The Global Economic Cost Of Hangovers

Alcohol abuse, or simply excessive consumption, has profound negative impacts on any country’s economy. These effects that it imposes can be categorized into the following areas: drunk driving; medical and social; treatment and prevention; and workplace costs.

Drunk driving cost

Drunk driving is a very serious crime that claims innocent lives of people all over the world. Research shows that most motor vehicle crushes and/or accidents happen because of drunk driving. For example, a research by The National Highway Traffic safety Administration showed that fatal motor vehicle crushes occur after every 31 minutes in the U.S. The same report also showed that nonfatal motor vehicle accidents happen in the U.S after every 2 minutes.

These drunken driving accidents deplete a country’s workforce, which negatively impacts the economy. For this reason, hangovers have profound negative impacts since countries all over the world lose a lot people in alcohol-related car accidents.

Medical and social price

Big negative impacts since a lot of money that would otherwise be spent on key development projects is spent on medical treatments since it exposes heavy drinkers to a lot of health risks such as liver damage, brain damage, as well as cancer.

Hangovers also adversely impacts the social aspect of people’s lives. It is often a major contributor to homicides as well as suicides. Alcohol always impairs judgment. People often end up committing crimes such as homicides or suicide when they are under the influence. These kinds of crime affect the social aspect of people’s lives. This will hurt the financially in one way or another.

The treatment and prevention

Businesses and corporations spend a lot of money on treatment. For example, corporations spend 0.1% of their total healthcare bills on treating. Businesses end up spending even more. And sometimes, individuals also spend a lot of money from their savings to treat this menace.

And it doesn’t just consume money alone. It also consumes time since alcoholics will have to spend time in various healthcare institutions while receiving treatments. The time that would otherwise be spent on working towards growing the finances is being spent on curbing this. Anything that channels both money and time to other unproductive activities hurts the economy. Therefore, they have great economic impact in very many negative ways.

The workplace

It affects work in so many different ways. First, employees who over drink are likely to miss coming to work the following day after a consuming a lot of drinks. This deprives employers of the much needed workforce and this hurts not just the employer, but the world at large.

Secondly, employees who are hungover will be unproductive even if they show up for work. Their unproductive presence also affects in a bad way. And last but not least, hangovers cost businesses a lot of money when they send their employees on leave for medical treatments. Sometimes, businesses and corporations have to pay for the medical bills of a menace that can otherwise be avoided