You mean what sort of relationship between alcohol and death do I propose? One that isn't a neat mathematical line for sure, particularly since it seems possible that moderate amounts of alcohol are actually beneficial.
If the relationship were linear, then you could spread that 500 milliliters out over 100 days and see the same effect, which is plainly ludicrous. The rate of alcohol consumption plays a large role, a single binge can kill you, slow and steady drinking can plausibly extend your life. A single extra drink is also going to do way more harm to a long-term alcoholic than it will to a young healthy Mormon; that Mormon is at absolutely no chance at getting cirrhosis, the risk to the alcoholic is non-zero.
The relationship between alcohol and mortality is something that you could probably fill damn near half a medical library with. "half a liter is a micro-mortality" is silly oversimplified nonsense. It might work for radiation exposure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model) but it is nonsense for alcohol.
Is there some amount of cigarettes that is beneficial too?
So long as the line is going up and to the right, it's specific shape only matters if you want to debate the micromort value, not whether the concept exists.
If you go up to the top of this thread, I think you will find that we are bickering about specific micromort values listed on the Wikipedia page.
Some of these things plausibly can be modeled as LNT. Radiation possibly can, perhaps airplane rides too. Some of them cannot be, like alcohol consumption.
> Isn't it obvious that alcohol can cause certain fatal diseases in proportion to consumption?
Its obvious that consumption is positively correlated to certain fatal conditions, but its not at all obvious that the risk is in proportion to (i.e., linearly correlated with) total lifetime consumption.
