EUCAM & Dutch Institute for Alcohol Policy STAP; 11-2-2025
Doing the daily shopping in the supermarket is always a huge challenge for people who want to stop or have already stopped excessive alcohol consumption. The confrontation with the large number of shelves of beer and wine, with promotional campaigns for alcohol and advertising material can contribute to a relapse in alcohol use among people who have been in treatment for excessive alcohol consumption and alcohol addiction.
This is evident from a qualitative study that was carried out at the end of 2024 on behalf of EUCAM (European Centre for Monitoring Alcohol Marketing) and the Netherlands Institute for Alcohol Policy STAP in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam. The study includes an analysis of the most recent literature on the influence of alcohol advertising on the process of recovery from alcohol dependence. Ten interviews were also conducted with people from the Netherlands, Scotland and Ireland who look back on their period of recovery from alcohol addiction. They were asked how they experience alcohol advertising in their daily lives.
Alcohol advertising is everywhere
Alcohol advertising is everywhere: television, billboards, movies, social media, sporting events and supermarkets. Of all forms of alcohol marketing, people in recovery seem to have the most trouble with supermarket advertising. After all, such a place is difficult to avoid.
Impact of the advertising message
The content of alcohol advertising also caused irritation among respondents. This mainly concerns implicit messages such as: ‘You’re only a part of our group if you drink alcohol and drinking alcohol improves your mood’. Advertising that specifically targets men or women in terms of message can also have a negative impact on people in recovery.
Quotes from the interviews
”The alcohol marketing] is also why I don’t go to the supermarket. I’m now nine months in recovery – I think I can but I don’t know for sure. I’ll wait” (Dennis).
”Sometimes even in every aisle, there’s some kind of alcoholic drink” and that it is “even worse, for me, than seeing it on the TV” (Robert).
”To me, a supermarket should be a safe place for people who are trying to get well and to be able to do their daily shopping without being confronted with it” (Joy).
“If you’re on Twitter doing a bit of campaigning as I do a little bit of, and you’re bombarded by alcohol marketing, and you block as many of them as you can, but they keep coming, you just think ‘just leave me alone’” (Philip).
“The ad breaks have usually got alcohol or pictures of people in pubs and things like that. It depends on where I am at that time; if I’m not having a great day and I’m watching that, the thought does come into my head that it’s tempting” (Richard).
“I think there is no talk show, no Dutch production where there is no drinking. There’s always beer on the table. There’s always wine on the table.” (Lucas, 16 years sober).
Recommendations
Research has shown that in the Netherlands, 13% of the population aged 18 or older identified themselves as “ex-drinkers” in 2023 (STAP, 2024). The most important recommendation from Novikova’s research is therefore that new regulations on alcohol advertising explicitly take into account people who have consciously stopped drinking alcohol or are recovering from excessive alcohol consumption or addiction. This applies in particular to the limitation of alcohol promotion in supermarkets. Most studies on the influence of alcohol advertising concern the harmful influence of alcohol advertising on young people. This research shows that the target group that benefits from good regulations regarding alcohol advertising is much larger.
New regulations should also explicitly take into account the influence of the very wide availability of alcohol and alcohol promotion in supermarkets. The researcher also recommends that the impact of alcohol marketing on various vulnerable groups, such as ex-drinkers, be mapped out more specifically on the basis of new research.
Source:
Daryna Novikova; How alcohol marketing can complicate the lives of people in recovery: A qualitative study; EUCAM/ STAP; 2025. Link to the study.