One reason that alcohol is so popular is that it is easily, legally obtainable, and a social drug, unlike (say) heroin, which this article seems not to mention (I may have missed it)and might have done less damage (look at the long-lived William S Burroughs).

Burroughs came from an upper middle class background. People with money are sometimes able to avoid some of the health dangers that come with heroin use. It's the heroin users who are poor that end up with the worst health outcomes. Malnutrition and risk of infection for example. Not being able to look after yourself because you have no money left.

Perhaps partly because heroin was late to the party. It was identified/extracted in 1874 and only had around 40 year of legal use before controls came in.

Compared to opium and alcohol where consumption dates back thousands of years.

With alcohol, most people are dishonest about it, most don't call it a drug which is quite worrisome and people addicted to that drug don't even consider themselves drug addicts, there has been such a lobby in communication around the separation of "Drugs" and "Alcohol" and people have fell for it hard. Literal propaganda :/

Even today, we can find mostly older people that refuse to call themselves drug users and literally insult "other type of drug" users despite literally being one and consuming a drug on a daily basis.