The Deirdre O’Shaughnessy Podcast: Addiction, rock bottom and the comeback with Brenda Dennehy 

A well-known name in the Cork media-sphere, Brenda Dennehy talks with Deirdre O’Shaughnessy on her struggles with alcohol and prescription medication and her journey to sobriety. Now, she has written a book, titled The Comeback.

Brenda Dennehy was well known in Cork through her work on 96fm and Red FM and her social media presence.

But her bubbly, "stone mad" persona hid her silent struggles with alcohol and prescription medication – until the pressure of holding it all together became too much, and she suffered a very public humiliation when she was judging a charity fundraising event. Videos of her slurred speech and being escorted from the venue circulated online and she received abuse and death threats.

A subsequent overdose on Xanax resulted in admission to CUH, but it was only losing her job at Red FM after falling asleep during a live show that brought her back to rehab.

During her second stint in rehab she feared she would almost die while detoxing from Xanax. After the "longest, worst night of her life", she wrote in her diary that she would make "the mother of all comebacks".

Since that day she has worked on some of the UK's top TV programmes, run five marathons and launched her own podcast The Comeback in which she interviews other people who have hit rock bottom. The death of her beloved father Dano in 2024 threatened to unbalance her, but she has maintained her sobriety.

Now, she has written a book, also titled The Comeback.

Listen to today's episode of The Deirdre O’Shaughnessy Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.