It seems like if they do it a lot it would cause problems because it means there's not as good a reason to stop drinking.
This raises the question: why limit it to alcoholics? Is there any advantage this has that's limited to alcoholics? If not, that eliminates my first objection.
It's clear that having a correlation between standard of living and production increases production so it's a good thing. Exactly what the ideal correlation would be is unknown. The correlation that exists without government intervention is arbitrary, and unlikely to be right. I believe people tend to err on thinking it should be more spread out than it really should, but it should be more spread out than what it would be without government intervention.
"Wet houses"-- subsidized housing for alcoholics (they need to get most of their own money for alcohol, but their other expenses are covered) might actually be a good idea. It's cheaper than trying to get them to stop drinking, arguably kinder than trying to get people to take on a very hard task that they aren't interested in, and leads to less collateral damage than having alcoholics couch-surfing or living on the street.
Utilitarians, what do you think?