Is there any benefit to drinking alcohol?

I recently found out the prophet I follow does not explicitly forbid alcohol, but only substances that "steal away the mind". Is there any benefit to drinking alcohol? I tried it once when I was in college and it just made me tired and inattentive, to the point that I neglected to turn in my assignment when all the other students turned them in at the front of the room. I didn't feel any euphoria at all - not even to the degree of drinking a caffeinated beverage.

But anyway, I always felt like there was something mentally wrong with me and that if I drank alcohol it might cure it. Should I give alcohol another shot?

Alcohol in moderation is a mild drug, sort of the opposite of caffeine.  It just makes one more relaxed, so it goes well with something like watching a light movie.  It is mostly used for socializing since being relaxed can help with socializing, but since I don't socialize, this isn't relevant to me.

I found I could often write better on alcohol. It is relaxing for muscle aches, stimulates thinking sometimes, is a good painkiller for some things and generally can relieve boredom and make life suck less.

The real benefit is that self destructing morons die faster. Legal drugs like that are out there for the same reason that vaccine is for.

Not really. Christianity does not forbid drinking alcohol (it forbids drunkenness), but people are better off not drinking alcohol at all anyway.

Is there any evidence people are better off not drinking alcohol? Most successful societies seem to have drank alcohol.

Well, I suppose just the sheer ease with which one can become addicted to alcohol, which leads to all kinds of unhappy outcomes.

I'm not a teetotaler myself, but no one ever got hurt abstaining from alcohol in the first place.

I mean at a societal level. Obviously there can be down sides to anything for given individuals. It seems though that in most successful Eurasian societies men were somewhat drunk all the time until about the Victorian age, and most things have not improved since then.

Define "successful".