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I think, because of how society views alcohol, it's possible for not drinking to have a negative sociological and emotional effect. For example, someone gets passed up for a promotion because they don't go out to happy hour.

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Not drinking can have a negative sociological and emotional effect regardless of how society views alcohol. I've had numerous interesting/strange life experiences that probably wouldn't have been possible without alcohol. I'll gladly pay the price of having a few bad hangovers and worse factual recall to (hopefully) continue to have those kinds of experiences.

This. This is huge for me as well. There is definitely a societal expectation to drink in certain situations, and if you don't, you're viewed as one of the un-cool guys. Probably another thing that will require change at the leadership level to be really corrected over time.

And it's really dangerous for people predisposed to alcoholism. In the past, smoking was similar, and it has serious long term negative physiological effects.

I don't drink, and fortunately I've never worked in an office where that mattered, but my personal choices in consuming drugs should have no professional repercussions unless it negatively impacts my job performance.

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