I think it was spiritually unfortunate that in an attempt to create a virtuous culture, an inanimate item had evil ascribed to it.
The only real way out of such conundrums is to remember a long forgotten God. God is not some hypothetical moralizing nanny in the sky, but an omnipresent presence that has the capability of comforting and supernaturally providing and guiding beyond anything anyone could deserve (among many, many other marvelous things). In the presence of God, the loss incurred through gratuitous (non medical) consumption of intoxicants is seen immediately as the folly it is. This loss is to leave the wonders of God and to begin to fight against them.