Former binge drinker in Southsea hopes to inspire women to give up alcohol with new business

Aggie Connor, from Southsea, has set up Fresh and Fab to help women become the fresh and fabulous people they are.

She provides lifestyle coaching and advice to those wanting to limit or give up drinking alcohol and provides a solution before it becomes a problem.

The 41-year-old started it after having her own struggles with alcohol.

She said: ‘I was a weekend binge drinker. Even my own mother didn’t believe me when I said I had a drinking problem.’

Now, eight years after giving up alcohol and having moved to the UK from her home in Poland in 2013, Aggie is happily married with a 15-year-old daughter and is starting the business to remove the stigma around drinking and help other women like her.

The trained teacher offers one-to-one sessions with her clients at her home in Southsea to provide coaching and support, as well as Skype calls for those who live further afield.

She also runs a Facebook page, which now has 700 members - all of whom are women - to provide confidential support and a place for the members to open up and get advice from like-minded people.

Aggie helps women across the country, and found that there was an increase in women looking to give up drinking in Ireland, as well as at weekends.

She hopes to prove to other women that no matter how hard it seems, they can get through it like she did.

She said: ‘People think they drink because they’re stressed but they’re stressed because they drink.

‘People drink because they have anxiety, in fact alcohol gives them that anxiety.

‘I thought my life was over and I was just waiting to die. But I got through it. I want all the women in my group to see that there is a way out. I want to serve as an example.’

Her most recent project is ‘sober September’, encouraging people to give up booze during September, regardless of whether they think they have a problem or not.