If you drink beer, you live. Critics say that you should never advocate the medical benefits of alcohol. It simply encourages people to drink and some won't drink moderately. The end result will be cirrhosis of the liver, family strife and deaths from drunken drivers. I find it ironic that alcohol is appraised by different standards.
Critics judge alcohol harshly because of excessive use.
But they judge the benefits of drugs by their proposed use, whether followed or not. For instance, it's hard to get into trouble by using moderate amounts of alcohol. But, believe me, you can get into a pile of woe even with the moderate use of prescribed drugs. In fact, you can die from the prescribed dose of a drug such as penicillin. Keeping the count of free radicals low with a shaken martini may be one way to slow down aging and the risk of disease.