I live in a country with a lot of alcohol abuse, and there are many many cases of huge damages due to alcohol. And yes, that includes stealing. And stealing usually comes after all the money is used up, and there's none left to pay the bills or food, even for a spouse and possibly kids.

There are a lot of secondary costs too (traffic fines for drunk driving, especially if they cause an accident, stuff destroyed while drunk, etc.)

But yeah, our national anthem is a part of a drinking song... so yeah.

I'm certainly not trying to minimize the damage that alcohol does - it absolutely ruins lives. I do want to clarify my comment about stealing though. I have known people to steal in order to obtain marijuana and alcohol, but it was (I'm having trouble finding a less offensive way of saying this, so I'll just say it)... much less desperate.

The instances I've encountered where people steal marijuana or alcohol usually consist of people stealing the actual marijuana or alcohol, and in a lot of those cases it either went unnoticed, or if it was noticed it was shrugged off (i.e. "Oh, maybe I drank those beers and just forgot, whatever.")

Contrast this with blankets spread out on the sidewalks of San Francisco containing random household items for sale such as phone chargers, or kitchen utensils. It's pretty clear that one group is willing to go to greater lengths to obtain their fix than the other.

Edit: I want to acknowledge again that alcohol can and does ruin lives, and there are probably kids going hungry because their parents spent the last of their money on alcohol instead of food. My main point was to contrast this behavior with the behavior of people who steal in order to obtain hard drugs. While both are bad, they do look different in important ways.