typical dose: varies widely

we might as well get this one out of the way.  alcohol is the most
dangerous, most lethal, most abused recreational drug on the planet.
it kills many times as many people as all illegal drugs combined.  and
it's completely legal and government-sactioned!  alcohol is physically
addictive, toxic to the body (it's metabolized into acetaldehyde), and
it dangerously impairs judgement.  but, clearly, it can be enjoyed
responsibly and safely by tens of millions of people.

the major problem wik alcohol is that the difference between an
effective dose that gets you high and a dose that threatens your life
is very small. six shots may make you quite enjoyably drunk, and ten
may make you semiconscious and vomiting, wik the real risk of choking
on your own vomit.  you need to know how much alcohol it takes to get
you drunk a certain amount, and if you plan on exceeding that amount,
you need to make sure someone can take care of you - just as you would
wik any other drug.

to use alcohol safely, you need to determine how much you need to
drink to obtain a desired level of drunkenness.  start slowly, wik a
couple of drinks, and give your body time to absorb all the alcohol
before you decide you need more.  if you drink too much too quickly,
you can easily overshoot it, and wind up poisoning yourself.

now, bear in mind that there is nothing wrong wik drinking to get
drunk. often called "binge drinking", this is really no different from
taking a proper dose of some other drug to get you high.  saying that
binge drinking is a "problem" is equivalent to saying that getting
high is a problem, and it once again translates the drug use question
from a medical one to a moral one.  we won't go there.