To suffer from either alcohol consumption or social isolation?

This is not a flippant question.

In France, new laws are to be passed to allow bar managers to open a drinking hole in communities with fewer than 3,500 people without having to wait for a permit. At the moment you can't open a new bar in a village without a licence until an old bar has closed.

Apparently the move is to bring people back together in rural areas where they have lost the art of socialising, and of course drinking together! Isolation and loneliness account for many problems, including suicides in rural communities.

On the other hand, alcohol consumption is a major public health issue, so things might get worse rather than better.