I know that Levites are forbidden to drink wine but what about the rest of us? Seventh Day Adventists insist it is wrong for anybody to drink alcoholic wine. They insist Jesus only drank grape juice. What do you think?
Levites are not forbidden to drink wine.
No one in Judaism is completely forbidden to drink wine all the time save only alcoholics or people allergic to alcohol or otherwise physically intolerant of it (since alcohol is poison to them, and one is not permitted to harm oneself for no good reason), and, in the past, people who have taken explicit and direct vows, made in a technically correct fashion, to abstain from drinking wine or to be a
nazir (a kind of temporary ascetic abstemiousness, where one abstained from all products of the grape vine and from cutting the hair and from unessential ritual impurity for a set duration of time; but we do not practice
nezirut anymore, and ritual vows were only truly binding when invoked with pronunciation of the tetragrammaton, which we no longer know).
So these days, unless one is an alcoholic, or physically unable to safely consume alcohol, no one is ever entirely forbidden from drinking wine or spirits.
One is not supposed to pray, or perform certain other ritual duties while intoxicated; and both the wisdom literature in the Tanach and the wisdom literature of the Rabbis strongly encourage moderation, and shunning frequent tippling and inebriation. But wine is said to be a good thing in moderation, and every Shabbat and festival meal begins by blessing a cup of wine, and wine features in many other rituals as well. One can, of course, use grape juice for such purposes, but unless for health reasons, is not obligated to do so: the use of wine is expected on such occasions. The Rabbis tell us
yayin mesameach et lev ha-adam ("wine gladdens the hearts of men,") and
ein simchah ela b'yayin ("there can be no celebration without wine,") and other similar things, and there are countless stories in the Talmud of the Rabbis drinking wine together on Shabbat and festivals as a matter of course, with the explicit presumption that all should do likewise.
This includes use by Levites, by Kohanim (priests), and all other Jews as well.