[southernplaces7]

The sheer amount of unfounded fear mongering about consuming moderate or small amounts of alcohol on this site is ridiculous. Considering how common it is for people on HN to "authoritatively" comment completely out of their ass on subjects that they're poorly informed about, i'd take any screed against modest to moderate alcohol consumption with a major grain of salt.

Ideally, you shouldn't allow yourself to become dependent on alcohol for any reason, and it obviously causes well known health problems. But as with many things, context, quantity and circumstance are very important factors. billions of people worldwide use alcohol regularly without becoming alcoholics and without any hard evidence of their dying from its effects. If some of them also use modest amounts of it to help certain specific anxiety issues, it's not necessarily or automatically a one-way path to doom or health catastrophe. Let's not fall off a cliff into hyperbole.

Also worth mentioning is how hypocritical such scorn against alcohol here is. This site is famous for numerous people firmly recommending all kinds of poorly explored and sometimes completely unfounded "therapeutic" uses of various random chemicals and mind altering substances. I can't count the number of comments I've seen casually recommending numerous kinds of hallucinogens for various problems in life, but god forbid anyone should use alcohol in any quantity for anything involving their peace of mind... Let's not be absurd. Those other substances are also known for certain potential dangers, and casually recommending one while deriding the other is a visible example of thoughtless bias (probably related to the demographic tendencies of those who comment)