As a species, we drink a staggering amount of alcohol. The total volume consumed by humans annually is enough to supply every living human with 6.2 liters of alcohol every year [source: WHO]. That's pure alcohol, mind you — not beer or wine or even whiskey, but the kind you should really only drink if you want to get your stomach pumped. Add the fact that 61.7 percent of the world abstains from alcohol, and the share for drinkers rises to 16.3 liters.

All that alcohol going into our bodies absolutely has an effect on human behavior. In 2012, 5.9 percent of all global deaths were attributed to alcohol consumption — that's 3.3 million people dead of alcohol-related health problems, alcohol-related violence and drunken driving [source: WHO]. In the United States alone, 10,076 people died in alcohol-related car accidents in 2013 [source: DOT]. If all alcohol disappeared tomorrow, there definitely would be a global drop in deaths and violence.

Without alcohol, maybe we'd still be huddled around campfires arguing about which mushrooms were poisonous and how to avoid being eaten by wolves. Alcohol helped make us what we are, providing clear nutritional benefits and helping to drive the development of agriculture. For something that makes so many of us behave like Neanderthals, alcohol has played a major role in civilization.