As someone who grew up in a heavy drinking part of Europe, I never had an issue to meet friends without drinking, e.g. during the day. My fondest memories with

As someone who grew up in a heavy drinking part of Europe, I never had an issue to meet friends without drinking, e.g. during the day. My fondest memories with them happened both with or without alcohol, that was never the factor. Granted, there are people that you never meet outside of a bar or pub and there are people that always have to get a drink, but that might depend on the circles you are in. Alcohol certainly isn't healthy, and a heavily drunk person is certainly more unpleasant than let's say a heavily stoned one, yet I would not discount the amount of conversations that people dared to have just because they had a glas of wine before. Sure, I'd love people to open up without that glas and sure, some people won't be able to ever open up without it and that's bad, but most people don't overdo it with the alcohol, just like most people don't drink 4 kegs of coffee each day. Whether alcohol is a bad thing over all depends on the amount.