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Comment by patmcc | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting, quitting a job and drastically changing your life could actually make financial sense if it got you to quit smoking.

Assuming: 1 pack/day, $10 a pack (this is close in my province), 5% interest, over 30 years, has a present value of $55k. I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers for alcoholism or heroin addiction are similar. Addiction is hugely expensive to the people afflicted and society at large (barring the usual discussion of smokers saving health care dollars by dying early).

If flying across the world/country and making other drastic changes really does stop the cycle with a high rate of success, we should consider funding it.

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"If flying across the world/country and making other drastic changes really does stop the cycle with a high rate of success, we should consider funding it."

In addiction circles this behavior is comingly attempted, and considered so unsuccessful, that it has a *A-ism, "Doing a geographic".

One of the first FORTRAN programs I wrote, as a kid about 45 years ago, generated a table that showed, based on cost of cigarettes, interest rate, number of years, how much money my father's cigarette addiction was costing him.

Of course I couldn't find that output today. But one thing I remember quite clearly is the cost of cigarettes. They were about $0.30 per pack back then. I'm sure I wouldn't have gone over $1.00 per pack in my table.

Even allowing for inflation, someone is making a lot of money off the back of addicts.

Thinking like that leads you into the tricky realm of the government profiting off vice. A huge part of the $10 price tag is tax. But at least the government doesn't advertise cigarettes, like it does with the lottery.

Alcoholism is much higher. It's not hard to spend $100+ on a good bender. Add in the associated health issues (true for smoking too) and the NPV of healthy behavior is much higher.

most alcoholics i know don't spend money this way. they buy cheap vodka and drink alone, not out going from bar to bar.

It really depends on the budget of the alcoholic from my experience. Alcoholics have a way of making their alcoholism fit/fill their budget.

Bar hoppers are alcoholics in training, most countries don't have bars open 24/7 - and $100 buys a lot more alcohol from the off license or whatever.

I'm no doctor, but if a person is able to "exist" for half the day or more without their buzz, I'd suspect they've not yet built very any/much physical dependence.

Alcohol withdrawal can be dangerous.

In England you get a medically supervised withdrawal if you drink more than 40 units per day. Very roughly this is 32 US Fluid ounces of 80 proof liquor per day. (One litre of 40% spirits).

Let's convert this to #s I understand...

80 proof = 40%. BigBeer (Budweiser) ~= 5% CraftBeer ~= 8% with some variation

So this means 16 pints (or ~21 12oz bottles) of Budweiser or 10 pints (should never be drunk in 12oz bottles) of Craft Brew a day. For a small person, that's almost enough to be perpetually buzzed.

I think the Drink Alone vs Bar Hopping is just a matter of being a functioning vs non-functioning alcoholic.

I'm an alcoholic who's been sober for about 3 months. I would have been ecstatic if I managed to get by for $10 a day. I'd easily drop a couple hundred dollars at the bar on drinks for myself in a single night. Even if I was drinking at home, a bottle of hard liquor does not go for $10 in Canada.

Not to mention opportunity cost of that money (buying textbooks instead of 15 packs) and health costs of smoking.

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