As to "beneficial effects", keep in mind that the trace amounts of something healthy would pale in comparison to the negative effects of the alcohol, which is much less of a trace chemical.
Plus, other lifestyle choices could give a false positive[4]. Stuff like eating properly and exercising might not be properly controlled for, giving an unrealistically rosy picture.
[1]https://publications.iarc.fr/62
[2]https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/alcohol/index.htm
[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_cancer
[4]https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-red-wine-good-actuall...
[5]https://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/global_stat...
(The first page has a downloadable PDF. Didn't link directly because it auto-downloads, at least for me.)
EDIT: link formatting, removal of extraneous "keep in mind".
It’s been a few years now but I have. Time and time again the conclusion seems to be that the studies that say drinking is beneficial are screwing something up, eg the result is based on including very sick people who don’t drink because of their poor health, and these people die younger (and thus skew the results toward making it look like drinking increases longevity).
The studies that correct for this and other issues generally either conclude zero alcohol is best, or in one case I recall a study that concluded 5g (in other words a third of a shot, a third of a beer, or third of a glass of wine) had a minimal positive impact and by the time you got to 10g it was neutral and anything beyond 10g started reducing lifespan.
Sorry I don’t have any references. I looked into this in detail a while back and didn’t save any of what I found.