I have extensive experience of alcoholism in my family (my mum died young of it, there's lots of inherited issues and knowledge in my ancestry and current family) so I have found it difficult to be objective about the writing on the Alice SL at points over the last few years. I find the over-dramatic and (IMO unnecessary) storyline with the crash etc to be overworked*, as there's already enough angst and human drama in any kind of addiction issue, but on balance I think they've done a good job of representing different perspectives and showing the sometimes visceral reactions of different people in different degrees of closeness to the alcoholic, i.e. Emma v Fallon v Kate (for eg) and how it isn't contained to the person themselves or their immediate family. I agree with you @buidhebeltainn - tonight (while some of the actual writing was a bit meh IMO) it was a solid portrayal of two sympathetic but different points of view of invested people (I love Susan and Neil as both characters and actors anyway) who ultimately have to pick up the slack to compensate for someone else's suffering, but have differing perspectives on the right approach and their differing levels of tolerance. I also thought that (for eg) both Adam and Ruari's interactions from the last few weeks to be really true to life as well - I've seen (and, if I'm honest, have done) both of their stances and completely understood both of their perspectives on how they think they can help.
I suppose my ultimate reflection (and I am also saying this having worked for a bit in my graduate years doing audience research for the BBC) is that I think the SWs did a really good job of researching this wrt family and their wider support or circumstantial network's potential attitudes and actions, and have tried to represent them all throughout this SL, and I have to credit them for that. As with most of us on this thread I am more and more disappointed with the quality of the scripts the actors have to deal with, and the clunkiness seems to be increasing all the time, seemingly to bring us towards a more soapy production style, which is a shame.
Also of interest to me is that I got properly 'into' the Archers in my 30s, but have always been aware of it as my Grandma (my mums mum) listened to it, and so its a massive fixture of my childhood while I helped her get tea ready twice a week at her house. Looking back, and considering that she also had to deal with her own daughter's alcohol issues, I wonder how she would have responded to the Alice SL, as I can only assume she was there for the Jack Wooley SL as well. Would love to be able to ask her. I wonder if the SW looked back in the archives at all to see how it was addressed then, and took any wisdom into their writing this time around?
(*I get that it was plot device to further the Fallon and Harrison + George/Archers v Grundies SL for the long term, and ultimately I like the question marks around all of that long-term succession planning, so I am a huge hypocrite really)