Unsurprisingly, Alcohol Companies Make Most Of Their Money Off Alcoholics

Before you say that alcoholism is awful and alcoholics are a drain on society, know that they do one good thing.

They keep the alcohol industry afloat.

You might not be an alcoholic, but you love alcohol. Well, you wouldn’t be able to get any if it weren’t for us alcoholics funneling all our cash to alcohol companies, keeping their breweries and distilleries open at the expense of our own livers.

You could even call us heroes.

A new study by Australia’s Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education found that for as dependent as alcoholics were on alcohol, alcohol manufacturers were even more dependent on alcoholics. Symbiosis, I believe it’s called.

In a report titled “Risky Business: The alcohol industry’s dependence on Australia’s heaviest drinkers,” researchers noted that heavy boozers accounted for so much alcohol purchased.

The 3.8 million Australians averaging more than four standard drinks of alcohol per day represent just 20 per cent of all Australians aged 14 and over, yet this group accounts for a staggering 74.2 percent of all the alcohol consumed nationally each year.

No surprise then that these almost 4 million Australians represent the lifeblood of the Australian alcohol industry. They are the industry’s best customers, targeted and branded by industry as ‘super consumers’. But while the alcohol industry sees ‘super consumers’, health professionals see risky drinkers.

And just like we need Jack Nicholson on that wall, you need drinkers on that sauce to make sure alcohol stays available for everyone.

An analysis was undertaken to determine the impact on the alcohol industry if more Australians followed this recommendation and consumed no more than two standard drinks per day.

To establish this, it was calculated that if the top 20 per cent of drinkers drank no more than two standard drinks a day, it would equate to 9.13 litres of pure alcohol annually.

Therefore, if these drinkers consumed no more than two standard drinks a day, the total alcohol consumed would reduce from 98,635,608.56 litres to 60,187,986.86 litres. This would make 38,447,621.70 litres of pure alcohol surplus to market requirements. This equates to a 39 per cent reduction in the amount of alcohol that the alcohol industry needs to produce.

That’d fuck them up so bad. So bad. They’d have to shutter, and then there’d be no drinks for anyone.

The next time you see an alcoholic, thank him or her. It’s the right thing to do.

[H/T Munchies]