I have a friend who was addicted to both cocaine and alcohol. While he, of course, is convinced that cocaine is one of the worst substances to have ever existed, he is even wearier of alcohol because of: (I'm obviously both paraphrasing AND excluding most countries with a Muslim majority here)

a) Social acceptance. No one is ever going to judge you for quietly sitting in the corner of a bar drinking your beer. Try snorting a line on the same setting and see what happens.

b) Availability. Even in sparsely populated areas, you are never too far away (say, a 10 minute walk) from a bottle of wine/spirit/beer.

c) Practicality (which is what answers your question). You don't need a syringe, spoon, knife, bill, bong or lighter, not even another recipient, to start binging on booze. Once you buy/steal the stuff, you're all set - and drinking something definitely IS more 'natural' (as in, it's a reflex) than injecting or smoking something.

Alcohol: now in XXL suppository

When people say, "I don't use drugs", almost never do they include alcohol in that. Alcohol, which is a drug, is always referred to separately, in large part because it's a beverage. Most people, if asked, will agree that alcohol is a drug, but it's not really categorized as one in their mind on a day-to-day basis. No one has a glass of wine at lunch and thinks, "I'm doing drugs now." But, if alcohol as a liquid simply didn't exist, but exactly the same effect could be had in pill form, I don't think people would be taking a pill with their dinner, and washing it down with water.

I think of it was a pill it would be waaaayy more popular. A lot of people avoid alcohol because it’s disgusting, including me, but if I could skip having to drink disgusting liquid to get drunk I’d consume a lot more of it. Snorting probably would be more popular too as long as it didn’t smell bad or burn to do. I like alcohol and hate drinking so I don’t drink but if drinking is taken out of the picture…. I’d be down

Cigarettes, pipes, hookah and lots of other forms of smoking were and are popular as a social lubricant, if that’s what you’re getting at

Alcohol < Drugs

I believe it’s mostly cultural. Alcoholic beverages are as old as civilization itself. We drink alcohol because that has been the social norm for thousands of years.

But there’s probably something about it being a beverage as well. It goes along well with food because of this, which makes it a tasteful alternative to water.

I think you're probably right, especially now that snorting snuff and smoking are significantly less common. Although if you put it in vape form...

You can drink alcohol? I thought you had to boof it.

Snorting tea, coffee and broccoli would be less popular too.

Considering how many drugs are taken in those other ways and how popular they are, I don't think the method of delivery is the issue.

Before water could be reliably sterilised beer was the only thing people could drink safely. So it would have been the only thing a lot of people drank for their whole lives after they stopped breastfeeding which I think will have contributed quite strongly to it's popularity.

Obligatory parks and recreation

Skip a minute into it though for some reason the clip starts way sooner than it needs to.