This may just be me, but the lack of a decent longitudinal study on these narratives is pretty weak science. For the last 40? 50? years there have been alcohol stories fairly consistently in the media, and we still struggle with substantiating claims- about the only thing we can say for certain is that the people who write these types of articles don't like alcohol OR in the opposing view point, they love alcohol.

With all that said I think we have enough info to say alcohol aint good for you physiologically.... but we don't have enough info to say the social benefits might actually outweigh the negatives.