Analyzing Alcoholism

Analyzing Alchoholism

And the marketing that enables it

— McCartney Fix, Co-News Editor

The ads are as ubiquitous as the product they sell. Do you want a break from the trials and tribulations of life, the daily stresses that come with a life lead with responsibilities? How about a beer, perhaps a glass of wine or a fist of whiskey? This allure of a reprieve from life’s struggles entrapped my loved ones and more than 3 million other individuals per year, and yet still, alcohol is advertised not as a powerful social lubricant to be enjoyed in moderation, but an essential aspect of social gatherings and an integral part of stress relief. It is sold to mothers as a way of quelling the financial woes of having a child, to then again be rediscovered after the birth of a second. This is the trap that befell a loved one of mine, who after years of sobriety, fell victim to the incessant campaigns ensuring her that the only side effect of the occasional drink would be a fun night, and an unfortunate morning. Consequently, every stressful ordeal or unfortunate event was paired with a drink, it became less of an amplifier of enjoyability and more a mask for sadness, numbing her to the reality of life. She was forced to confront it instead in the headrung morning. This experience is not unique, alcohol is the only advertised solution that fails to cure ailments and often ends up creating more of them; and therein lies the issue, the advertisement. We all like to assume we are not vulnerable to a solid marketing campaign but alcohol proves how untrue that is. Every year, like clockwork, we see on Super bowl Sunday or any other major televised event, Budweiser, Coors, and more take a crack at appealing to the largest audience possible. They dream of creating curious customers, who quickly become consumers, and in far too many cases, addicts. “I saw it like so many others,” Jeff, now a recovering alcoholic of 2 years said. “I would see it on TV or in a movie, and the curiosity

Photo sourced by Creative Commons

got the best of me.” Social media has only exacerbated such issues, with targeted advertising and key words pushing forth advertisements to those most vulnerable. Those barely grasping to sobriety, trying desperately to avoid another ad, are left with nowhere to hide, even on those platforms they may have used to reach out, they were left feeling isolated. “It was my first earnest attempt at getting clean,” Jen, an addict in a habitual state of relapse said. “I would try scrolling through my Facebook feed to reach out to a sponsor and boom, there it was, a bottle, or a liquor store ad, I could not escape” That final cut tie, that isolation, in which one’s primary sanctuary is made home to that which they hope to avoid, is what truly makes one an alcoholic. “It is not exclusively the drinking,” Jen said. “But the illusion of there being no escape.” At every step of one’s progression, from them simply being made curious through the prominence of product placement, to them integrating it into their life, to their first exhibiting concerning behaviors, to them fully isolating themselves, is abetted by the prominence of ads. Liquor is sold as liquid relief, or nothing with severe effects, or as relatively harmless any number of things, but those afflicted with it or affected by its abuse know that not to be the case. They know of homes broken, families torn apart, and marriages ruined by alcoholism, they know of thousands of lives ended and millions more ruined yearly by a product advertised on our televisions alongside sofas and cars. Alcoholism is a disease, and yet we as a society have allowed it to be sold as a cure.