In my early twenties the house I rented with four friends was partying headquarters as our combined friend groups converged and gelled well. Bunch of punk culture infused tech nerds. I do not regret the self destructive binge drinking we did regularly for four years. Life was otherwise fucking rancid for us back then in every way except socially. We were dirt poor working awful jobs. A lot of aimless/hopeless feelings. The outlet was needed.

Eventually however I had my first memory black out. I hadn't even been all that drunk that night but seeing photos of myself when I had zero memory of what I had been doing was so disturbing to me I just went cold turkey then and there. Didn't matter too much because I was moving out soon having finally landed an okay job at the time.

I didn't get moderately drunk again until last summer, so 11 years later. It was fun but I like my legal weed way more and it's a lot cheaper.

None of us became alcoholics in the end. Not like I recommend what we did, but there's no bad ending in our case.