What I am saying is that you will die of dehydration if you drink only beer or an equivalent wine.
Even in a long day of drinking beer, look at how your urine color starts reflecting the dehydration.
At your next overnight beer keg party, try to keep all the pass outs away from water or replacement fluids the next morning, and you will see the effects of true thirst on the dehydrated.
My point was two fold: The manufacture and use of beverages containing alcohol predates writing and was so ingrained (pun intended) in the American public that banning its recreational use was futile and resulted in the creation of several criminal empires (including a political one in Massachusetts), and that it was often safer to consume alcoholic beverages than the water that was generally available to people in towns and cities. The same was/is true, by the way, of coffee, tea, and Coca Cola. I travel a lot and in many countries the rule is if it isn't boiled, broiled, fried, peeled, or comes out of a sealed bottle with a label you don't consume it.
The negative aspects of alcohol abuse are certainly clear and also go back into prehistory. But one of the amazing things about "banning" something is that it only puts what's banned under the control and management of people who, by definition, are law breakers, and criminalizing the majority or a large minority of a population is one rather good definition of tyranny.
Water, what do you need water for in the AM? The cure for overnight dehydration, more beer..lol