It's honestly one of the biggest ills facing society. The roadmap to addiction is severe, and there's really nothing "cool" about it.
While it doesn't necessarily precipitate dysfunction, it definitely greases the wheels, and leads to all manner of things from general assholery to physical abuse to date rape.
Especially in America, where we've stupidly raised the drinking age to 21, which has achieved little beyond promoting binge drinking among teens.
Fuck the doom posting. I'd rather hear about you going on some grand adventure hike than clinking ice cubes to the desperation of your soul.
I'm not for prohibition, but I think people need to check themselves before playing their hand in blackout culture.
If you need a sign that it’s due to material reasons, just look at the culture around alcohol in the US compared to most other countries. Alcohol isn’t different here. When people are left to rot by their government and representatives, of course we turn to substance abuse (myself included)