> Yeah, right, now you lost me completely by trying to cast moderate alcohol use as something that will _make_ me hit my wife
That's not what he says, though. He says alcohol could have that effect. Given that alcohol has notable connections to that effect, it's a reasonable statement. One could argue it's only connected to alcohol abuse, and that's also a reasonable argument, but (a) it's not the only risk related to alcohol consumption (the article notable focuses on cancer) and (b) there's the fact that some portion of the population is at risk for alcohol abuse in a way they are probably not at risk for, say, statin abuse.
> and talking of it as a bad medication.
If we're going to speak of health benefits of alcohol and talk about whether professionals should recommend it, then it's reasonable to compare it to a form of medication.
> You can't walk and have a glass of wine at the weekend?
The question here isn't whether you can do both. Obviously, anyone can. The question is what recommendations are likely to improve outcomes.
The evidence for benefits of alcohol consumption doesn't seem clear. The evidence for some risks does (even if many people who drink never experience them).
So the only people you should tell to take a walk and have a glass of wine are the people who are already having the glass of wine or really really want to for non-health related reasons.
(Or the people who can be confident something else will kill them first and don't need to be unintoxicated in the meanwhile, I suppose.)
> this piece just went of the deep end in lacking perspective and I can no longer trust that it will give me useful advice on keeping alcohol as part of my lifestyle.
The perspective seems pretty straight on to me (and, fwiw, entirely consistent with the advice I've gotten from a handful of doctors including two fancy cardiologists).
Alcohol has risks. The article discusses some and reasons why they may not be adequately appreciated. If that isn't useful as advice while forming an opinion about alcohol as part of your lifestyle, maybe the problem is less the article and more that you're not interested in making that decision based off an understanding of the risks.
And yes, we all accept activities we know have risks, so if drinking is something you enjoy enough you want to accept the measure of risk, fair enough! I do the same with some my own choices. I don't tell myself I'm doing it as part of a health regimen, though, when there are options that seem to have clearer benefits and better risks profiles.