"The fact that alcohol is not frowned upon by society in general, hides the devastating effects it can have." Not only is it not frowned upon, in every single movie or series people grab a bottle when they emotionally have a a bad time, every time. It's so normal and cool. Bad experience: Numb yourself with alcohol! All the cool kids do it!

Exactly how ingrained alcohol is in our culture really only starts to hit you when you know someone with an alcohol problem. Try to not drink for a couple of months, the reactions can be pretty strange, "you must be ill or something"... I really see alcohol as Soma from Brave New World. But unlike with tobacco, we still have our heroes use it on the telly all the time.

Yesterday I had a 16 y/o tell me that she doesn't like to drink and she's a bit of an outcast at school now. In fact she says, many kids don't like it but they do it anyway to be part of the group. Sure, that is normal for kids, but that used to be normal for smoking and that (at least here in the Netherlands) is in my experience quickly losing it's coolness by lack of commercials and government crackdown.