So to the main point on sugar, it is not a straw man. The way the human body metabolizes fructose (50% of sugar) is very similar to how it metabolizes alcohol. That isn't surprising because we just ferment sugar to get alcohol. There isn't any tenuous link, they are very similar compounds that are processed by the body similarly. The video isn't associating them because they have many of the same long term health affects (which they do) or because alcohol is a convenient boogie man but because they are handled by the body the same. The comparison is appropriate, for specifics we can look at these three examples.
Examples of metabolizing 120 calories of glucose, alcohol, and sugar. If you have to watch just one watch the sucrose (sugar) metabolism at 56:30.
Glucose metabolism (50% of sugar, not bad for you)
(starts roughly 45min in and finishes at 51:10)
Ethanol metabolism (alcohol, not good for you. An acute toxin)
(starts at... 51:10, could skip to 53:00 ends roughly 56:30)
Sucrose Metabolism (this is Sugar, made up of 50% glucose and 50% fructose)
(starts roughly 56:30 ends around 1:10)
I included the fruit reference to show that fruit contains different amounts of fructose relative to each other (not sugar) and you're right this line of discussion is probably a distraction from the main point I'm trying to make, which is that fructose (and by extension sugar with is 50% fructose, or "high fructose corn syrup" which is 55% fructose) is bad for you. The fiber discussion is also a distraction at this point. Weather it has no effect, slows or speeds absorption of fructose how the body metabolizes fructose is the same.