The scientists accused of using 'flawed' research to tell you to stop drinking

There's no safe level of living. Maybe there's no safe level of alcohol if your risk tolerance is zero. Going out every weekend and getting hammered is obviously bad for you. Alcoholism is a problem. But I doubt my one or two cocktails a fortnight hobby is the same as the guy who downs a liter of bottom shelf vodka a day.

I own a Garmin watch. It doesn't have the capacity to monitor anything about my substance intake. When I drink anything, my stress level jumps up and my heart-rate variability (HRV) goes down, dramatically. My sleep quality also goes down, regardless of whether I drink water and B vitamins. It's pretty clear drinking isn't acutely healthy. I don't have strong opinions on the validity of the J-curve.

With all that said, it's also apparent that the social benefits of drinking are irreplaceable, particularly with regard to those for civilization which are similar to the benefits of tobacco and caffeine. All three lower social hurdles to the point that introverts can form new relationships and maintain them effectively. All three are able to frontload collective euphoria and force individuals to deal with the fallout. All three substances are lindy, but of the three, alcohol is the most lindy. That alcohol has been with us for (at least!) 12,000 years should probably be reason enough to suspect temperance's practicality and usefulness. Like vegan and carnivorous civilizations, alcohol-free civilizations (as in, have cities) don't actually exist. We also have pretty extensive records globally of daily drinking that far exceeds those recommended by the WHO, during eras of significantly worse healthcare, yet these civilizations prospered in spite of both. (It's frequently been argued that alcohol was drank because the water was unsafe, but this argument isn't very plausible. Generally everyone in the ancient world understood that boiling water made it safer to drink.)

With that said, drunkenness is categorically reviled in these civilizations, but generally regarded as a tolerable risk for all the other goods it provides. All-day drinking of low ABV drinks seems to be the optima, but you know, cars.

From ~375BC:

>Three bowls do I mix for the temperate: one to health, which they empty first, the second to love and pleasure, the third to sleep. When this bowl is drunk up, wise guests go home. The fourth bowl is ours no longer, but belongs to violence; the fifth to uproar, the sixth to drunken revel, the seventh to black eyes, the eighth is the policeman's, the ninth belongs to biliousness, and the tenth to madness and hurling the furniture.

Some things never change.