Leviathan (1989) - Okay, but did anyone else feel...bad for Sixpack?

Okay, so I just watched Leviathan (1989) for the first time (yeah, I know, late to the party). It was...fine. Predictable monster movie stuff, but the practical effects were pretty gnarly, which I appreciated. What I'm struggling with is how quickly everyone just wrote off Sixpack (Daniel Stern)! He finds the vodka, drinks it, and suddenly he's Patient Zero? I get it, movie logic, but he was genuinely trying to have a good time! Like, imagine being stuck in that claustrophobic underwater base...anyone would be tempted by a bottle of booze. And then he gets blamed for everything, and the transformation is just horrendous. I know he becomes part of the monster, but before that...did anyone else kind of feel for the dude? He was just trying to stave off boredom. Maybe it's just me being overly empathetic, but I felt like the movie could have spent a little more time showing the crew's initial reaction to his illness before they just started seeing him as the enemy. It felt a little too quick of a turnaround. What are your thoughts? Did I totally miss the point or did anyone else feel a sliver of sympathy for Sixpack's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day?