Drinking is expensive because 3 drinks per day at $20 per drink, five times a week costs $15,600 in one year. That’s someone’s yearly expenses! And that’s not even counting the time it takes to pick up the drink, wash the cups, and the like. Drinking is very costly.
When I was in college, I would socially drink. Friday nights, my buddies and I would go to the bars and order a $10 cocktail. For a college student, that sure was expensive! It added up quite a bit over the years. Especially for a poor college student who was pulling in $10/hour.
After a particularly bad experience in December 2021, I gave up drinking for good. It was after I resigned my current job and my coworker took me out for drinks. I had, maybe 4 drinks the entire night. However, what happened next cost me more than any amount of money.
I woke up feeling dizzy and nauseated. I hadn’t drank in well over a year and my body felt the effects of putting in a foreign drink in my body. My body was not processing it very well. Then the next day, I couldn’t even write a quality blog post and I gave up.
Then the next day hurt as well. The next day hurt as well. That’s right. Three days worth of productivity and clear thinking gone in the blink of an eye. Just like that. Drinking is expensive because it costs more than money and health.
The additional costs of drinking are too high to ignore.
Drinking is Expensive: How Much it Costs
Below are how much it costs to keep up a drinking lifestyle. Drinking is expensive and few understand just how expensive it costs to drink alcohol. I took a sobriety lifestyle and have never regretted it since.
1) Money
Below is a table that outlines how much money it costs to drink, based on frequency.
| Times per Day | Dollars per Drink | Times per Week | Cost Per Year |
| 1 | $20 | 5 | $5,200 |
| 2 | $20 | 5 | $10,400 |
| 3 | $20 | 5 | $15,600 |
And that’s just over one year! Imagine how much money it costs over decades and decades. Not to mention how much money it would’ve turned into after investing that money. Those “1 or 2 drinks won’t hurt” really hurts.
I’m a frugal person in general. One thing that I will never spend money on ever again is alcohol. I personally cannot stand how I’m helping someone else get richer at my expense. I personally wish I never spent money on alcohol ever in my life.
Alcohol is as expensive as smoking, especially the ones who frequently drink alcohol. My prior boss used to drink a glass of wine per day every work day. The stress of every day work just got to her and she needed that release.
There are better ways to let out the stress than alcohol. Spending too much money on alcohol is hemorrhaging money.
2) Drinking is Expensive: Health
It’s not just about the hangover the next day. It’s about the long lasting and potentially permanent damage to your organs such as your kidneys and liver that alcohol does to your body. Then it costs even more money to go to the Doctors to take care of those problems.
However, with health problems, some problems are potentially permanent without any solutions to the problems. The day my doctor told me my digestion problems could potentially be permanent and what I would have to live with for the rest of my life is when I set myself straight.
We have one body in our entire life. It’s a good idea to take care of the one gift we were given throughout our entire lives. Drinking is expensive because the costs go beyond the money. Money is easy. Health is difficult because some health can’t be bought with money.
There are some things worth more than money. Health is definitely one of them. There’s no need to pay money and health just so the alcohol companies benefit.
3) Relationships
Whether we like it or not, when we are drunk, we are not in control over our own actions, decisions, and bodies. No matter how much we like to think we are. We get more confident when we’re drunk. And when we get more confident by drinking, we yell more at the tiniest of bothers.
We yell at the ones who are at arm’s length from us. When we come home and we see our significant others in our drunken state, then we yell and become unbearable for them. Also, we can’t take back what we say to them. Even if we regret them.
In real life, there’s no “un-do” button that magically takes everything we said to them away. Drinking is expensive when it costs us good relationships with people who we love, respect, and like. We don’t want to regret saying the wrong things to them because we actually care about them.
Alcohol only gives you a good feeling for that sip or drink. Relationships could potentially benefit you for a lifetime. It’s not worth it to give up a good relationship for alcohol..
4) Quality Sleep
Whether we like it nor not, we are not biologically equipped to have quality sleep with alcohol in our systems. Sleep is one of the best thing we have to tackle the challenges throughout the day. it’s how we feel 100% and mentally sharp enough to tackle challenges.
Drinking is expensive because it costs quality sleep. When I get consistently good sleep is when I function like a normal human being. I don’t fly off the handle at my friends and I can think clearly to be productive and solve business problems.
People do not realize just how important good sleep is because consistent bad sleep can literally cause cancer. Sleep is when our body recovers and rejuvenates from the harmful things we expose it to. Our immune systems do not function properly if we didn’t rest well the day before.
The days when I don’t get quality sleep is when bad things happen to me. I almost got into car accidents on the highway because of bad sleep. That’s how important sleep is.
5) Mental Clarity
No matter how great we are at holding down our liquor, we still do not function at 100% if we drink alcohol. No matter how little we drank and no matter how little alcohol content the drink had, we do not have mental clarity if we have alcohol in our bodies.
Drinking is expensive because it costs mental clarity and sharpness that we need every day to solve the days’ problems. Even simple things like passing a field sobriety test of walking in a straight line seems impossible to us. Imagine not having control over your bodies enough to walk in a straight line.
That should be very scary. Our mind controls our bodies and when we don’t have control over our mind is when anything can happen. It’s usually bad things that happen when we are not in control over our thoughts and actions.
Drinking is expensive because we lose control over our most valuable asset. Which is our mind.
6) Time
We are biologically incapable of expelling alcohol from our bodies at the snap of our fingers. It takes much more time for that to leave our system, which is a day or two. Two days of productivity is an insane amount of time, whether people realize it or not.
A lot happens over two days. The world changes and many interesting things happen in just a span of two days. And we may lose all that time just because we wanted to drink alcohol. Drinking is expensive because we lose a non-renewable resource, which is time.
Billionaires spend exorbitant amounts of money to save their most valuable asset, which is time. They outsource their laundry, cleaning, and driving because time is that much important to them. Alcohol distorts our sense of time and we are not aware of just how much time passes when we are drunk.
Or even have a tiny bit of alcohol in our system. When I used to drink, at one point, it would be 10pm. Then at another point, it would be 1am. Even though it felt like no time passed at all. That’s not a good feeling nor is it beneficial.
7) Risk of Injury
Drinking is expensive because you’re not in control of your actions, mind, body, and decisions. When you are drunk, the alcohol is controlling your mind and emotions. Your body does not associate pain as well when you are drunk.
Compared to when you are sober, which is when you are more alert of yourself and surroundings.
There’s many slip and fall accidents that happen due to someone being drunk. The risk of internal injury to your liver is already high enough due to the alcohol. The risk of external injury is even higher because of a lack of control of your greatest asset – your mind.
Even more so, alcohol makes people more confident. With more confidence comes more risk taking, even unnecessary ones. Drunks pick fights all the time because they are confident they can take on the other side. Even if the other side is a police officer.
Injuries are expensive because medical costs are going through the roof in America. It’s not coming down any time soon.
8) Drinking is Expensive: Legal Fees
I personally know one person who went through a DUI in college. He would try as hardest as he could to get me to drink and I would politely decline. He didn’t even know he had a problem. One day, he was driving home in a Car2Go and the cops stop him.
He’d been drinking and got charged with a DUI. It’s not just the fine he had to pay that mattered. It was the lawyer and legal fees he incurred later on. Then to have that on his record going forward? The next times I saw him, he had to take a breath test every so often as part of the legal proceedings.
To prove to the judges that he was clean. Life wasn’t as enjoyable for him, going forward. He was also an international student. It was no surprise when he didn’t get granted a work visa to remain working in the United States.
Drinking is expensive because it has the highest chances of catching the attention of the police and the law. The law is not forgiving to drunk drivers, and for good reason. It’s just not worth it. The alcohol might make you feel good for a short time. Afterwards, there only comes regretful decisions.
9) Social Stigma
Drinking is expensive because your friends know exactly how you get when you are drunk. If you can’t handle your alcohol very well, there’s little chance your friends will want to be around you. Not to mention strangers who could have business opportunities you could want down the road.
When I’m interviewing for a company, I refuse to drink alcohol. There’s no guarantee how I’ll act after I drink alcohol. Therefore, I just downright refuse to do so. The social stigma surrounding drinking alcohol is another cost people don’t consider.
Yes, drinking itself is not a bad thing. However, drinking to an excess and to where others can’t stand to be around you is bad. Even during company outings or drinking events, I downright refuse to drink alcohol. It’s not something that I want to partake in.
I’ve been sober for two+ years and I intend to stay that way.
Drinking is Expensive: My Story
During college, I liked drinking alcohol. Not only was it something new to me, it made me feel great. I didn’t realize it at the time but it was negatively affecting my life to be unbearable. Because I was young, it only negatively affected me for the day after.
However, I still lost the day after’s productivity. I would go to class hungover and not absorb anything meaningful or value for that hour. It was bad. College students love to drink during weekdays, too. The joys of youth and not having responsibilities!
I didn’t realize that drinking is expensive. Not only did I end up feeling bad about myself the day after, I would have episodes of really bad health. After college graduation, I vowed to only drink twice a year. And for the most part, I kept to that promise.
It was my birthday and New Years’ that I drank. Other than that, I let the days go by without trouble. Some years, I wouldn’t even drink at all! Then came one celebration that changed my life forever. It was after finishing up my job in December 2021, my coworker took me out for drinks.
I drank maybe 4 glasses. The day after made me feeling down, more so than anything before. I also called my parents and yelled at them. Then even a whole *two days* after, I would still feel so bad. That was when I had enough. I didn’t want anything to do with drinking ever again.
Ever since that day, I realized drinking is expensive and I gave it up for good.
Drinking is Expensive: Sobriety is Better
Since 2022 and beyond, I stayed sober. I didn’t drink an ounce of alcohol and I have zero desire to drink any more alcohol. Drinking is expensive and there’s only bad outcomes that can come out of it. Even the ones who can biologically handle drinking alcohol suffers by the end.
Our bodies cannot withstand that strong of a substance entering our bodies on a regular basis. There’s a reason the top minds of the world do not drink. Drinking alcohol hinders the ability for them to produce the best work.
Charlie Munger said it best. “Why would I pay money for a product that negatively impacts my life?”. Ever since I practiced sobriety, life was never better. There wasn’t a single day in which I didn’t feel like I was at my best. I was more alert to make high impactful decisions.
If alcohol was so harmless, governments wouldn’t restrict the legal drinking age to be so high. Even if we only drink in front of trusted ones and our family, the benefit isn’t worth the cost. Drinking is expensive and it’s more expensive than what you get in return.
Once I stopped drinking and putting harmful substances into my body, my performance in life skyrocketed. My wealth never skyrocketed faster. The biggest reason why I have a $500k net worth at the age of 28 is because I don’t drink anymore.
My company, bank account, and wallet appreciates it even more.
Drinking is Expensive: How Much it Costs Shortlist
- Money
- Drinking is expensive: health
- Relationships
- Quality sleep
- Mental clarity
- Time
- Risk of injury
- Drinking is expensive: legal fees
- Social status
