yourself 10:15 How activities drop away when drinking more 11:46 When drinking becomes the point 12:35 A sharp illustration: Prosecco at a one-year-old’s birthday 16:27 Why giving up alcohol feels flat at first 17:59 How your world starts to expand again 19:32 A gentle prompt: Is your world quietly contracting? 20:03 How to connect, find resources, and support. Anna’s book "What Are You Thirsty For? Rethinking Alcohol and The Life You Want", is now out in the world for you to buy! Order your copy, access her free tools and explore her coaching programmes at: https://thebigdrinkrethink.com/ The Thirsty For More Mindset Lab is Anna’s ‘inner circle’ - a calm, thoughtful space…

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## Transcript

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