16 Nov 2021

Hidden messages in New Zealand alcohol advertisements

From Lately, 10:35 pm on 16 November 2021

"Booze allegedly lifts us when we're down, calms us when we're upset, helps us be upbeat and helps us chill. There are so many myths that need busting around drinking culture" - a text from RNZ listener Anna.

women drinking wine

Photo: Kelsey Chance / Unsplash

Anna chats to Karen Hay about what she's noticed about alcohol marketing since giving up drinking two years ago.

Anna's journey to an alcohol-free life began a few years before she actually gave up drinking.

She'd been working at a stressful job and found herself downing an increasing number of wines at the end of the day.

But the clincher was being told she was heading for fatty liver disease and had to look at her lifestyle.

Anna says what really helped her give up the booze was a six-week online course through which she made friends around the world and "a network of sober sisters" here in New Zealand.

Anna and the others on the course were helped to develop a toolbox of strategies to cope with what life throws at you when you don't have alcohol "as your go-to tool for dealing with life".

"When I went into that programme I had no time for la-la stuff like gratitude journaling, and now I do it as a matter of course. It's probably one of the best things I've learnt to do.

The course also looked at the myths we're presented in the marketing of alcohol.

"[Alcohol advertising] just makes alcohol look like the only way you can have a good time in life, doing these everyday things, but you need booze to help you with it."

It's time we challenge the "almost magical powers" that are attributed to alcohol in advertising, Anna says.

Watch journalist Guyon Espiner talk about saying goodbye to the bottle, New Zealand's drinking culture and the influence of the alcohol industry in the documentary Proof: