Capsule #125 ft. Lucy Shenton

Hello!

This week I’m super excited to bring you a guest essay from Jessy Miller. I discovered Jessy a few months ago after seeing her videos (she posts under @dailygalore) about slow living, giving up alcohol, and building a life that actually suits her. She’s one of those people who looks like a fashion girl from the outside (great taste!!!) but has lots more to say once you get into it. I asked her to write a personal essay for us this week, and she’s generously shared her story of going sober in her late 20s.

As ever, scroll also for the news you missed this week, a great Hot & Not from Lucy Shenton, and recs for the weekend ahead.

Sending love for the weekend,

Holly x

Hello! My name is Jessy. I’m 28, from east London, and I have an 11-year old pug. I’m also an avid clothes maker, a passionate fashion follower, and almost two years sober. I still think alcoholism and sobriety could be talked about with more nuance, especially for young women who look like they have it all together. And so I wanted to share my story with you today.

I never expected to have a drinking problem at 26, but two years ago, that’s where I found myself. At the time, most of the people in my life didn’t really believe it. “You’re not an alcoholic,” they would say, “you just need to cut down.”

I understand why people said this. I rarely drank alone, I never drank in the morning (unless I hadn’t slept) and I was a charming party girl. The Duchess of Tower Hamlets! I took pride in drinking like one of the boys and sipping a margarita was one of the key pillars of my identity. I loved the glamour, I loved socialising, and a drink was a superpower in my hand. With it, I could be whoever you wanted me to be.

But what was going on behind the scenes was very different. I was often late to work, if I turned up at all. I left jobs just before getting fired, I couldn’t maintain my relationship in a healthy manner, and my life was becoming unmanageable. I spent a few years chasing the chaos and shrugging off the signs that I needed help, until they became too blatant to ignore. 

My first realisation came after a night out with my oldest friend, Emma. I thought we had similar drinking rhythms, but I’d go to the bar and order three drinks, one for me to gulp there and then, plus two to take back for us to chat over. Emma sipped hers slowly, more interested in the conversation we were having than the drink in front of her. My internal monologue loudly begged her to speed up so we could go for another. I desperately wanted to appear normal, but I felt like a child who couldn’t keep their hands off the cookie jar.

Waking up the following morning was biblical. I stared in the mirror, my face pale, lifeless, and adorned with a cigarette burn. I wore sunglasses all day for my migraine, and anxiously pored through my phone to see the messages I’d fired off the night before. I vowed to avoid most people for the rest of the week. 

I asked Emma how she felt. She shrugged and said she felt a bit rough, but would be fine after a McDonalds. Her response alienated me, because I knew that if she had dared to ask me the same question, I would have told her I was considering jumping off a bridge.

Another pivotal moment was more trivial. My boyfriend asked our friend Tommy where I was at an event, to which he replied “if you’re ever looking for Jessy, just head straight for the bar.” I thought I was getting away with it and I was delusional. He saw me for who I was.

Things got particularly dark in the final weeks of my drinking. While many of my friends were announcing engagements or pregnancies, I was drinking with strangers in bars late into the night. We’d move on to strip clubs - often the only place you could keep drinking - before heading straight to work at 7am without sleeping. I did things I swore I would never do: I drove under the influence and crashed my mum’s car, I became estranged from my family, and had public drunken screaming matches with people. At the time, I thought I was a normal, reliable person, a good friend and partner. But the drink made me different, and I realised there was a huge disconnect between how others viewed me and how I viewed myself. It was enough. 

It means a lot for me to say I’m now almost two years sober, and I don’t regret my decision one bit. I’ve been delighted to find that sober life isn’t boring at all. It's brilliant. In the months I’ve spent dry, I’ve realised that I can still be sociable, fun, and stylish, all the things I always wanted to be. 

Beyond that, being sober means waking up without dread, and actually being able to sleep the night before. It means eating well, having energy, and making my 8am gym class instead of cancelling in shame. And being sober makes me feel, dare I say it, sexy. There is a level of confidence and self assuredness I just could not access before giving up alcohol.

Getting to this stage is not something I could have done alone. I started attending sobriety support groups, which suddenly gave me an entire network of people who understood me without judgement. I called on these people when I felt wobbly, overwhelmed, or tempted. I wasn’t on my own anymore, not even in the hard parts.

My romantic life also transformed. I’ve been in the same relationship for six years, four of them drinking, and the last two sober. My partner (who doesn’t drink) previously had to cope with the impulsive version of me - like when I declared I was heading to Paris one night (got on the Eurostar there and then) or booked a spontaneous trip to LA (still paying off the flights for a holiday I never went on). 

But the past 24 months of our relationship have been filled with simple things I never thought I was capable of: waking up together on a Saturday morning, strolling in the park, and wandering to a market. It sounds basic, but I used to crave “the madness” so much that I couldn’t comprehend getting joy from the simple things. Now I build my self esteem by doing tasks that make me feel proud to be who I am: I do the dishes, I cook dinner after work, I organise life admin. I feel like a good partner and am so much happier for it. 

My friendships look a lot different, too. Drinkers often surround themselves with fellow drinkers, because you can hide in the group, and feel validated by friends who also have a problem. When you stop, some people don’t want to speak to you, and I lost a best friend who wasn’t ready to acknowledge that she was in the madness with me. But other people hear about your decision and turn around and say I want this too. Going sober gave one of my friends the grace to come to me a year or so later to rebuild our friendship in the context of sobriety, and I really cherish our new relationship together. 

For the first time in years, I’m also rebuilding the relationships with my family. Slowly, steadily, honestly. It’s probably helped that I’m no longer dumping my dog on my mum for the weekend with no notice to go out drinking.

In the end, sobriety didn’t take away my life like I once feared. It gave me one. The glamour I thought I would miss is still there, it just looks differently now. It’s less about recklessness and unpredictability, and more about the steady joy I feel from having my feet firmly planted in reality.

It’s hard to offer “advice” for anyone who might feel seen by this piece, because everyone’s experience is so different. But I would say that things like heading out for “just one drink” that turns into a blow out, or catching yourself making little rules like “only on weekends” or “only beer,” might be signs worth listening to. 

Sobriety is very daunting, especially if you live in a drink-focused culture like the UK, but it’s doable. I don't think everyone has to quit cold turkey or swear off the booze forever, but doing some fact finding on your life will help you see if drinking is more of a net-negative for you. I started with “one day at a time” and found myself not wanting to go back. 

And let me be the one to show you that you can still get involved with pub games, sweaty dance floors, and sip on non-alcoholic spicy margs. I promise. I used to fear being seen as boring, but now I know that I am fun, I’m just not hurting myself and people I love along the way. 

And finally…

News from the Capsule universe this week:

• Miley ditched the veneers

• Kylie and Timmy arent’t hiding anymore

• A collab that makes sense

• …but more excited by this Chappell cover for Perfect

• Men being nice to each other :)

• Also… what a look

• Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, and Venus Williams are next year’s Met Gala hosts. Good!!! Some great names on the committee too

• A24 marketing strikes again for the new Zendaya x Robert Pattinson film. The trailer is here if you care!

• Okay diva in the cardigan!!!

• And the people raving about this clip are exactly right

This week, Lucy Shenton popped into Capsule to share what’s 🔥hot🔥 and what’s not 🙅‍♀️ …

Lucy is a content creator based in London. She will be releasing music soon!

📺 Watching: It Was Just An Accident in the cinema, Lucy Moon’s review of every beauty product she finished in 2025 (great idea!), and obviously could not resist the AD tour of Kendall Jenner’s mountain house.

📖 Reading: Hannah Ewens on the Kim Kardashian’s obsession with psychics, and if you’ve been feeling like your energy is running low, and you keep saying stuff like “I’ll get back on track next week,” this piece helps to understand why. Don’t underestimate our circadian rhythm!!!

🎧 Listening to: Some fun songs because it’s time: ‘Church’ by JADE (and the rest of the deluxe, including her cover of Madonna’s ‘Frozen’), ‘Glitter’ by Eli, and Kate Winslet on Fearne Cotton’s podcast is exactly the sort of wise older woman elixir we all need from time to time.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear how you’re finding Capsule - let me know here. And if you have a friend who might like it, do refer them! 🥺

See you next week 💋

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