now thanks to the actions of those evil people I'm unlikely to enjoy such an effluent lifestyle ever again!
I seriously hope you mean "affluent" not "effluent" as the two are entirely different......
As for drinking in general, I'm not big on it (never have been) but I'm not against it. That said, it's an undeniably a significant health hazard when done to excess - not a lot different to smoking or eating junk food really apart from the social aspect of it.
The thing I really don't "get" about it though is that when people suffer health problems due to heavy drinking, for example depression is the obvious one, they usually seek to return to a "reasonable" level of drinking as soon as possible. I've seen more than one person do that and social pressure seems to be the reason "everybody drinks, right?".
In contrast, people who have a heart attack tend to quit smoking just like that. They also tend to find no real difficulty in keeping away from unhealthy food etc either. And many heavy drinkers steer well clear of cigarettes and anything fried.
As a society I do think we have massive denial about alcohol. I'm not against it, but I can certainly see how it causes harm.
Back to the Christmas party however, now that it's been mentioned that it was not on company premises and was after hours, I can't see a problem with it at all unless you did something really silly with someone you shouldn't have.