We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Stephanie Styll. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Stephanie below.
Stephanie, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
When I quit drinking in 2020, I had no idea that alcohol alternatives existed. It was the height of the pandemic, and I sat at home drinking water and everything was pretty “meh,” but I was okay with that. But when the world opened back up and I started socializing again, I quickly realized that just drinking juice or soda at restaurants and social events had me feeling childish and “left out.”
So after researching my beverage options, I learned there was a growing industry of alcohol alternatives: beer, wine, and spirits that taste like the real thing but are alcohol-free! I started experimenting with them and fell in love. You mean I can go to the party, drink champagne, and drive home and feel great the next day!? YES PLEASE!
As I became educated and passionate about these products, I realized that they were very difficult to find in Nashville, and ordering online was a daunting prospect for most people because they were all so new. For this reason, I decided to open a brick-and-mortar store where people could spend as long as they liked asking questions, learning about the products, and even tasting them.
After 6 months in business, I can tell you that alcohol alternatives can make cutting back on drinking SO much easier and more fun than most people imagine. While my original mission was just to educate and expose people to sophisticated alcohol-free beverages, it now goes beyond that. I want to change the culture around drinking. I want to celebrate not drinking, build community, and normalize partying with booze-free beverages.
We host lots of events and alcohol-free parties in addition to the shop and my passion for both parts of our mission grows deeper every day.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I grew up in Nashville and spent 14 years living overseas, mostly in Germany. My career was in higher education, and I changed to nonprofit when I moved back to Nashville in 2015. I worked for a volunteer resource center that also held an MOU with the city to do disaster response, but had not been asked to do this kind of work since the big flood of 2010. Then, in 2020, we had a devastating tornado, a pandemic, a derecho, and a bombing. This coincided with me having my first kid and turning 40. WHAT. A. YEAR.
Like many of us, I turned to alcohol to manage my stress, but with a tiny baby in the house, I quickly realized this was not a great option, and so I gave alcohol up for good on my 40th birthday, and I haven’t looked back. As I mentioned in the story of my mission, I became passionate about alcohol alternatives, but the only places to find them in Nashville were liquor stores, and each one only carried a couple of types. If you’re trying not to drink, I don’t recommend driving to every liquor store in town to quench your thirst.
The other option was to buy things online, and this was daunting for me because the products were so new and unknown!
I kept wishing there could be a completely alcohol-free shop that had friendly and knowledgeable staff to help me select the right drinks, educate me about them, and even let me taste them, so that’s exactly what I created.
On April 1, 2023, I opened Killjoy: a brick-and-mortar shop that sells beer, wines, spirits, and functional beverages – all completely alcohol-free!! We also host events like trivia, karaoke, book clubs, and wine tastings.
This was a crazy leap for me, but it’s been absolutely wonderful. One of the things I am most proud of is the community that is building and growing and how we are changing the culture. We are making it cool to not drink, cool to care about your own wellness, and cool to learn how to have a good time just being weird and fun and not needing a crutch.
I love getting to know the folks that come to my shop. I want to hear their stories and encourage them. I want to celebrate sober milestones, even minor ones. Nashville is a friendly town, and I feel like we are true to our roots, encouraging people to connect to their soul’s true passion and to each other, in a musical and party environment, just with something else in their glass.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
Saying goodbye to booze has taught me so much more than I ever expected. Did you know that around 80 percent of adults drink alcohol? It’s very normalized in our culture, and I grew up thinking that it was healthy and necessary if you wanted to live a long life – you just had to know how to moderate. I thought the problem was me…I was just a person who wasn’t always good at moderating once I started drinking. I thought I had to learn to “control” that. As a woman, I thought “controlling” my desires was the answer to a lot of problems, but I have come to realize I am not the problem – believing these societal truths and cultural norms is. QUESTION EVERYTHING.
We unconsciously believe the messages that society sends us, and they come from everywhere – your friends, family, social media, marketing and advertising, etc. Society tells us that drinking is sophisticated and fun and totally normal and that people do it all the time without problems and it’s the only way to have a really good time. I deeply believed that life without booze would be dull, antiseptic, and uncool and that it would be hard to stop.
Once I started to analyze the “truth” behind these assumptions (thanks to “This Naked Mind” by Annie Grace), I realized how much BS I was believing, and I was able to start thinking for myself and uncovering unconscious beliefs. I now keep myself on alert for limiting and false beliefs creeping back in, and I really limit what I watch, read, and who I hang out with. This works on a lot of levels.
As an entrepreneur, life can be scary! I can surround myself with people who don’t take risks, or I can surround myself with others who are successfully doing the thing, giving me encouragement, etc. I can read motivational books and listen to podcasts that get me hyped for what I want to do. And so for me, unlearning meant reprogramming myself and understanding how much of my mindset was unconscious and how much that can drive our decisions and behaviors.
I am absolutely committed to living life on my terms, and that means keeping my mindset strong and focused on the things that will help me to achieve my dreams, and ruthlessly eradicating unconscious self-limiting beliefs.
Have you ever had to pivot?
I’ve done a lot of pivoting, and am sure I will continue on that way forever. I’ve never operated in much of a straight line, because I believe that action begets action. I’m often not sure what to do, so I do SOMETHING, and it leads me to where I need to be after a couple of pivots.
For example, right after college, I married someone in the Army and moved to Germany. I had no real work experience and was having a hard time finding a job. So I decided start my own business as a make-up artist. I spent a few months in London getting certified and then came back to Germany right before the new year. On New Year’s Eve, I fell down on some cobblestone and broke a bone in my right wrist requiring a cast covering my entire thumb – a finger desperately needed for the application of make-up.
Knowing I’d be out of commission for at least 8 weeks, I went to the education center on the base to see what else I could learn. I ended up getting a job there on the spot, and worked in higher education for the next 10 years (and I got my Master’s degree too!).
So I follow my heart and know that inspired action always leads to the right path, even if we have no idea what that path looks like. I’m never afraid to make a few turns.
Contact Info:
- Website: killjoyclub.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/killjoy_nash/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/killjoynash
Image Credits
Stephanie Styll