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.
It’s fucking sick.
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.
A lot of bars will give you free drinks if you give them your sobriety coin from AA.
I don’t believe this
It’s very common, Google it for your location
I’ve definitely heard of bars offering free non alcoholic drinks to DD’s but I can’t imagine any trying to get AA coins in exchange for alcohol that’s crazy.
it’s a big world. Any conceivable promotion you could think of us being done in at least a few places. Can’t imagine its common though
Unethical life pro tips: visit AA meetings to get sobriety coins and exchange them for free drinks.
You can probably just buy the coins online lmao
But they would not be free.
Are they less than a drink? I sense an arbitrage opportunity.
and you get to fuck over a bar owner who is a piece of shit so there is that
AA sourced sobriety coins cost a LOT trust me. You dont ever want to have to find out. Not that they charge you for the coins (they do not), but whatever landed you in there likely cost you more than some online coins would, is my point.
People are talking about going to AA just for the sobriety coins. I don’t think they’re actually doing it earnestly because they really have a problem they want AA to help them with. So nothing actually “landed” them there.
You never know, maybe my problem is lack of money for drinks.
You’re fun at parties huh
Holy hell, that’s straight up evil if true. I hope the bad PR ran them out of business.
You can buy the coins for as little as £0.75 each (~$1) https://www.recovery12.co.uk/newcomer-aa-medallions-67-c.asp Then go to a bar and get a drink for almost nothing.
😀
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.
Not just online, my friend. I got sober around the beginning of last baseball season. Thought I could turn the volume down on cravings that day by turning on a game.
“Welcome back to the broadcast, sponsored by Truly Hard Seltzer. Now let’s take a look at the Miller Lite home run replay brought to you by Jack Daniel’s Fire, cinnamon infused whiskey.”
Interventions are tough. When I was intervention-ed, it felt like no one was on my team, like this is what they’re supposed to do. I even went to rehab, but my heart was not in it. At all. Zero percent.
The second time I went, it was for me, not just to appease the endlessly talking heads all around me. Interventions walk that odd line between we’re here for you in support, also, you’re going somewhere because we care. Like the intervention is a favor.
At least for me. Others obviously experience it differently. I’d be willing to bet there’s a lot of failed recoveries because of interventions and AA though. It might be because gasp people might have mental, emotional, and even genetic reasons. We aren’t just a clump of people called alcoholics that need help to stop drinking.
That’s like claiming “hey, I stopped beating my wife!” You don’t get credit for that. You’re not supposed to do that. Maybe there’s a mental health issue? Maybe it’s the environment? Interventions are not typically about anything but “hey you, stop”.
Sadly that’s not enough. Anybody thinking about it, the rehab is actually fun, then come the doctors and therapy to help straighten you out for realsies. 15 months for me. To anyone just starting the process, I will not drink with you today!
We can still blame google for not low prioritizing alcohol ads when people search for sobriety.
Yeah, surely you could implement logic to see things like intervention paired with alcohol and then not show those ads.
Agreed. I wrote them a complaint about it years ago. sucks to hear its still an issue.
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.
Switch to Firefox, duckduckgo, don’t use google of at least turn off personalized ads
Also add either ublock origin or Ad Nauseam as Firefox extensions
Adguard dns filter for the home network too
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I don’t think they’re looking for solutions. I think they’re imagining their friend and others in their friend’s situation that decide to do something about their drinking problem and find that as a cruel joke they’re now inundated with alcohol ads everywhere they go. They’re pointing out yet another example of how capitalism without guardrails sucks.
It does go to show the necessity of adblocking software though. It’s not just a trivial convenience at the expense of sites’ ad-revenue, it’s necessary for online safety.
Absolutely
My desktop and laptop both have adblocks on them amongst other things. But I’ve been doing a lot of this research on my iPhone.
If you’re still looking for resources (particularly if you are needing non-religious resources) a lot of health systems have outpatient programs and support groups for various substance use disorders, so that would be a good place to look. Depending on how severe the problem is, presenting an open and non-judgemental front regarding medical intervention and medication use can help reduce the stigma of getting chemical help for a chemical problem.
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Download Wipr or use Firefox Focus. There’s loads of ways to block ads on an iPhone.
Or make a PiHole. I did years ago and I fucking love it. PiHole+Wipr=hella zero ads.
Dam. I didn’t know there was something like Wipr for iPhone. Bought just now. Thanks
I’ve looked into doing a pi-hole actually. Just never got around to grabbing a pi
I have a few small/low power HP machines. I wonder if I could just use that since I already have it on hand.
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 searched for husavara images once because we were watching an old b sci-fi movie where they dressed one up with crappy “prosthetics” but didn’t paint it and I wanted to prove that’s what it was.
I got huskavara and John Deere ads all over my socials pretty much exclusively the next day and extremely frequently for a week afterwards. There’s just no way those were there prior to that search. I turned off targeted ads and never saw them again.
I believe op when he says he was inundated with them.
I always second guess this now. It’s a logical argument, but I’ve experienced this ad attack too.
Someone close to me had a medical scare and the entire web flipped from “blah blah buy this crap” to “when I found out I had cancer…” I saw red. It wasnt just me, several other households were hounded immediately and relentlessly.
They had a huge helping of privacy education after that. Browser plugins, privacy tips, and I built a Pihole for their network.
There are no ethics in online advertising. Once you are categorized as a premium marketability consumer (life events like health, pregnancy, and I suppose alcohol/sobriety now) the web turns on you and your close associates.
That year 4 families joined the online privacy and Adblockers forever club.
This treats the symptom, not the illness.
This is a vaccine that will make you immune to the illness.
Most of my devices have all the relevant blocks and filters etc. my iPhone doesn’t and given I’m mostly in a few paid apps it hasn’t really been an issue in the past at all.
I really just wanted to call attention to how sick of an issue this is for someone who might be trying to help themselves.
Yes, it is a dick move. Companies don’t care about consumers, they care about sales and their brand. You could document this with some screenshots or a short video and send out an e-mail to a bunch of popular newspapers. If any of them pick up the subject, it could hurt those assholes.
Wait - are you really the real Blizzard?
Why did you do this to us?
I wish they had an official account on Lemmy because I’d like to ask them some questions:
- why do giant slugs and porcupines keep bound prisoners?
- why do mobs suddenly come out from underground? Just becasue it made sens with zergs, doesn’t mean it will make sens with everything
Don’t let me start talking about movement because it’ll turn into a rant.
Install uBlock Origin. Ads are a legitimate malware threat.
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.
Gambling is the one that is so infuriating for me as well, and part of the reason I don’t watch sports at all now.
They have sponsored segments IN THE SHOW during the game talking about the current odds and bets that can be placed. In addition to all the signs and ad segments. It is so terrible in Ontario once online gambling ads were legalized.
It’s just as if announcers were consuming alcohol or smoking on set with a bottle or pack of it in front of them. Gambling should be illegal or heavily regulated just the same as other addictive substances.
I’ve seen music videos being re-uploaded with gambling ads inserted into the video (like a character was watching TV/on their computer/looking at their phone, and it was there). I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. It’s so disgusting, I didn’t think people could stoop so low.
Holy fuck, that is horrendous! Do you have any examples you can share/find again?
Found it! It’s Forever with Drake
But the original video may have already had the gambling bit. It says “remastered in HD”, so I’m not sure if the original also had it or not.
But anyway, it’s there. 👎
Thank you for finding it! Horrifying…
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=eDuRoPIOBjE
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
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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?
I had the same experience. Those settings didn’t seem to change a thing.
I have, through a mixture of ad blockers, privacy friendly 3rd party front ends, choice of services and living in a city which banned billboard ads, pretty much stopped seeing ads. And I observed I feel annoyance, when I do bump into an ad.
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 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.
Unfortunately, the medications that help with alcohol withdrawal are somewhat dangerous in their own right and need to be fairly tightly controlled. Delirium tremens (the shakes) from withdrawal are usually managed with benzodiazepines like Valium for emergent use and Ativan for prolonged control. The other main maintenance drug for alcohol withdrawal is Librium, and that one is also a benzodiazepine. It would be amazing if there were safe OTC options, but because of the serious damage alcohol does and the dangerous nature of withdrawal from it, it really needs to be closely medically managed. Opiate withdrawal sucks…alcohol withdrawal can very easily kill you outright.
Yeah it’s so hard because for most of us, alcohol is food culture, not so much a drug. I drink one cocktail 2 - 3 times a week, only ever one because I don’t enjoy being drunk, and make drinks at parties BUT also always make sure there is something adult, delicious, and not alcoholic plus plenty of soda and pitchers of water because I know not everyone can just pick it up and put it down like that. But most people can & do. Fewer people just smoke a couple times a week.
Humans have been fermenting things to get alcoholic drinks for a really long time.
Something I’ve seen at some restaurants (ranging from casual to Michelin star) is the increasing prevalence of mocktails. If you mix non-alcoholic ingredients with the same kind of style and objective as mixed drinks, you can make some really tasty stuff.
Exactly. Not fruit punch. I try to make something complex, with some bitter, some sour, some sweet. Young pineapple tepache or ginger beer, before they get at all boozy are good if you aren’t serving actual recently recovering alcoholics as they are non-intoxicating and delicious and complex. Grapefruit juice non alcoholic cocktails are also good and complex.
Chinotto soda or Malta can also be good adult choices for a party.
Usually even the drinkers at a party like the non alcoholic fancy drinks. And Diet Coke is always popular too.
You’re right. Serious alcohol addiction can be an in-patient thing. All the more reason it’s strange how we demonize smoking but not alcohol. They both have quite negative long term health impacts, but I don’t think nicotine withdrawal can be fatal. And the whole drunk driving thing…
I know there is a long history of temperance movements and things aren’t as bad as they once were in history. But I think our current age is really lacking a much needed awakening about alcohol.
Tbf, most of the reasoning behind the “help” you got for smoking was because it actively endangers those around you. Alcoholism, by an extremely large margin, affects those around you much less.
Alcohol abuse absolutely affects everyone around you. We had a friend who used to say “there is no problem in the world that can’t be made worse with alcohol!”
Even setting aside things like car crashes under the influence and violence under the influence - lost days at work affect your coworkers, hung over parent who can’t help out, alcohol abuse harms others, not just the abuser.
With the understanding that I don’t have the knowledge to say that you’re anything but absolutely right, I do think that the damage assessment would be tricky when taking mental health and social wellbeing into account.
That last sentence was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read.
I just had my 2 year sobriety birthday this month and I completely agree with you, however, I do think the culture in America is shifting. Millennials aren’t drinking AS much and Gen Z much much less. The social pressure to drink is waning somewhat and I live in a state that has the most drinking per capita in the country.
There’s a lot of N/A beers that have gotten much better to give people quitting an alternative (like nicotine gum or patches). Long way to go but I do think it’s trending in a positive direction for people struggling. I understand this isn’t something some people feel comfortable with - I was very hesitant to try one for the first time after quitting because I wasn’t sure if it would spark the urge to drink real beer more but it’s been great for me.
I don’t see a world where alcohol is restricted as much as public smoking but having alternatives is a big thing for me to feel less awkward in drinking social settings where i still feel like I’m participating in a healthy way for me.
Good to hear about the youth trends. The industry has gotten creative in going after them with all manner of sweet alcoholic coolers and such. I guess that’s been going on for some time.
It does seem that young people these days are doing considerably less drinking, fucking, and fast driving than when I was their age. As a parent, I suppose I am glad for this, even though it seems to come along with some bad stuff like spending less time outside and social media zombification.
Glad to hear that near beer helps you. I have tried it and didn’t find it sparked anything for me, but it also didn’t do anything for me either, and I felt conspicuous with it in my hand. Maybe that’s all better now with more options that are higher quality.
Congratulations on your anniversary! I will raise a La Croix to you today.
the youth
Gonna make us both feel old but Gez Z is increasingly old enough to drink legally. My daughter is tail end of Z and she’s 18.
Thumbs up to the rest of the post tho, that just caught me by surprise so I had to spread that crazy-seeming message.
I don’t really have a grip on the names folks give these generations, and that’s getting more and more the case as time goes on!
Indeed. And consequences of alcohol to other people are way more significant than from smoking. Drunk drivers, drunk fights, drunk workers, aggression, depression and so on.
Myself I don’t smoke, but vape. Tabacco smoke stinks really bad that I can’t even stand the smell. My gf who don’t smoke or vape says that my vapor is basically nothing, can’t even smell most of the time, but cigarettes are just disgusting…
I know what you mean about consequences to other people. It is significant that second hand cigarette smoke can give other people cancer, though. I think that’s one of the big reasons why cigarette smoking gets banned in lots of places while drinking does not.
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
Your friend is lucky to have you. Good luck, I hope everything works out for the best.
that’s why I pay to remove ads.
