Alcohol

Alcohol.

Is it good for you?  No.

Does it make you more likeable?  Not really.

Does it make you smarter?  Hell no.

Can it help you meet new friends, or entertain those you have?  Sure, why not.

Alcohol, like etiquette and manners, is a social lubricant.  It helps smooth the way when groups of people gather.  It can be at a race track, a restaraunt, or a random gathering on the street.  When people's inhibitions are reduced or voided entirely, the person that emerges is often closer to genuine than however they choose to present themselves at other times.  Assholes reveal themselves to be assholes.  Nice people treat others better and try to prevent fights between assholes.  Loud people can become louder, and sad people can become sadder. 

Alcohol, almost unique among chemical compounds, has been distilled by nearly every culture millenia past, even in isolation.  The Japanese have sake, Europeans beer and mead, and Amazonian and African tribes have drinks that will, almost literally, blow your mind.  The same way that primitive societies developed bread, they developed alcohol.

Why?

As soon as societies began to form enough to develop agriculture and villages, there existed enevitable friction.  You feel it every day, in the co-worker who you can't stand, the person on the street whose behavior annoys you in some inexplicable way.  People are different, and some will always annoy others.  This is a fact of humanity.

So one day a baker puts too much water in his dough, and in frustration leaves the pot full, puts a lid on it, and puts in on a shelf.  He forgets about it, and a few months later a thirsty someone finds and drinks what remains.  He spends the rest of the day trying to figure out what the hell happened, and how he can make it happen again. The rest is history.  (As far as beer is concerned, mostly German history)

So these days it exists as it always has, a readliy available lubricant to take the edge off a hard day or a weird party. 

Without it, I imagine we would be one of two places.

Either we would have advanced to a level of technology and personal enlightenment that cannot even be fathomed by science fiction writers,

Or we would have long since murdered each other, unable to deal with a myriad of annoyances.

In conclusion, alcohol is an ingrained and, for better or worse, irremovable facet of our global society. 

And, particularly appropriately, I am writing this while slightly drunk.