Most people in society are looking for some sort of acceptance, approval, and attention. To find these, everyone starts exploring things. In the majority of cases, people look outwards to see what can help them achieve these instead of looking inwards and asking why they need all this acceptance/ attention, etc.
Once they find one such thing - which in this case is booze or smoking etc, they try to replicate it so that they can become a part of some social group. As they walk more on this path they start feeling that they are getting closer to their objective and soon it becomes a part of their identity. As soon as it becomes a part of one’s identity, they will try to do everything that can help them make that part of identity more secure. That’s when they start forcing their ideologies upon others and questions like “How can you be happy without X?” come
Anything that goes against their ideology and way of living is seen as a threat to their identity because it will mean that they did something wrong or failed in taking the right decision for their life and no one wants to be in that state. And that’s how one gets trapped in the loop of proving their current way of life right and denying anything that opposes.
Now, please note that here I might have taken an example of drinking/smoking, but this can be true for multiple things like a profession, hobby, religion, etc. For example, people who like traveling may come up and say how can you be happy without traveling. One way to solve this can be that people start looking more inwards and understand that everything lies within us. One has to figure out ask why something needs to be done, understand what makes sense for them, and achieve it by putting in the right effort & fighting with their weakness instead of jumping on the social bandwagon. This obviously isn’t easy but Zindagi mein aasan hai hi kya :)