Researching alcohol interventions for a friend. I’ve seen more ads for alcohol than ever in my life
I have a friend who’s alcohol consumption has gotten out of control. Me and his other friends/family are planning an intervention and so I’ve been doing a lot of research/reading on the topic.
NEVER and I mean NEVER have I seen so many fucking ads for alcohol in my LIFE. Instagram? 15 ads in a half hour of scrolling reels. YouTube? Ads. Google results? Ads. Twitter? Ads.
It’s fucking everywhere and it’s SICK. I’m researching how to help someone stop drinking and I’m getting inundated with ads for anything from gin, beers, vodkas and more. I can’t even imagine having an alcohol issue and trying to find help for myself with the web being this way.
You can turn off targeted ads on most platforms so the ads you get are useless.
But you are right, when searching for anti drinking info ads for drinking shouldn't appear. I seem to remember there was a alcohol shop that was giving discounts for drinks if you gave them your sober token things you get.
I had 2 interventions in my life and neither worked. In fact, they made it much worse for me.
I suggest that you go to AlAnon and learn a bit about alcoholism before trying anything (btw, AlAnon is not AA, but is a program to help non-alcoholics understand what they're dealing with.)
Your friend is lucky to have you. Don't give up on them. It truly is hellish, and they'll need your support.
I quit smoking years ago and I really felt like the world wanted me to quit. Indoor smoking at restaurants was being banned. No more smoking section on flights. Movies were no longer depicting everyone with a cigarette in their mouth all the time like they did in the 60s. Many hotels stopped offering smoking rooms. Nicotine patches and gum were available to help.
I felt like trends in the world were behind me and it helped.
Alcohol is a totally different story. Alcohol is not being banned. It is still something almost everyone does. It is allowed at restaurants and virtually everywhere else. Everyone I know drinks. They haven’t cracked down on advertising in the same way. Hotel rooms have booze in the room for you. Airlines bring you drinks. There are no OTC quitting aids.
If someone has an alcohol problem and needs to quit, they’re really going to have a much harder time than quitting smoking.
Happened to me when I quit drinking. It was so engaging. Suddenly every other ad online is for hard liquor, too drastic to have been a lot of coincidences lining up.
It's less Google fault directly, more that finding sobriety terms is part of the alcohol manufacturers SEO/ad words strategy. Which is absolutely disgusting.
I hope your intervention goes well, it wouldn't have worked well on me for sure so I hope your friend has more grace than I did when I was drinking.
Don't do one of those "5vs1" interventions! All it will do is make your friend think you are "ganging up" on him. Talk with him one on one, make your other friends do the same with some time in between.
Yeah I learned stuff was spying on my voice because I was talking to my wife about how I need to take a break from drinking for a bit to recalibrate my habits and then for several days literally nothing but alcohol ads. No searches were made.
If they can’t resist doing this then maybe they shouldn’t be allowed to advertise alcohol.
Just as a note to OP, some levels of alcohol addiction are so deep that they cannot be halted at once without risk to the addict’s health or even life. If you suspect your friend could be that far gone, it requires medical intervention.
The level of advertising on the internet is why I haven't been without an adblocker since the early 2000's. And when the ads aren't displayed, you also get to see just how much god damn space is devoted to them, with all the now empty space left on any given page.
Preaching to the choir. I’ve been sober for years at this point and had a poly substance abuse issue but alcohol was always one that would always come back around in my life. It’s literally everywhere and YOU’RE the weird one if you don’t drink. Alcohol is a literal poison and it’s so in your face no matter what you do. Things that helped me were friends and family (sounds like you’re a good friend, I don’t know you but I’m proud of you for leading the charge on trying to get your friend help), naltrexone, and completely removing myself from situations where alcohol was present, and leaving behind people that didn’t respect my sobriety.
It was a lot of hard work, I fucked up a few times. Just be there for your buddy, it sounds like you already are but yeah. Come from a place of concern, ask them if they’re concerned about their own drinking and figure out what’s goin’ on. Also, don’t be offended if you get told to fuck off this first go around. If he’s not ready and is still in denial, you will not change his mind and you will be setting everyone up for failure here. If he’s not ready for the help, there’s nothing you can do other than express your concern about alcoholism, his physical and mental health and let it stew. You may find that he chooses alcohol over his relationships at this stage in his addiction. If he wants to come forward and get help, then that’s great.
Also, sorry for the rant. Maybe you didn’t want advice haha.
There’s actually a setting at least on Facebook to specifically disable alcohol and gambling based on some settlement a few years ago but they hid it really welll
Facebook briefly offered you the option to select topics you didn't want to see advertised at all, I chose alcohol and politics. Want to guess what 90% of my ads on that garbage site are?
Gambling and alcohol ads have to be among the most unethical form of marketing in existence, yet, it really is everywhere. These companies (Google/Meta/Twitter) are even showing these ads to minors on an ongoing basis.
I couldn't imagine being an addict or former addict and having to be exposed to this mindfuck.
I would encourage everyone to actively find ways to block ads, even if solely to preserve one's mental health.
Interesting. I live in Poland and liquor advertisements are illegal here, in fact all alcoholic beverage commercials are banned except for beer (I think even with that there used to be some restrictions that in tv they can be only aired after 23:00 or 11 PM, I'm not sure if it's still the case). According the law definition, it should also apply to social media and internet in general, but it might or might not be completely regulated (yet?). In general however, I don't see such adverts and even beer adverts are quite rare, to the point that I forgot they could exist, just like cigarettes commercials.
Last beer advert I remember was some some billboard with 0% Free beer with raspberry flavor or whatever
If you don't block ads and you type things into searches about alcohol you will indeed get a lot of alcohol ads. The thing is though, I never got them as frequently when I was still drinking, or maybe never noticed them. Also I once got served ads for beer on a page about quitting booze lol, it seems pretty intentional even though it's most likely not that targeted.
Hope things go well and your friend is receptive to the message. It might not change the trajectory right away but at the very least, it'll be something to encourage them to examine their habits. If your friend does seem to take it to heart but has a hard time cutting back, there's a medication called naltrexone which may help reduce alcohol cravings. I'm just some internet guy though so that's more of a conversation between them and their doctor, it's something I didn't know about before starting treatment but I think it was helpful. Carbonated (seltzer/sparkling) water was useful as a replacement for the alcoholic drinks in my case but if that brings to mind stuff they used to mix together, it may not be an ideal solution.
If they've been drinking heavily over a long period, there are also some risks associated with complete cessation so it couldn't hurt to encourage them to schedule an appointment with their doctor anyway. I'd imagine that's come up in your research already though.
I would say the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon plays a bigger role here. Alcohol ads are super common and wouldn't be surprised if you just zoned them out before.
I am not going to deny that searching for anything alcohol related can increase the amount but I highly doubt it would be by such a large margin.
I know this is four months old, but I'm getting nonstop gambling ads after googling how to block them and its driving me insane. I hate that I'm not alone in ad hell... I've lost people because of gambling addiction and it is RIDICULOUS that there isn't a way to block ads for things that are dangerous, if they become addictive.
I would say calling it sick is a bit much. Yes, I’m this context it’s fucked up but the ads being served are simply trying to match advertisements to users. Alcohol is quite popular for advertising, alcoholic interventions not so much.
So yeah, you’re gonna get ads about alcohol. If this bothers you, turn off ad targeting wherever possible. You could also install an ad blocker (mind blowing you don’t seem to have one?)