Table 1.

Marginal Utility of a Drink

VARIABLES	Drinker-driver Groupsa
	Total	0	1–4	5+	0 vs. 5+	0 vs. 1–4	1–4 vs. 5
	Means	Means	Means	Means	t-test	t-test	t-test
Drinking benefit indexb	24.57	22.43	28.29	29.00	4.39**	8.12**	−0.48
Drink to forget troubles	2.81	2.48	3.34	3.78	−3.52**	−4.8**	−1.13
Drink to get a buzz	4.08	3.51	5.00	5.61	−5.33**	−7.68**	−1.56
Drink to socialize more easily	4.39	3.84	5.41	5.05	−3.28**	−8.58**	0.92
Drink because I like the taste	5.78	5.63	6.07	5.84	−0.55	−2.35*	0.62
Drink to relax	5.68	5.30	6.35	6.34	−2.76**	−5.76**	0.01
It would be inappropriate not to drink	1.88	1.72	2.13	2.38	−2.09*	−2.65**	−0.69
Importance of drinking for social lifec	0.24	0.17	0.35	0.52	−6.95**	−6.77**	−2.61**
Not important	0.30	0.37	0.18	0.16	3.52**	6.54**	0.51
Slightly important	0.46	0.46	0.47	0.33	2.02*	−0.42	2.14*
Quite important	0.16	0.13	0.21	0.33	−4.46**	−3.39**	−2.18*
Very important	0.08	0.04	0.14	0.19	−5.19**	−6.11**	−0.98
N	1168	748	356	64

^**Significant at the 1 percent level

^*Significant at the 5 percent level

^aRespondents are grouped according to the number of drunk driving episodes they reported having in the previous year. The column “total” contains all respondents, the column “0” contains those repsondents who reported 0 drunk driving episodes for the past year, etc.

^bDrinking benefit index components take values from 0 to 10, where 0 is “not at all important” and 10 is “extremely important.”

^cThe variable “importance of drinking for social life” is a binary variable equal to 1 if drinking was “very important” or “quite important” to social life and equal to 0 otherwise.