Not to choose sides, but the definition of an alcoholic is someone who misuses alcohol. So, as long as someone never binge drinks/drinks out of guidelines which is the definition of (which will depend on which country you live on for the guidelines but the ones in the U.K. are probably the safest/more accurate in terms of units, which would be no more than 1* drink per day for women and no more than 2* per day for men and not on consecutive days)then you are NOT an alcoholic. It is possible to consume alcohol and not be an alcoholic if these guidelines are followed but the sad fact is that: 1. Most people lie about how much alcohol they consume. 2. Problem drinkers are purchasing most of the alcohol. 3. People are uneducated about how much they are actually drinking; for example one 12 Oz craft beer is going to = more than one drink because of the higher alcohol content. Same with a “glass” of wine (most people do not drink 4 Oz servings).
So while most people aren’t crippling alcoholics, I would be willing to wager that most drinkers fall into the grey “problem drinking” category even though they do not want to admit it.