Can anyone actually make a convincing argument why alcohol is good actually? I'm not straight edge, I'll have a drink or two once or twice a week. But it seems obvious to me that the world would be a better place without alcohol.
Can anyone actually make a convincing argument why alcohol is good actually? I'm not straight edge, I'll have a drink or two once or twice a week. But it seems obvious to me that the world would be a better place without alcohol.
Alcohol is a substance, an inanimate one at that. Alcohol is neither "good" nor "bad". The positives or negatives lie in why people use it, how often/how much they use, laws/culture surrounding it, etc. It's bad as an escape mechanism, it's unhealthy as a coping mechanism, and damaging when used as a legal defense, but still the alcohol itself is neither good nor bad. Therefore the world wouldn't automatically be better if I snapped my fingers and abolished alcohol, just like how alcohol wouldn't automatically be good if we handled people's desire to escape or the social pressures behind alcohol or the addictive mentality it could cause.
And I say all this as a recovering alcoholic who now gets drunk maybe once a year, tops. It's not the alcohol that fucked up my life. It's all the stuff surrounding the desire to drink
I agree, alcohol isn't a root issue. And yeah things aren't innately good or bad. Banning it is a bad idea but clearly working out way towards a world without it is a good idea
I definitely think a major culture overhaul on how it's viewed (specifically towards drinking in excess), increasing acceptance around recovery programs, and alleviating the material conditions that make people turn to alcohol in the first place would help a lot and would all be good steps. Alcohol can be cool and good in the right settings and I feel that can be preserved while also addressing the darker underbelly of it. I feel the same way about all substances tbh