Is drinking alcohol healthy?

Alcohol is healthy because it promotes happiness and social connection

Question: Is drinking alcohol healthy?
Position1 of 2›: Yes, drinking alcohol is healthy.
Argument‹3 of 3: Alcohol is healthy because it promotes happiness and social connection

Alcohol helps improve mood and social interaction. Alcohol helps trigger the release of endorphins and makes people happy. The behavior of drinking alcohol can establish and maintain social relationships in a positive way.

The argument

Alcohol triggers the endorphin system, the body’s reward system that provides us happiness and gives us a good-natured mood. When drinking, the release of endorphins causes a happy mood and promotes social bonding. Alcohol has been shown to improve mood and deepen and increase connection in social settings. A happy mood and social connections are critical to a person’s well being, and have been shown to have positive effects on mental and physical health.

Premises

[P1]Alcohol triggers endorphin release, which improves mood and deepens social bonding in group settings. [P2] Positive mood and strong social connections produce measurable benefits for mental and physical health. [C] Therefore, drinking alcohol is healthy because it promotes the happiness and social connection that underpin well-being.

Counter-arguments

-Alcohol often makes people’s moods worse, not better. -There are other, healthier ways to promote social bonding.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The endorphin account describes an acute effect. Alcohol is a depressant, and its influence on mood over hours and days runs the other way — disrupted sleep, next-day anxiety and lowered mood are among the most consistent findings. [Rejecting P2] The connection between social bonding and health is well supported and does not depend on this route. Shared meals, exercise, worship and work produce the same bonding without the substance, so the premise establishes the value of connection rather than of drinking. [Rejecting C] Calling this healthy requires netting the harms, which the premises never attempt. Dependence, accidents, cancer risk and liver disease attach to the same behaviour, and the social benefit is available by other means.