Same here, though I grew up as a Mormon so it wasn't as much my own personal choice as it was a religious conviction. I'm an atheist now, so it is a personal ch

Same here, though I grew up as a Mormon so it wasn't as much my own personal choice as it was a religious conviction. I'm an atheist now, so it is a personal choice now. I find it can be really enjoyable to be "the sober friend" at group outings—being the only one with my wits about me while my friends get super relaxed, outgoing, and nonsensical all of a sudden is pretty funny. I don't think there's anything evil about drinking, I've just gotten this far in my life without it and figure "heck, might as well go for broke" at this point. I do believe that alcohol advertisements on TV and radio should be banned like tobacco ads were, though. The fact that I have been conditioned by ads since I was a kid to think that beer is delicious and harmless is unnerving to me. Ideally, drinking ought to be a personal choice to exchange risk for pleasure. This only holds true when drinking is done responsibly, though. Irresponsible drinking can ruin lives, relationships, and hurt or kill people. Budweiser and Heineken may be required to say "drink responsibly" at the end of all their ads, but it's extremely obvious they don't actually care. At the end of the day, they make more money off alcoholics than responsible drinkers, so they and their marketing cannot be trusted. The incentives are too misaligned.