I just literally can no longer afford alcohol. It's partly a relief to just no longer have to think about it or spend time on it, though I do miss the treat and the relaxation that it can bring. But like many others facing poverty, I sometimes feel a little angry at my fellow consumers who kept right on buying beer and everything else as food and beverage prices rose about 30 percent in five years. I wish everyone had been like "sorry, no, you're not seriously charging that much, forget it." Then again, as a child in the 70s I thought for sure consumers were going to reject the move to plastic food packaging. D'ohh.
Yeah, depending on what you drink and how much, it's almost $10 for a six-pack of beer now, maybe $100 month on average, so that's about $1200 a year, just on something you're literally going to be pissing away.
To be fair though, the last few years probably caused people to start drinking more than they normally would. My consumption definitely ticked up during the worst parts of the pandemic to where I was plowing through multiple six-packs a week. I've come down quite a bit since then, though it was kind of scary deciding to quit altogether because I was afraid, "What if I can't do it? What if do have some kind of dependency?" But it actually ended up being easier than I thought since it's mostly for health reasons (cholesterol and reducing risks for dementia). I just decided to stop and I stopped and that was it, it's been relatively easy. I probably just have other habits that I started compensating with.