Money, as someone else said, is definitely the reason.
An interesting experiment that I did, with my AA sponsor close, was to go to an event where there was lots of drinking, but instead of watching how much they drank, I had to watch the changes in them. I picked a table to watch, and then observed the people (without being weird about it) from the time they walked in sober, until towards the end of the event. This was to show me the changes that I went through when I drank.
Just think of this holiday experience as a case of "There but for the Grace of God, go I" or however else you choose to look at the makeup of the Universe.