Bottoms up! In praise of the social drinker

"We also computed the effect of drinking on wellbeing, finding that drinking a couple of times a week rather than never is associated with extra 0.27 points life satisfaction. The welfare gain associated to being a social drinker is between £2643 and £20,989 a year."

"Recreational" drinking, not binge.

"The result on alcohol consumption suggested that social drinkers have a higher life satisfaction than abstainers. This confirms previous literature findings interpreting “recreational” drinking as a strategy to deal with stress or promote positive social relationships (Lanier, Nicholson, and Duncan 2001). Nevertheless, it is not possible to know whether it is drinking itself that increases wellbeing, or it is rather the time spent outside with friends that gives higher life satisfaction to those who drink in moderation."

So in order to find that out keep on drinking.

What about drugs, you might ask? To cut straight to the chase, you don't do drugs, you will feel better. Surprised?

"We focused on cannabis use, the most commonly used drug, but also controlled for use of other drugs, alcohol consumption and a range of potential confounds. Measuring life satisfaction on a 0–10 scale, linear models found that people who had never used cannabis had significantly higher scores than current users (0.54). Never having used other types of drugs was also associated with 0.37 extra life satisfaction points."

Precisely how much will cannabis use cost you emotionally?

Give or take "£5600 per year, in terms of lost wellbeing".

And for society as a whole in England and Wales?

"While acknowledging possible reverse causality, we estimated the annual population cost of drug use may be as high as £10.7bn in terms of lost wellbeing."

Here is the, hick, paper:

Valuing the Relationship Between Drug and Alcohol Use and Life Satisfaction: Findings from the Crime Survey for England and Wales

Abstract

We analysed the relationship between drug use and wellbeing using data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales. We focused on cannabis use, the most commonly used drug, but also controlled for use of other drugs, alcohol consumption and a range of potential confounds. Measuring life satisfaction on a 0–10 scale, linear models found that people who had never used cannabis had significantly higher scores than current users (0.54). Never having used other types of drugs was also associated with 0.37 extra life satisfaction points. Moderate alcohol use (1–2 days per week) was associated with higher life satisfaction than abstainers or more regular drinkers. Following the “life satisfaction approach”, we estimated the extra income that would be needed to compensate for the wellbeing loss associated with cannabis use. Accounting for income endogeneity, our results suggested that being a current cannabis user may cost an individual over £5600 per year, in terms of lost wellbeing, while being a current user of other drugs may cost approximately £4000 per year. While acknowledging possible reverse causality, we estimated the annual population cost of drug use may be as high as £10.7bn in terms of lost wellbeing.

close to 0.27 points in life satisfaction