Partying and getting drunk every now and then was part of the youth culture and growing up, and as most or my friends i had a lot of fun, and sometimes not fun at all, doing all sorts of stupid things.
From my perspective there are 4 main roads to addiction as far as booze goes. One is the partying that never stopped - fun being the driving force, then there are self medication - the escape, then there are people who are disposed for it, hooked the first time they get tipsy, and finally the cultural thing where drinking is an intricate part of the culture - e.g. wine/vodka for everything and every occasion, the pub at the center of everything, or the wind down drink after work plus heavy representation.
In my late 20'ies I deliberately decided to perform an experiment on myself to see how fast I could become addicted by regular drinking which I didn't do beforehand. I decided to have one fairly normal drink (like 4 cl and 6 cl tops or one shot if you like) every evening, always in a social setting with colleagues. It took about 3-4 weeks before i felt the need for a 2nd drink, and after abt 8-9 weeks I felt the need for a third. It would have been foolish to carry on having a third, thus that's where I stopped. It took more than a month before the urge vanished. Regular low scale social drinking is a notable risk factor.
I decided already as a kid that I wouldn't do full weekend parties. I didn't cure the hangover with booze. If I had a hangover saturday, I waited until the saturday evening before entering the party, then lived through the sunday hangover and stayed sober on weekdays except from one fantasticly fun summer at 18. Bought a good car for my hard earned cash (was working a lot), and that whole summer, my best friend and I alternated every 2nd day being the chaffeaur and the partyboy.
Saw and was around all kinds of alcoholics and a few on drugs as a kid, most of them were functional alcoholics, some were okey until frequently tipping over the edge be it in miserable selfpity, hooray or aggressivity, and a few were full blown addicts as nasty as can be.
Once I had learned my lessons from being an idiot, and not liking to be around drunk people (terribly boring then unpredictable), I simply decided that my threshold was becoming tipsy. I still like becoming tipsy on occasion, and having learned my lessons, I never have mixed drinks. If it tasted orange juice I would drink it as orange juice and didn't take notice until I had too many. I deliberately tested that too.
So, my consumption limits itself to a glass of wine for dinner every now and then, occasionally two, and it happens any time I like. When I have a drink - also every now and then - I have one or two, (and perhaps three, 4-5 times a year). The one excemption to all of this goes with specific food - rather big meals - sitting at the table for hours - with beer and schnaps. Believe it's about 2-3 years since last time, but normally that is a seasonal thing a couple of days a year.
If there are kids at the occasion or around the table I prefer no wine++. Simply because just about everyone changes in behaviour when under the influence, and kids notice that without understanding why people becomes different. Not doing anything wrong, but different. Kids don't need that.
A final rule I follow without exemptions: I don't touch the stuff at all when I have to sort things out for one reason or another, be it entirely mundane or serious. I solve the issue at hand, and only then returns to my pleasant habits.
I am sceptical to moral campaigns against drinking and to replace one crutch with another - typically drinking vs faith. Works for some indeed, but it is still about crutches, and it is more about recruiting followers than helping the victims of addiction. Some of it is pure exploitation.
I can still clearly remember what my aunt said at my cousin's (14 year old) confirmation when he was dead drunk: "That's part of growing up."
