Social Experiment: The Go-To Voice for Gen-Z Sobriety

Table of Contents

• The Social Experiment Backstory

• Launching the Newsletter on beehiiv

• Bullish on the Growth of Sobriety

Alcohol has been around for thousands of years.

It’s something so ingrained in our culture that it’s considered strange not to drink.

In October 2020, Brooke LeBlanc decided to take the plunge and cut alcohol out of her life entirely.

On her journey, she decided to publicly document her counter-culture experience.

Fast-forward 3 years later, and she’s amassed 30,000 followers across social channels and built a brand called Edge that offers coaching and cohorts to help others on their own path to sobriety.

We recently sat down with Brooke LeBlanc, Founder and CEO of the Social Experiment and Edge Health to discuss the next generation of sobriety, how she’s building a community in the space, and why she recently launched her newsletter on beehiiv.

Brooke was eager to share her journey in sobriety, why she’s optimistic about the movement, and how she’s built a brand and a following around her passion.

If you’re looking for inspiration on creating your own newsletter, building a community-driven brand, or creating your own space within a niche, then keep reading. This Creator Spotlight showcases the myriad of opportunities that open up when you go all in on a niche and provide value day in and day out.

The Social Experiment Backstory

Brooke LeBlanc is a typical 20-something living in New York City. Except, she’s not typical. She’s decided to go against the grain by leaving the world of alcohol consumption behind. And, she’s made it her mission to help others find their own alcohol-free journey.

Now, Brooke is the founder and CEO of Edge, a tech company connecting the world through sobriety. As a leading Gen-Z voice in the space of alcohol-free living, Brooke’s building a community and products to help others cut back or quit drinking to live a healthier lifestyle.

When she went online to share her story of going sober, she didn’t realize it would go as viral as it did. She quickly recognized that she had a real voice in the community and could help others better their lives as well.

Brooke shared, “My own social experiment has been awesome. I never feel like drinking is something that I'm giving up by choosing to not drink, like I'm quitting something. I’ve gotten so much energy back.”

She elaborated, “I don't think that I could have the deeper level of friendships and family relationships as I do now. I don't think that I would have made as many bold life choices as I've made.”

Brooke explained that one of the ‘why’s’ behind her choice to cut out drinking was due to her entrepreneurial drive.

She explained, “Being an entrepreneur is a very exposing, challenging, but rewarding journey to go on. You need to be fully on to manage the workload and also manage to be the person who's in charge of both strategy and execution as a solo founder. I want to have as clear a head as possible to execute and deliver all my promises to customers (we have an MVP program) and then in the future, when we have employees and investors.”

Launching the Newsletter on beehiiv

After two and a half years of building community through social media in the sobriety space, Brooke decided to launch a newsletter on beehiiv earlier this year.

Brooke shared, “I've been building a community online and sharing my story and collecting other people's stories in my DMs on social media. So this has been a long time coming to launch a newsletter. I decided to reserve the name earlier this year and I started accumulating signups and I launched it about six weeks ago now.”

She explained how her newsletter is “a head nod to the straight edge 

movement” as a part of her company, Edge Health.

Brooke shared how the newsletter is “centered around the ethos in the spirit of cutting back or quitting drinking being a cool thing.”

Rather than looking at sobriety as depriving yourself, she’s “putting a stake in the ground and saying that it's rebellious to go sober, because today in most cultures around the world, it's contrarian to not drink.”

She shared, “The newsletter is designed around viewing sobriety from a cultural lens. So looking at all of the trends that are involved, from why people choose to cut back or quit drinking to the medical perspective and new science that's coming out, to the prolific nonalcoholic beverage market that's exploding and taking over the alcohol sales market.”

Brooke conveyed how she’s going to start featuring information on different cultures, including the history and future of drink. She’s optimistic that alcohol is going to be less of a go-to choice if you’re looking to change your state.

She elaborated, “With the legalization of marijuana and the destigmatization and eventual legalization of psychedelics, we're seeing a massive consumer shift in behavior and it's not just a trend.”

By diving into this topic, Brooke isn’t just looking at one group of people. Rather, she’s aiming to connect with others in the space, such as people looking to start living a sober lifestyle and investors and other founders in the space.

Brooke shared, “[My goal is to] set a bull case for the vision that I see and take all of the learnings that I've had over the past few years in a very small, but growing market underneath the multi-trillion dollar wellness category and share that out into the world.”

By launching her newsletter, Brooke is able to create a marketing engine and community builder to provide value to the niche and build authority in the space.

She shared, “It's really cool how collaborative of an industry it is in the sobriety space because it's still so new. There's much less competition. We're really fighting against the old guard of the alcohol market. That’s the synopsis of what we're building and why I'm on the platform and beehiiv was the go-to choice.”

Brooke’s not just optimistic about the growing sobriety movement. She’s also optimistic about newsletters built on beehiiv. She already has a few domains she’s secured on the side for future newsletters on the platform.

She elaborated, “beehiiv was really the only platform of choice. I know Tyler Denk firsthand and we had lunch here in the city a couple of months ago. He sold me on the company and he was like, ‘You need to get set up with us. We're the Shopify for newsletters.’ So I'm completely sold on building our platform natively within beehiiv.”

Bullish on the Growth of Sobriety

While people have been consuming alcohol for thousands of years, Brooke believes there’s a shift happening, and sobriety is on the rise worldwide.

Brooke shared, “It's cool to make a bull case and say something that's been around for thousands of years will not be for much longer. People immediately have a resistance to that because the best predictor of the future is the past.”

She continued, “It's really interesting to look at what people are demanding. And there’s a growing demand for healthier alternatives.”

In addition to the growing demand for alcohol-free beverages, Brooke has also discovered that policies are changing around the world when it comes to drinking.

She explained, “Similar to what we saw with cigarettes 10 years ago is what we're seeing with drinking today.”

In a recent newsletter, Brooke shared how Ireland is going to be the first country in the world to legally require a health warning label on all alcoholic beverages and there will be signs required to be put up in bars.

Brooke explained how Ireland's implementation of this policy will have a ripple effect throughout Europe and the rest of the world…