Mr. Becker is correct in pointing out that the 1992 estimates from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism are not specifically directed at the cost of the alcohol hangover. We regret that this statistic may have been misleading. It is important to note, however, that both of these models emphasize the chronic alcoholic and may underestimate the total lost productivity due to light-to-moderate drinking (1).

The light-to-moderate drinker has fewer and less frequent missed work days than the chronic alcoholic, and this makes detecting lost productivity of this group using survey models difficult. Although light-to-moderate drinkers account for fewer absent days per drinker, they represent the overwhelming majority of alcohol consumers. Because there are many more light-to-moderate drinkers than chronic alcoholics, their contribution to the total lost productivity due to alcohol is substantially larger (2). The $148 billion estimate may be an overstatement of the cost of the alcohol hangover, but for this reason it may also be an underestimate.

Mr. Becker has identified an important point in assessing the cost of the alcohol hangover: Namely, that few scientific and economic models assessing the cost of alcohol have been designed to specifically study the alcohol hangover or the impact of alcohol on the light-to-moderate drinker. We thank Mr. Becker for his point of clarification, and we hope that further research will precisely identify the cost of the alcohol hangover to consumers.