SantaCon is a New York City tradition enjoyed by thousands, so we won’t rain too hard on the parade, but the boozy day, that includes vomiting on the streets, is emblematic of the complex relationship this city — indeed, the nation as a whole — should have with alcohol.
The substance that makes beer and wine and vodka and whisky so popular has been legal throughout American history with the brief, misbegotten exception of 1920-1933. Enjoyed responsibly millions of times a day, it makes many a night at home or on the town a little buzzier and more enjoyable, a kind of nighttime parallel to caffeine.
But alcohol has a dark side, and it’s darker than that of almost any other substance, whether legal or illegal. It’s the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, sending more than 175,000 people to their graves before their time each year — stealing an average of 24 years per snuffed-out life. Alcohol causes ailments from liver disease to heart disease to cancer, also car accidents and homicides. Liquor is involved in more U.S. homicides than cocaine or heroin, and it isn’t even close: Around 40% of convicted murderers used alcohol before or during the crime.
Alcohol also produces nonconsensual sex, which can be criminally charged as rape, far likelier. It fuels assaults.
The risks of the can or bottle are of course magnified when one drinks to excess, but the line can be a blurry one. Indeed, anyone who’s ever imbibed understands that, given the way the substance works on one’s inhibitions and judgment, it’s easier to have a second drink than a first, a third than a second, and so on. The line is especially hard to draw for those prone to alcohol addiction, an estimated 10% of the population.
The civil consequences are underappreciated, too. Alcohol leads to hangovers and missed workdays — 232 million of these, say researchers. It makes a toxic concoction with ever-more-ubiquitous gambling. It is a cinder block tied to the ankles of many a mentally distressed homeless individual, a seemingly insurmountable obstacle on the path to recovery.
We know that many a family dinner would be less bearable if not for a glass of wine or three. We know that New York nightlife and dining sectors, which generate billions in economic impact, would be shadows of themselves if not for alcoholic lubricants. Craft beer and wineries and distilleries are a boon to plenty of towns, including here.
But any honest assessment must conclude that the benefits don’t come close to outweighing the costs. Speaking in purely economic terms, researcher Daniel Jernigan crunched numbers and found a per-capita annual cost in our state (per the Centers for Disease Control) of $843 — more than $350 of which is paid out by government — and taxes that add up to less than $20.
For all the handwringing about the failures to properly regulate legal cannabis in New York, for all the victory laps about the decline of cigarette smoking, alcohol stares us in the face as a legal drug, one that’s even often promoted by government, that does major harm.
The genie is never going back in the gin bottle; alcohol is too interwoven into American society to ever be banned again, and that’s for the best. But we’d be making a big mistake not to see the bottle, and the damage done, with sober eyes.
