Anti-Aging and Beauty Standards + Sobriety w/ NA founder Stephanie Styll
Anti-Aging and Beauty Standards + Sobriety w/ NA founder Stephanie Styll

Creative Sobriety

Kristen Baer and NA bottle shop founder Stephanie Styll talk about how sobriety reshapes their views on anti-ageing, beauty culture and cosmetic procedures. They question capitalist beauty pressures, stress transparency, and ask whether choices around appearance are truly for oneself or for societal approval.

HonestInspiringInformativeAuthenticThought-provoking

1:02:16•11 Jun 2026

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Sobriety, Botox and Breaking Beauty Rules with Stephanie Styll

Episode Overview

Questioning why beauty procedures are being done can be more useful than labelling them right or wrong.
Sobriety often heightens awareness of what feels authentic and what feels like performance, including cosmetic work.
The normalisation of subtle cosmetic procedures and filters can create harmful, invisible beauty standards.
Capitalism benefits when women stay busy, anxious and spending on appearance, similar to pressures from the alcohol industry.
Open conversation and transparency about what people do—or choose not to do—to their faces and bodies can reduce shame and unrealistic comparison.

“I think in sobriety, like, we should all be looking for our favourite version of ourselves.”

How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? Creative Sobriety tackles that question from an unexpected angle: anti-ageing, beauty standards, and what happens when those collide with an alcohol-free life. Host Kristen Baer chats with her friend Stephanie Styll, founder of Killjoy, Nashville’s non-alcoholic bottle shop, about the pressure on women to stay forever young. They compare the beauty industry to the alcohol industry, arguing both are designed to keep women distracted, profitable and doubting themselves.

As Stephanie puts it, she’s trying to find “the most high vibration version of myself… my favourite version of me,” while wondering how much of that has been shaped by outside pressure. Kristen shares her history with modelling, early Botox and filler, and how sobriety made those choices feel “really misaligned”. She asks the uncomfortable question: “Why am I going to continue injecting literal toxin into my face?

I’ve done such hard work to get sober.” Together they unpack the shift from obvious cosmetic tweaks to subtle procedures that are hard to spot yet hugely influence what people think an “ageing naturally” face looks like. They also talk money, capitalism and time: the hours and cash poured into hair, nails, injectables and waxing, and how that energy could be used elsewhere.

Both agree that honesty is crucial—especially for public figures who profit from their image—so people aren’t comparing themselves to quietly edited faces and bodies. The conversation widens into ageing as a privilege, perimenopause, social media influence, and the importance of asking, “Is this for me, or for someone else?” They finish with a shared hope: that women can feel free to do whatever they like with their appearance, as long as they’ve truly asked why.

So where do you feel genuinely aligned—are your beauty choices supporting your sober self, or keeping you stuck in someone else’s script?

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