Credit buying is much like being drunk. The buzz happens immediately and gives you a lift.... The hangover comes the day after.

Brothers likens consumer credit to intoxication to stress the time-lag between pleasure and consequence. Buying on credit delivers an immediate emotional reward—relief, status, novelty—without the felt “pain” of payment, much as alcohol produces a quick euphoria. The metaphor’s second half (“hangover”) points to deferred costs: interest, fees, and the psychological burden of debt that arrives after the purchase glow fades. The quote functions as practical moral psychology: it warns that easy financing can distort judgment, encourage overconsumption, and convert short-term gratification into longer-term constraint. Its punch comes from translating an abstract financial mechanism into a bodily, familiar cycle of impulse and regret.