Within recent history, drinks with alcohol were preferred over water because the water was usually not very clean and caused disease. Alcohol in fluids does a great job of killing bacteria, and long before people knew anything about bacteria or alcohol, they noticed that people who drank straight water tended to get sick more than people who mixed alcohol in their drink. Alexander may very well have been an alcoholic - I’d guess many people of that time and for multiple centuries afterward were if they could afford it.
The Macedonian upper class had a traditional of drinking bouts. So, by our standards they probably all were.
When asked if he ever drank water, W.C. Fields replied, “I never touch the stuff! Fish f__k in it!”...............