Alcohol truly is the social beverage. There are few political events that don't involve the consumption of beer, wine, or champange. Not to mention countless bars, parties, events, and camping trips that would be different then alcohol. The consumption of a few beers is not a bad a thing, as long as it's done in moderation. Most of us can think of stories of when people have had a few too many drinks.

Alcohol relaxes. There is nothing like a good strong drink after a long stressful day. It can take away some of your problems for a few minutes, and open yourself up for a more honest discussion of life. You shouldn't drink to excess to deal with your problems, but as far as I'm concerned a few drinks to deal with the heartache of life never hurts that much.

Even the so-called taboo of the occassional eye-openner drink isn't as bad as some of the critics of drinking claim it is. A drink of alcohol first thing in the morning can really take some of the steam out of you, but it also can give you a relaxed start into the day.When you have to get up and going the eye-opener isn't a good thing, but for other times it's not that bad of a thing if you want to have a relaxed morning.

The standard for questions of alcholism always needs to be does drinking substanially influence one's life? If your having a drink or two relax from time to time, or during a social event then that's really not much of a problem. Drinking heavily to avoid dealing with your own problems is a problem. Likewise drunkness can cause a real problem.

Drunkness is probably the most serious consequence of drinking. When you have had too many drinks it might not be immediately apparent that you are drunk. A couple of beers and your over the limit.Experience shows that it's easy to drive drunk, but harder to control the speed of the truck. That is a problem when you put your truck into a tree, damage property, or do other things that are disruptive to society. We don't need anymore waste or carniage in our society.

On a whole, alcohol is a good social beverage. Much of politics probably would not happen without a drink or two. Can you even think of going camping without a stack of beer cans next to the campfire?! Only when people drink too much or use it in clearly abusive ways is it a problem. Pass a drink over to me!