I'm happy that my group of peers had been extremely supportive of a friend who is a recovering alcoholic and only drinks soda or 0.0% beer now. We basically all admire him for his willpower, especially at concerts.
Even when I decided to cut out every second beer at concerts and replace it with sugar free soda or soda water, everyone understood and they remember to ask when they buy rounds for the group.
Then again, we're all 25+ and mostly 30+, so that probably makes a big difference.
Edit: This was meant to be a reaction to mrleiter
There is certainly a drinking culture problem, and it is specifically a lack of culture and taste.
Give me a high quality wine or whisky or even a well-mixed drink made with quality ingredients. Something to savor and enjoy, instead of just chugging it as quickly as possible.
I'm in Malaga on vacation at the moment, and there is definitely something to be said for one glass of good wine with dinner and one glass of good sherry with dessert, and that's it. Not knocking back endless rows of shitty shots.
Drinking to get "hammered" is the real problem. Drinking a smaller amount of something well-made that tickles your taste buds and intrigues you is so much more fun.
Exactly how ingrained alcohol is in our culture really only starts to hit you when you know someone with an alcohol problem. Try to not drink for a couple of months, the reactions can be pretty strange, "you must be ill or something"... I really see alcohol as Soma from Brave New World. But unlike with tobacco, we still have our heroes use it on the telly all the time.
Yesterday I had a 16 y/o tell me that she doesn't like to drink and she's a bit of an outcast at school now. In fact she says, many kids don't like it but they do it anyway to be part of the group. Sure, that is normal for kids, but that used to be normal for smoking and that (at least here in the Netherlands) is in my experience quickly losing it's coolness by lack of commercials and government crackdown.