I think alcohol is best avoided from a health perspective; moderate, occasional consumption is fine - if you can stick to that.
Personally I drink far too much, I'm not drinking much (relatively) at the moment, the last couple of months I've had alcohol about 5 times but three of those times I got very drunk. The preceding 10 months or so I was drinking approx a minimum of 30 units a week - far, far too much.
alcohol is like pretty much all the recreational drugs, fairly unlikely to do you harm in occasional moderation but the impulse is to overindulge, to lean on the drug for psychological support... and that of course is a downward spiral. (of course not all recreational drugs are equal, the illegal ones are much more dangerous)
