Yeah that's what I was getting at, his entire lifestyle is expensive because of booze; he could actually have a decent living if he stopped.
I am also of the opinion that nearly all of his negative personality traits are linked to booze. There is no underlying mental illness or whatever, except for the fact that being an alcoholic drives you insane. Even that talk with Metokur, you could hear not only his slurred words but the thing drunks do where they have massive bursts of emotion in all directions. That's why he goes from saying he wants Metokur to die and then 10 minutes later he's saying how much he misses him. That's classic alcoholic talk, and it wouldn't surprise me if he was crying afterward.
So just imagine living with that 24/7, and getting to a point where he is comfortable enough around you to unload like that all the time. That is what every woman in his life is in for. Or just look at the Lowtax thread, there was a guy who was similarly egotistical and had a huge internet presence, his story is actually very close to Ralph's. And look where that ended up. And it wasn't because he had clarity of mind to assess his situation, he killed himself cause it's way easier to pull the trigger when you are in the fog of a month-long binge. You're just divorced from reality. So being broke as fuck and then going to Vegas makes sense.