What he&#x27;s saying is that NYC has a huge drinking culture (small apartments, lots of street activity) where a LOT of social activity revolves around bars.  In my experience, 1-2 drinks daily would be considered moderation.<p>It&#x27;s definitely a place where you have to learn how to moderate yourself.  It is indeed quite easy to blow through $1000 in a month on alcohol related socializing, even if you tend towards the cheap places.  Alcohol begets all other sorts of consumption (cabs, transit, extraneous food, pool&#x2F;foos, etc).