Josh will find this ironic, but here goes...
I personally don't mind a drink, particularly beer and wine. Not a fan of the hard stuff, although a nice gin & tonic is a pleasant way to ease into the weekend. I'm not a heavy drinker by any stretch of the imagination - I generally don't drink during the week, and any more than 4 beers is a binge for me. Hard to run first thing in the morning if you had a bottle of wine the previous night!
That said - the Discovery Channel have this great series based in the ER room of a major US hospital, which goes into individual cases that come in, mostly trauma.
I have been astonished at how many of the cases are either direct results of alcohol, or where abuse of alcohol has caused complications.
Examples:
- a large gentleman, in his late 50s, has a car accident (didn't go into the causes). He's not superficially too badly damaged, but years of alcohol abuse have given him cirrhosis of the liver. The liver is injured in the accident, and because of the cirrhosis, it bleeds profusely, and fails a week later, the gentleman dies, never regaining consciousness
- an woman in her 60s comes into the ER. She has a severe cut on her top lip, a result of a fall while drunk. During the examination, it comes out that her and her husband drink an average of 6 beers a night each. It also comes out that her shoulder has been injured for around a year - and an X-Ray reveals the shoulder joint is completely out of its socket, and has been for over a year. This too was the result of a fall
- numerous fighting injuries as a result of drunkeness
- numerous drink-drivers injured or killed in accidents.
It's all very well being proud of drinking large amounts of booze, but bear in mind these things do have long term effects. It's a marvellous social thing when you have control of it, but it can be very destructive when it controls you.