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You are making an argument of faith here based on an affirmation rather than sincerely considering whether the line has been crossed and examining the facts and where this doesn't pass, and where it passes. Because there are actual human societies that the line has been crossed.
I gave the most fitting example which is Indian country. The effect of alcohol towards them is a complete horror show. The level of harm it causes them far surpasses any possible benefit. There seems to be a genetic component to that even though this is also a field where there are those trying to deny race differences. https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2012.12010113
Even as it is these are the consequences worldwide: https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/alcohol-topics/alcohol-facts-and-statistics/global-burden
These are significant consequences.
The prohibitions mentioned in the OP in South Africa might be another example of a good trade off. If your society is South Africa you kind of have to prioritize making it less of a failed society and reducing the violence.
Shouldn't the quality of the field in general make you a bit suspect of the line of causality here? I don't doubt that Native Americans engage in a lot of dysfunctional alcohol use, but I do doubt that the alcohol is what's causing the dysfunction.
More broadly, it's just kind of weird that alcohol putatively reduces societal health, but a map of state-by-state alcohol consumption is just about anti-correlated with longevity. Similarly, many of the hard-drinking countries around the world are doing great, and the places that don't drink are dysfunctional hellholes with short life expectancies (with the exception of a couple wealthy Gulf oil states). I suppose this is largely a product of wealthier places being able to buy more alcohol and the individuals that drink the most aren't doing great (Simpson's paradox style), but it's hard for me to look at Germany and France and think that they're actually missing out on a ton of longevity and productivity due to all the beer and wine.
It's the opposite. They are trying to deny and obfuscate because they oppose differences and want to talk about it in a politically correct manner. So there are debunkers pretending the issue doesn't exist and is just a negative stereotype. In the past there was a complete prohibition of alcohol sales to "Native Americans" .
Like many real issues, you are also going to find some talking about it.
There is in a fact a bigger problem of drunkedness, people being addicted to alcohol and dying in part due to that. Maybe they abuse the alcohol also for reasons of being impulsive, IQ related and so on but it doesn't change that the combo of them and alcohol works worse. Both in terms of behavior and health.
The issue is quantifiable. Even outside alcohol, when it comes to drugs one can see an increase of drug abuse in certain european countries due to less policing and a more pro drug culture.
Germany is still going to be better than muslim countries but Germans would live longer without alcohol consumption.
Sure, it is manageable even if it is probably among the top negative behaviors that affect life expectancy in countries like Germany. That is because Germans don't have that many problems and are successful. Most Muslim countries have more significant problems to worry about.
The issue becomes especially notable in some eastern european countries where it actually plays a more significant effect for bellow 80 years old life expectancy. Even in Germany, for alcohol abusers it does eat years from their life.
Men in Belarus live only 68 years and this was the country that had the highest alcohol consumption in the world in 2010! https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31960526/
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/05/17/heaviest-drinking-countries/9146227/
Anyway, comparing countries like Germany with the worst is a losing game. You either compare with other successful societies that do certain things differently, or try to estimate how it would do, if it did things differently.
Now, you could argue that drinking is a common part of German culture, and although it can be done in moderation or you can have to the other extreme Eastern Europe type of disaster.
Here are some numbers of the top of a few seconds searching
https://www.aerzteblatt.de/int/archive/article/226333/The-use-of-psychoactive-substances-in-Germany-findings-from-the-Epidemiological-Survey-of-Substance-Abuse-2021
So based on the above numbers, it is 4.32% of total mortality.
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