I don't think there's anything wrong with a glass of wine a couple of times a week. Beer too. It's no different than caffeine. It's the socially accepted vice and everything in moderation and all that.
Personally, alcohol is neither here nor there in my life. When I was younger, I used to drink when I went clubbing or attended house parties. People would buy me drinks or pour me drinks and hey, when it Rome...
Nowadays... ehhhh. I occasionally have moods where I have wine every day with dinner for a week or two and then one day forget to pour myself a glass and my life goes on again, completely wino-free. I will drink socially on occasion, but it's more of a once in a blue moon thing there too; very few of the people I spend time with are drinkers. I can't remember the last time I got anything other than a good buzz going at a social gathering.
As for the health implications, I don't have an intelligent or well-informed opinion. I remember reading/hearing somewhere that unless you've got some kind of predisposition or genetic hiccup, you need to regularly indulge in some alky to do any real liver damage. I know for a fact that it thickens you a bit if you drink heavily too many days in a row. I remember feeling as dumb as a sack of hammers in college after a few days of letting loose. I can imagine there are long term cognitive side-effects to drinking consistently like that.
Otherwise, a snifter of brandy or a glass of wine or a cold one every once in a while... I don't see the problem.
