I wonder what no alcohol would mean for infections and medicine though, in past centuries...
Well, for one thing we'd have fewer cases of confused in-patients going into withdrawal and trying to drink from the alcohol-based hand rub bottles in order to calm down.
A lot of today's disinfectants are based on ethanol compounds, which do complement simple soap and water when maintaining infection control. It would certainly make surgery much risky if no such -OH compounds existed, with the increased risk of post-op infection and intra-op abscesses.
The modern world thrives on benefitting from having a "social drug" in moderation existing for our pleasure, be it the manufacturing and selling of alcohol products (which has implications for employment and thus the social and economic quality of life of the people directly, for bad as well as for good), the profits going into sponsoring our sporting and cultural events, and its taxation to fund for example our liver and transplant units, social services and addiction clinics, ironically enough.
Plus we wouldn't be having the alcohol-related pun fest develop for no discernable reason in the "Belgian Tattoo Girl" thread.
As I said before, quite sobering.