At he risk of belaboring the obvious, the author is intelligent, interesting, clever, beautiful, female, and amusing, a cluster of qualities that much of the population does not enjoy. One of the big reasons people like alcohol so much is that it makes people who lack these qualities more tolerable to others and more tolerant of others. We don't usually say it this way, but the default human response to others is actually overwhelmingly negative. For good reasons, humans automatically protect ourselves by default, and absent some structure for getting together, would live and die in isolation. A large part of our social organization consists of complicated ways to defeat our natural mutual repulsion for long enough for people to find grounds for a deeper relationship, or if not a relationship, at least human company. Parties, dinners, teams, office organization, mixers, book clubs, meetups, dog parks, smoking areas, meet and greets. Again, at the risk of stating the obvious, that's explicitly what AA meetings are for. Probably primitive people living around the campfire didn't have this problem, but city dwellers often have little access to each other. and often, not much to say, even if they had anyone to say it too. I think that's what drinking is mostly about---it functions as both a balm for the isolated and a way to not be isolated. I'm skeptical that reports of how terrible it is for you even in small amounts tell the whole story. Sadness and loneliness also kill. To remove a major prop enabling people to know each other brings its own set of problems.