Guilty of SUI? That's what happens when you booze 'n' buy

Ahhhh, shopping at the holidays: the sales, the adrenaline, the bags and bags of glorious stuff. Makes you want to buy two of everything.

Especially when you're seeing double.

It'll never get the attention that drinking and driving does (nor should it), but anybody who's tipped a few and then awoken to find herself the proud owner of a $200 pea-green sweater, a talking large-mouth bass or some 30-pound juicing machine knows that SUI (shopping under the influence) can be deadly, at least to your monthly budget.

The Baylor College of Medicine in Houston was so concerned, it issued a stern warning to the public in 2005: "Don't drink and shop during holidays." Sipping and shopping "impairs judgment and decreases inhibitions," cautioned psychiatry professor Kristin Kassaw. "You may find shopping bags full of impulse buys that you might ordinarily think twice about."

"I bought this?"

On a Friday night years ago, Doug Fleener was managing a Sharper Image store in Boston when a guy and his buddies stumbled in. They tested the massage chairs and egged on their friend to buy one. "He was saying how his wife would kill him," recalled Fleener, the author of the Retail Contrarian blog. "But the other guys kept on him."

Finally, he said he'd take it and that he wanted it delivered to his basement in time for Saturday football viewing. The next morning, the delivery crew called Fleener: The guy was refusing the chair. The buyer said he'd never even stepped foot in the store. "I then told him what he looked like, what his buddies looked like, and even about his basement," said Fleener. "The phone went very quiet."

Fleener took the chair back. The guy later slinked into the store and apologized.

This is hardly just a guy thing. On a recent Friday afternoon in Bar Louie at the upscale Legacy Village in Lyndhurst, Ohio, four women — all moms in their late 30s — laughed and raised glasses in the corner. They try to get together once a week to shop, sip and socialize. They've learned their lesson about what the order should be.

"Now we get our shopping done first," said Cassi (none of the four wanted her last name used). "If you drink before, you just get too brave. You spend too much money."

"I get shopping goggles," said Kim, citing a recent incident when she dropped $90 on a sweater while tipsy.

"The next morning, I was like, 'Oh, my God, what was I thinking?' "

Cindy said a few weeks back at a charity silent auction, she had a few drinks and found her inhibitions falling and her arm rising.

She started bidding. When she stopped, she was out about $200 but was now in possession of a six-month supply of pizzas and the services of a professional decorator.

Mouse and merlot?

Perhaps the worst place to get your drink on is in your own house, near your computer.

Karry's been there. "I was at home drinking," she remembered, "and I thought, 'Oh, my God, I need bras.' " She found a couple at Nordstrom.com and spent $55 — each.

"I spent $110 — for undergarments!" she said, shaking her head.

There's really no way to tell exactly how many people are on the sauce and surfing, but in 2005, the British firm Conchango did a survey in which 7 percent of the respondents said they knew of someone who had shopped online while intoxicated. Consider that the number of homes with high-speed Internet has almost doubled since then to more than 50 percent and it's safe to say that more than a few people are hating themselves in the morning after drunkenly downloading the entire catalog of Spandau Ballet on iTunes.

Still, sipping while shopping is not always a bad thing. A drink can help you relax, loosening you up to finally treat yourself to a new gadget or outfit. Michael Kritikos, co-owner of Clothing Brigade in Cleveland, sees it happen all the time. "Once they try something on and see that they like it, they tend to go for it, because obviously, they've taken the edge off."

A beverage means a customer stays longer and spends more, according to Kritikos.

Back at the bar, as the four moms gathered their bags and settled their tab, perhaps the most sobering reality of SUI settled in.

"For these martinis," said Kim, looking down at the bill, "I could have bought a shirt."