"It wasn't exactly optional" was that there was an implied request that everyone would attend. It went on everyone's calendars and was during work hours, not after.
I'm not arguing alcohol should be removed from office functions. I'm saying [a] they shouldn't be the focus and [b] maybe we don't need to have fridges of beer where it is acceptable to grab one and go back to your desk.
My wife's company (a nationwide outdoor retailer) does have alcohol occasionally at events, but those are semi-regular BBQs at the end of the day, and are absolutely optional. My friends work in healthcare where there is zero alcohol. Other friends work in the government, also zero alcohol. My mother works for a shipping company, also no alcohol on premises. In fact, outside of tech no-one I know has alcohol kept on premises.
"Other industries have moved on from this sort of model"
Source? I've worked for a few corps outside of strict tech focus and that was not my experience.
What's the end-goal of this anyways? You can't moderate social interactions, so if your company stops doing alcohol-related events, your teams are almost certainly still going to go to happy hours. I get that this would be a problem if every corporate event solely revolved around getting rip-roaringly drunk, and that would be needlessly exclusionary, but I also doubt that's the reality outside of some really fringe cases. Although maybe that is how it really goes down, and I've just had a sheltered workplace experience