I've been watching The Jeffersons in syndication and it is interesting how much drinking the characters do. Many many episodes have the characters coming into the apartment or going to the bar and having a scotch or some sort of cocktail. Even Mother Jefferson was notorious for downing bloody maries. Bewitched had a tremendous amount of social drinking as well. And of course shows that had a bar or saloon as a hangout spot such as Cheers or Archie Bunker's Place. Yet the characters almost never became intoxicated. Today this kind of drinking would be considered symptomatic of alcoholism. When did tv sitcoms begin to deemphasize drinking? It ust have been in the 90s after Cheers.

They Drink alot on "Roseanne" too.

It's not uncommon for a person to have an after work cocktail when they get home. It doesn't mean they have a drinking problem.
People drink in the real world. It's possible the TV networks don't want to encourage drinking, but if your show is set at a bar like "Cheers," you have to show people drinking. The characters in the new CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" spend a lot of time hanging out in bars. Young people in New York go to bars. Believe me, I know.

Fred Sanford enjoyed social drinking with a glass of ripple or one of his specialty ripple drinks (champagne and ripple = champipple).