I am an alcoholic; there are a couple of us on AB, I think, both "in recovery" as we say i.e. sober. It does not matter how many people drink or how often or how much. A percentage of the population, any population,will be programmed, from birth, to become alcoholics. We now know that it is a matter of nature, not nurture. There is, as it were, an alcoholics' gene. If they are introduced to alcohol and it remains available they will succumb.
Now, you may say, that more men than women are alcoholics or show alcoholic tendencies. It may simply be that the "gene" is rarer in women.But a more likely explanation is cultural.Historically, women did not overtly drink as much as men, and so they were not exposed to sufficient alcohol to awaken the overwheming desire for it. I can drink alcohol now but do not relapse; I can drink a pint of Guinness or a glass of champagne, on occasion, but do not revert. (I rarely do it, but I have been brave, or reckless, enough to do so ). But there comes a point where the drinker is taken over, when the blood-alcohol level triggers the addiction. What that level is varies from person to person but each potential alcoholic has one. That's why we are told to avoid it altogether; we may be safe at one glass, but two or three and we trigger the response.
This is wholly separate from wider social or health issues. Alcohol is dangerous without alcoholism.