It may be worth pointing out here that with substance abuse, people often end up substituting one dangerous thing for another. Just because someone's a recovered heroin or cocaine user and not an alcoholic doesn't mean alcohol's not riskier for them than for other people. Whether or not that'd be true of Anthony Bourdain or not I can't weigh in on.

This separation needs to end. The sooner, the better. Alcohol is very much a drug.

"An estimated 88,0008 people (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women8) die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States. The first is tobacco, and the second is poor diet and physical inactivity."[0]

[0]https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-co...

But the comment was in response to him having a stiff drink.