[syntheticnature]

It is late here, and I lack the citations at hand (and this thread will have moved on by the time I find them) -- but I once read an intriguing article that suggests that the core aspect to make alcohol drinking functional (in a social, not health way) is a set of rules around its consumption, regardless of what those rules are. The article started with an example of people drinking to what folks in the United States would call excess in the Peruvian highlands, but there was a rule that one could not pour one's own drink but had it had it offered, that it had to be at a drinking event, and a few others. Though folks drank quite excessively at these events, they were well-spaced, did not pursue alcohol outside them, etc.