Here's an interesting bit of information: people who drink have a longer life span than those who don't.  According to a study published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, abstaining from alcohol increases your risk of dying.  Having one to three drinks a day, which is considered moderate drinking, resulted in the lowest mortality rate in the study.  Alcoholics Anonymous, however, maintains that this is in direct relation that many non-drinkers are former hard core drunks who have already gone on the path to bad health problems from their previous drinking.  Drinkers also suffer less from depression, which researchers say is due to the relationship between drinking and socoalizing.