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.
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 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.
AA always gave off bad vibes to me because of the whole “surrender to a higher power” shtick
I’ve found with my own addictions that forcibly stopping one just causes a different one to start up.
The real solution for me has been healing trauma, resulting in baseline consciousness not being painful.
Most alcoholics use alcohol to run from difficult, unprocessed emotions. I was one of them.
Shit like this is why I use ad blockers and route all my home network traffic through a Pi Hole.
If Google gets their way with their evil “Web Environment Integrity” bullshit this is going to get so. Much. Worse.
“Why should I care about privacy? I have nothing to hide, who cares if they target advertising at me?”
Not to make light of your situation, but if anyone in the crowd has said this to themselves at some point, the answer to why they should care is “shit like exactly this.” This is a prime example of “not illegal stuff to hide but targeted advertising actively making your life harder purposefully in an attempt to manipulate you into buying their products.”
Take back your privacy, use alternate solutions and avoid shit tier companies that attempt to take it from you for their own financial gain, even at the expense of your own financial ruin. Make “unsecure” a black mark companies have to crawl their way out of or else their products won’t be used or bought. Fuck them. Is it possible to gain 100% anonymity online? Likely, no, but you can put in a little effort to stop it as much as you can, and use adblockers of course to block what they would send. There is effort to it to be sure, but it is worth it, and the more people take their privacy seriously the more tools will be developed, improved, etc.
Again sorry to sort of hijack your post for this comment, that sucks and fuck whoever is serving you (and by extension actual alcoholics seeking recovery) those targeted ads. I just feel it’s necessary to point out real world examples of “this is why” because when you’re just talking about privacy as a concept people always pretend that since they aren’t a Sicario for Sinaloa they have no reason to care. You do, something as “small” (legal) as this is a reason.
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.
Few pages legit break apart without any ad containers
You can disable targeted ads on most platforms, which will make the ads you see less relevant.
However, you’re right—ads for alcohol shouldn’t appear when searching for information on quitting drinking. I recall a liquor store offering discounts on drinks in exchange for the sobriety tokens people receive.
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.
Wait - are you really the real Blizzard?
Why did you do this to us?
Sorry for spamming, i already wrote this in response to another comment, but i kind of find this important for everyone:
First thing everyone should do on a new phone ( or old phone, any phone )
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go to Internet & Network Settings
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Enter “dns.adguard.com” for Private DNS
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Profit: never see ads anywhere on your phone. Not in apps and in no browser.
It’s as simple as that. That’s all you need, in order too block ads globally.
Iirc there are different DNS servers from adguard with custom filters. Some are more strict and others more loose on the blocking.
This instruction is for Android, since it’s what i use, but I’m sure, similar setting exists in iOS.
It should be noted that setting Adguard as your DNS will allow Adguard to track the domains you visit. The latest info I can find is that a lot of their team is still located in Russia, which makes them susceptible to government demands regardless of their intentions.
DNS adblocking should be the last resort. On Android there are many ways to do system wide local adblocking (with and without root). Don’t know about iOS. Alternatively you can do network level blocking with something like a pi-hole.
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that’s why I pay to remove ads.
