Drowning My Sorrows

When one "Freaking Drink" isn't enough.


"When you drink like that, it isn't for pleasure. It's because your thoughts have become diseases. You do it because it's the only easy cure you can find."
—Ginn Hale, Wicked Gentlemen

When characters get frustrated, they need a freaking drink. But when they are depressed, they get drunk. Then they might start acting very strangely indeed.

A well-known Truth in Television. It is often played for sympathetic laughs, but it can also be dramatic, pathetic, embarrassing or angsty, especially if it goes with Off the Wagon. Characters who do this may also suffer from Bad Dreams and are prone to not eating enough, and it might lead to spending the night with somebody as the next step in "healing."

Men who undergo this for a period often grow a Beard of Sorrow during the time.

If a friend shows up, the Power of Friendship can convert this to To Absent Friends. Sometimes. If not? A nail gun and a wagon can work wonders.

The Bottle Fairy does this from time to time. The Wide-Eyed Idealist tries this by getting Drunk on Milk. See Drunken Montage, an older trope that pictures the character stumbling through the big city night. See also: The Alcoholic. A nicotine addict reaches for the Cigarette of Anxiety.

If the depressed character recovers, it will probably lead to a He's Back moment.

Examples of Drowning My Sorrows include:

Anime and Manga

  • On Maison Ikkoku, Godai and Mitaka have decided to duke it out once and for all for the hand of the fair Kyoko. Too bad this is Tokyo, where it seems like every street corner has a cop waiting to book you for causing a public disturbance. The guys end up at a beer vending machine drowning their sorrows.
  • David from Blood+ after the Red Shield's headquarters was sunk in order to kill Diva and the associated trip beyond the Moral Event Horizon.
  • Lisa Kujoh aka Sumeragi Lee Noriega in Mobile Suit Gundam 00 personally implies that her constant drinking is for this single purpose.
  • In Mahou Sensei Negima one of Negi's fellow teachers accidentally gave him some sake while eating in Satsuki's restaurant. The scene quickly degenerated into this trope as a drunken Negi cried out his troubles.
  • Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: The (very underage) Creepy Child Rika drinks wine when she's depressed, as seen in the second season. A TIPS in the game confirms that she drinks for the purpose of getting drunk.
    • Same thing happens pretty often in another game of the series, Umineko no Naku Koro ni with Kinzo, also a few times with Beatrice and Battler.
  • Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Misa Hayase goes to a bar and gets blind drunk in despair after she misinterprets Hikaru giving Minmay a place to stay for the night as him rekindling his romance with her. She's found by Claudia, who talks to her about her own relationship with Roy Fokker over a couple of glasses of wine.
    • Roy was this before he met Claudia, which is explained in Macross Zero with the death of his lover in the events of Zero causing a long segment of depression.
  • In Bleach, Izuru Kira and Rangiku Matsumoto are seen drinking after Kira's captain and Rangiku's old friend, Gin Ichimaru, leaves Soul Society with the Big Bad, Aizen. Also, Kira does the same with Shuuhei Hisagi, whose captain Kaname Tousen also left, and in the anime the aftermath of their drinking round is a Crowning Moment of Funny.
    • In the manga, he decides to have tea when Rangiku offers it to him.
    • He's seen doing it again in the last episode of the anime, but it's now Played for Laughs since this happens spoiler: because he doesn't approve of Rose as his captain. Iba and Yumichika watch over him and are rather peeved.
  • Roy Mustang in the 2003 anime version of Fullmetal Alchemist frequently goes to get himself drunk at local bars with best friend Maes Hughes. It's seen that he has a tremendous amount of angst over the things he did in Ishval (in this version he's the one who killed Winry's parents under higher-orders, which back then almost drove him to eat his gun on the spot), and one would assume that he usually gets drunk for that reason.
  • Before she became the Fifth Hokage, Tsunade from Naruto is seen several times gambling/getting drunk from sake to get her mind off of having lost her brother Nawaki and boyfriend Dan, who both died horribly and (presumably) painfully.
    • She didn't exactly quit drinking even after becoming Hokage. Jiraiya didn't exactly have a hard time convincing her to go to the bar in the middle of the day.
  • Lampe and Kim san Kaku go out and get plastered at the end of the intro comic of Astro Boy volume 5 after they learn they were both designed after Osamu Tezuka's dorky elementary school classmates.
  • A realistic occurrence takes place in Monster, after Tenma is demoted and then dumped by his cold bitch of a fiancee. And said fiancee, Eva, does it as well... for years.
  • Sailor Moon features two examples. The first one is played straight, and it comes from in the R season,: Usagi notices that Mamoru has a "new" girlfriend (he doesn't, but since he believes he cannot be with hyer, he puts on a Jerkass Facade and pretends that Unazuki is his new girl) and she tries to drown her sorrows in dumplings; when Luna tries to reprimand her, she cries and says she's too depressed to care about getting fat. The second is far more Played for Laughs and happens in the Super S season, when Naru is manipulated into dating Tiger's Eye for three months after he claimed he was going to die, her boyfriend Umino goes on a drinking binge with fifteen milkshakes; Chibiusa is grossed out and comments on this, even pointing out that sake is the traditional beverage for such behavior.
  • Sayoko from Ah! My Goddess does this everytime she loses to Belldandy at something. So she must be tanked 24/7.
    • Subverted by Urd, who needs to drink to restore her powers.
  • Jeanne takes to drinking vodka by the bottle in Rose of Versailles after the Affair of the Necklace. Oscar is also occasionally seen surrounded by empty wine bottles.
  • Between the two seasons of Darker than Black, Hei starts doing this, complete with Perma-Stubble Beard of Sorrow and a serious attitude problem. As such, the fans have nicknamed the second season up until the He's Back moment "Drunker than Hobo."
  • Tsuzuki in Yami no Matsuei during an especially angsty moment in the Kyoto arc when he starts questioning his own humanity.
  • England and China do this, mourning and sobbing spectacularly about their younger brothers America and Japan, both who had rebelled and separated from them.
  • Lunch reacts like this in the Dragonball Z anime after the death of Tenshinhan, and subsequently catches Chuck Cunningham Syndrome. (Note that this of course, was Filler. In the manga, she disappeared earlier than that.)
  • In Kuragehime, Tsukimi tries to fall asleep to forget her broken heart, but can't. She asks one of the girls at the boarding house she lives in for advice and is given a one-word response: booze. She ends up falling unconscious after one cup of sweet sake.
  • Although we only see Yukiji's Bottle Fairy tendencies in Hayate the Combat Butler, it's made very clear that she was doing this in regards to the debt her parents left with her and her sister, and her subsequent dealing with the issue, that led her down the path to the humorous path we see in the story.
  • Kazehana, resident Bottle Fairy of Sekirei does this during a season two episode after the death of Uzume. Much to her annoyance, she can't get drunk.
  • In Skip Beat!, Tsuruga Ren does this when he is unable to fully understand his character, Katsuki.
  • In Oniisama e..., Prof. Misonoo does this in his Backstory when his first wife left him and she took kid!Takehiko along with her.

Comic Books

  • Iron Man, already established as a recovering alcoholic, fell off the proverbial wagon hard when his company got taken over during The Eighties.
    • Later, when Carol Danvers (Ms. Marvel) loses her power the second time (as Binary), she fell onto this and caused her to get expelled from The Avengers. She manages to get out of this thanks to the counseling from Iron Man himself, as fellow alcoholic.
    • He just did it again. In Fear Itself he started screaming at Odin and the other gods, yelling that if they wanted a sacrifce he'd give them the "only thing he could give worth anything": his sobriety, by taking a huge swig of alcohol. Even though it was a Narm scene, it was a total tearjerker to see him so broken.
  • Spider-Man also did this in one issue. (Although, given everything, we should probably cut him some slack...)
  • John Constantine does this at least twice in Hellblazer, most notably in the Tainted Love arc where, after a painful breakup, he not only drinks constantly but lives on the street for months, refusing to "magic" his way out of it.
  • Flare did this in the "Duel" story, which was a crossover with Eternity Smith.
  • X-Men: Cyclops, after a revelation that he was having a psychic affair with Emma Frost, ended up in a strip club and was drinking his sorrows in wine.
  • Katchoo does this a few times in Strangers in Paradise, usually after a bitter argument with, or involuntary separation from, Francine or David.
  • From Teen Titans.

Impulse: Remember me?
Brainiac 5: Are you kidding? I drink to forget you.

  • In Blackest Night Titans, Red Star was drinking in memory of his family (Pantha and Baby Wildebeest).
  • Renee Montoya does this at the start of 52. Of course, at that point it wasn't so much drowning her sorrows as it was just plain drowning.
    • At least she learnes her lessons.

Kane: [Hands her a cup] Some hot cider, might make you feel better.
Renee: Only if you added some bourbon to it.
Kane: I didn't. But I can. If you like.
Renee: No. Seems that all the problems I have when I start drinking are still there when I stop.

  • It's hevaily implied (read: all but explicitly stated) that this is why Ninjette is the Bottle Fairy she is.
  • Superman went to the bottle in response to losing all of his powers in JLA: Act of God.
  • This happens early in Savage Dragon continuity. After a love interest gets Stuffed in A Fridge, the main character drowns his sorrows at a bar. A Bar Brawl soon follows after a supervillain decides to literaly bully a dragon.
  • In All Fall Down, Portia resorts to this after the loss of her powers, as do several superhero wannabes after being disarmed by the Ghoul.
  • Shift of the TheOutsiders indulges in this after being forced to kill Indigo. Despite claiming that alcohol doesn't effect his physiology, he manages to get pretty damn hammered.

Fan Works

  • Rodney Skinner in the fourth installment of The Private Diary of Elizabeth Quatermain. The second version of the volume, told from his point of view, revealed his reaction to Elizabeth (who he's hopelessly in love with) announcing her engagement to Ben Everett. Unaware that she did so under duress, he spends the day drinking himself stupid until Tom comes along to drag him out of the bar.
  • Mark Printzen in chapter ten of The Ollivanders At War. By the time Andrew and Hector find him, he's reduced to singing angry songs about Dutch sailors and whores.
  • In With Strings Attached, Paul spends an unspecified amount of time stuck in a kind of goto loop of misery and drinking. He's dying of jealousy because he's the only one of the four who didn't get any magic; he's lonely as hell, because the others are all playing around and ignoring him; and when he tries to learn magic on his own, he proves incapable. He does grow a Beard of Sorrow, though the Fans end up making him shave it off. And he gets a He's Back moment when the Fans return from Winter Solstice Break and maneuver him into his long-awaited magic.
  • Happens in the fancomic Roommates because it's a Crossover and from a main cast of four characters two are romantic Villains and one was The Rival. So sometimes they just need a drink... or more. Also happens to the boys in the Spin-Off Girls Next Door.
  • Sirius Black tries this in Chapter 117 of The Moment It Began after his brother Regulus dies.

Film

  • Mulder does this in the first X-Files movie.
  • Back to The Future III has a subversion. Doc goes to get drunk after losing Clara and doesn't actually drink anything, but acts strangely anyway.

Some Guy: How much has he had?
Bartender: None. That's the first one and he hasn't touched it yet.

    • Well, to the other patrons, he's acting weird. To the rest of us, he's just moping and rattling off common knowledge about 1985.
    • When Marty gets him to leave, he actually does drink...and instantly passes out.
  • Rick Blaine does this in Casablanca. You know the quote:

-- "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."

  • In A Few Good Men, Daniel Kaffee gets roaring drunk after an important witness for his case commits suicide.
  • In the "Weird Al" Yankovic vehicle UHF, George goes out drinking and orders something pink with a little umbrella in it. The drink clashes horribly with his somber mood.
    • It's a blueberry daquiri. The commentary reveals that it was supposed to be much more flamboyant, but someone in the prop department missed the memo.

Bob: You don't drink.
George: Yeah, but I've been meaning to start.

  • Inigo Montoya does it in The Princess Bride.
  • In The Four Musketeers, Athos (Oliver Reed) gets drunk to forget about his betrayal by Milady De Winter.
  • Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid 2.
    • The scene in the first film when he's drinking because of his and his dead wife's anniversary qualifies, too. Especially because he passes out.
  • The First Wives Club: Goldie Hawn's character bawls about how she would have been cast as the sexy lead character of Monique in a movie not five years ago, but now she's Monique's mother. She babbles about how other actors would be better suited to the role, ending in Sean Connery, but counters the last, noting that Sean Connery would be Monique's boyfriend, as he's 500 years old but "still a stud..."
  • Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, who still grieves over the death of his brother years earlier.
  • Toy Story parodies this trope: Buzz Lightyear gets "drunk" at a little girl's tea set.
  • The Punisher film has the titular character resort to drinking Wild Turkey Bourbon (TM) straight in his depression after the murder of his entire family. The way the bottle was clearly labeled and placed on the table facing the audience smacks of Product Placement.
  • Similarly, Harry Osborne in Spider-Man 2 takes up drinking as he grieves over the death of his father in the prior movie. Harry's drink of choice is Makers Mark Whiskey.
  • Basically the entire plot of Leaving Las Vegas.
  • Jason Lee's character does this to an absurd degree in Kissing A Fool.
  • Raiders of the Lost Ark invokes the trope twice; first Indy drowns his sorrows when he thinks Marion was blown up by the Nazis, then Belloq thinks he's drowning his sorrows with Marion, but as we already know, she's drinking him under the table to try and escape.
  • The explanation given for why Michael was in prison for a year in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day: He planned on asking a girl to marry him, but she didn't show, so he opened up the bottle of champagne he brought, and in the course of a bottle decided the best course of action was to get her a new ring. From the Tower of London.
  • Subverted in Captain America the First Avenger. Cap tries to drown his sorrows, but the super-serum he's been given has sped up his metabolism to the point that he can't get drunk no matter how much he imbibes.
  • Tecate beer is common for this trope, as it is one of the few beer brands that will pay for product placement even when characters use it in this way:
  • The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise, has retired U.S. Army Captain Nathan Algren drunk for a good third of the movie, drowning his sorrows and being haunted by nightmares due to his role in the American Indian genocide around the time of General Custer.
  • In Bat*21, after a rescue mission has gone disasterously wrong, Captain Clarke walks in on Colonel Walker hunched over a chair holding a mostly empty bottle of whiskey. After the colonel finally notices the intrusion he says, "We lost six people today, Clarke. Kids, all of 'em. Just kids."
  • After Howard Brackett (Kevin Kline) admits to his fiancee Emily Montgomery (Joan Cusack) that he's gay shortly before they're to get married in the 1997 comedy In and Out, Emily is shown drowning her sorrows at the same bar Peter Malloy (Tom Selleck) is at. When a wedding dress-clad Emily hits on Peter and Peter reveals that he too is gay, this creates a hilarious Heroic BSOD moment that was coincidentally what was shown on that year's Oscars telecast when Joan Cusack was nominated for an Oscar for that role.
  • The reason Ron is the town drunk in The Warrior's Way.
  • The protagonist of British World War Two movie Ice Cold in Alex starts out the film drinking heavily as a result of the stress he's been put under during the campaign in Africa, and the plot is driven by his yearning for a cold beer 300 miles away.
  • The Untouchables has two ironic examples, seeing as it centers around Prohibition:
    • During the whiskey raid at the Canadian border, Oscar Wallace sneaks a mouthful from a shot-up barrel once the gunfire has stopped.
    • In the final scene, with Al Capone finally behind bars, Eliot Ness is understandably exhausted as he packs up his office and thinks about Malone. When a reporter mentions that Prohibition is due to be repealed and asks Ness what he might do then. Ness responds, "I think I’ll have a drink."

Literature

  • In Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novel Honor Guard, after a disaster, Gaunt takes to drowning his sorrows—and not eating properly.
  • Aral Vorkosigan tries this in Lois McMaster Bujold's Shards of Honor before his fiancee shows up and invalidates the need. His son Miles does it too, on occasion; evidently, it's hereditary. Though his mother (that's the fiancee we mentioned) does also say it's partially Miles's attempt to uphold tradition.
  • As mentioned in the Film examples, Athos of Dumas' The Three Musketeers is prone to this. In the novel, it's depicted as habitual and inexplicable until he tells his I Have This Friend story.
  • David and Leigh Eddings have used this at various times in The Belgariad and its prequels.
    • Belgarath tried this in Belgarath the Sorcerer, after learning of his wife Poledra's Death by Childbirth. Aldur (his Master, a Physical God) seems to have stepped in and stopped him by making him physically ill to the point where he couldn't touch the stuff. (Belgarath then spent some years with the ladies of Maragor; when Beldin finally retrieved him, he said that Belgarath's drunkenness was still legendary in Camaar.)
    • Silk does this in The Belgariad after speaking with his mother for the first time in years. To elaborate, his mother used to be a beautiful woman, but caught a blindness inducing illness that left her face horribly scarred, and nobody could ever bring themselves to let her know. The scene is powerful precisely because of the contrast with Silk's Jerkass Facade and the overall humorous tone of the series.
  • Genghis Khan in Conn Iggulden's Bones of the Hills takes to the airag after Temulun is killed during a raid (after being raped by Kokchu).
  • Graham McNeill's Warhammer 40,000 Ultramarines novel The Killing Grounds opens with a former soldier trying to drown his sorrows. He ends up blowing his brains out as more effective.
  • In Discworld, Sam Vimes was like this up until his marriage to Sybil Ramkin. In Feet of Clay, Nobby Nobbs is told he's heir to the title of the Earl of Ankh, and Nobby's fear of responsibility briefly drives him to drink. In Soul Music, one of the methods Death tries to forget his troubles is drinking, but all it does is make him even more depressed. He does manage to make an awesome drunken speech (and drunken collapse) though.
  • The Vampire Chronicles has a fair amount of this going on. Louis in Interview with the Vampire not only drinks away his sorrows but picks fights and sleeps with prostitutes, hoping to get himself killed. Later in Blackwood Farm Quinn also drinks away his sorrows and his fears. In Queen of the Damned, this is slightly subverted, as Daniel Molloy tries to drink away his madness (from the knowledge that vampires are real).
  • Averted and played straight in Starfighters of Adumar - Wedge heads to a bar mostly for privacy while he thinks through some questions of honor vs. the chain of command (he doesn't get very drunk, either). However, at the bar, he runs across Admiral Rogriss, who decided the answer to his problem (basically the same as Wedge's) was to get stone drunk.
    • Played straight in an earlier book of the series, when Ton Phanan, the Combat Medic of the squadron who is allergic to bacta and thus gradually becoming more and more cybernetic, drinks and tells his wingmate that he needs less and less to get drunk, because every year, less meat, more machine. He feels that his extensive cybernetics are an outward sign that his future has been destroyed, and he has no one.
  • Hagrid in Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix (implied). Sybil Trelawney as well, in the same book, more blatantly - how many times does one need to read "the strong smell of cooking sherry" before getting the hint?
    • In Goblet of Fire, Winky the house-elf drinks several bottles of Butterbeer a day after being fired by Mr. Crouch. Butterbeer is a very mild drink for humans (children can drink it without any problem) but it's pretty strong for house-elves.
  • When The Little Prince visits a planet with no one but a tippler on it, he inquires why the man is drinking constantly:

Tippler: So that I may forget.
Prince: Forget what?
Tippler: Forget that I am ashamed.
Prince: Ashamed of what?
Tippler: Ashamed of drinking!

Take a drink because you pity yourself, and then the drink pities you and has a drink, and then two good drinks get together and that calls for drinks all around.

  • Happens in the Night Huntress series. Three days after Bones leaves her, Cat's apartment is littered with empty gin bottles and ice cream cartons.
  • Lytol in the Dragonriders of Pern series drinks to unconsciousness whenever he is forcibly reminded of his dragon's death, as a way of easing the pain of the loss. This is considered better than the alternative; most riders who lose their dragons kill themselves.
    • There's also a small instance in the first book of the same series. F'lar assumed leadership of the weyr from previous Weyrleader R'gul. After Weyrwoman Lessa performs the huge event of the plot, R'gul insists that it's not possible and F'lar must be mad, and privately prepares to resume leadership once F'lar's incapability is publicly known. When people show up who prove that it really did happen exactly the way the leaders said, "R'gul got very quietly drunk."
  • In Good Omens, the demon Crowley once received a commendation from his superiors in Hell for starting the Spanish Inquisition. He didn't actually start it, he just happened to be in the area when it happened. When he finally started looking around to see what this Inquisition was all about, he ended up spending most of his time afterward drinking himself stupid.
  • Sydney Carton from A Tale of Two Cities does this pretty much 24/7.
  • Haymitch Abernathy of The Hunger Games has been doing this ever since he left the titular Deadly Game as a teenager. Considering his only ally and friend in the arena was killed without him having even the slightest chance to save her and most of his family and friends were then killed to punish him for his almost nonexistent "rebellion", and his job ever since has been to accompany and train two kids a year for an almost certain death in the titular Deadly Game, you can see why.
  • Belisarius Series: It's something of a tradition of Antonina's, when Belisarius goes away on a potentially hopeless mission against the Malwa, to get thoroughly trashed, accompanied by Irene.
  • Several characters in Carreras Legions, including the main protagonist, sink to this, usually over having their hearts broken.
  • Leesil, one of the protagonists of The Saga of the Noble Dead, drinks heavily in the first arc to suppress his memories of the time he spent as an assassin.
  • In Time Scout, Margo eventually realizes her father, though he's a bastard, may have developed his drinking problem as a result of her Dead Little Brother.
  • In the Knight and Rogue Series Fisk claims that he handled being dumped by his first crush "in the time honored way" while telling the audience about a time Jack had come to scold him for being to sentimental and attatched to people while he was drunk.
  • In Michael Flynn's The January Dancer, a common reason to be in the Bar on Jehovah.

Live-Action TV

  • Almost every (major) character has done this at least once on Scrubs. Probably most notable is the occasion when Dr Cox spends around a solid week doing this after killing three patients by causing them to have rabies-infected organs transplanted and needs babysitting by all the other characters.
  • The Irish Drinking Song game in Whose Line Is It Anyway is based off this, and is sometimes played after the 'winner' is decided so the host can join in.
    • There's also a game aptly titled 'Bartender' where one player acts as the bartender and the other three sing their sorrows out (which are provided by the audience members.)
  • Kirsten in The OC.
  • Giles starts drinking heavily after Jenny's death in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not played for laughs, although Buffy's self-righteous attitude ("Oh my God, are you drinking?") can generate some unintentional laughs. Give the dude a break, his girlfriend just got murdered!
    • Not so. Jenny's death drove Giles to seek fiery vengeance, not a bottle. He did get scarily drunk, alone, when the fallout from his Ripper days first encroached on Sunnydale in the from of a demon-possessed corpse by the name of Eyghon. He worked his way through a list of old friends' phone numbers (plus half a bottle of scotch) only to learn they were all dead. His missing an appointment with Buffy for the first time ever was enough to tip her off that something was wrong.
    • In the episode "The Wish", an alternate-universe Sunnydale without Buffy is overrun by vampires. Giles leads a ragtag band of vampire hunters, and his apartment littered with liquor bottles spells out his desperation.
    • He also got drunk in season four's "The Yoko Factor" when Spike's manipulations got him feeling he was useless.
    • Not to mention "A New Man" when he was so upset about feeling useless that he went out and got drunk with Ethan Rayne. Bad idea.
    • In another episode, Willow isn't drowning her sorrows. She's just bathing them.
    • After a hard day Buffy herself drowns her sorrow with some good old booze. Of course it's Spike's idea. She regrets it later (as she spend the rest of the night puking). Next time Spike asks if she wants a drink she passes.
    • And let's not forget the episode where Buffy's beer-drinking spree made her go, in her own words, one million years BC. If ever there was a more literal way to convey the message, "drinking is bad, kids."
      • The only more literal way would be if the episode had been called "Beer Bad", WHICH IT WAS.
      • Though given this exchange at the end of the episode, one gets the impression that Joss Whedon couldn't resist subverting the anti-alcohol message:

Xander: And was there a lesson in all this, huh? What did we learn about beer?
Buffy: Foamy!
Xander: Good. Just as long as that's clear.

    • And Anya tries to drown her sorrows at the Bronze, but as she looks outwardly like a teenage girl the bartender stubbornly insists on an I.D. "I'm 1,120 years old! Just give me a frickin' BEER!!!"
    • Then there's Spike in "Lovers Walk". Apparently alcohol does affect vampires.
  • Lost has this trope, as revealed in multiple characters' flashbacks. Christian Shephard spent the last week or so of his life drowning his sorrows in Australia. Jack's taken to doing so in the flash forwards.
    • As is Desmond, especially when he realised he couldn't escape the island and returned in this state in the season 2 finale. Plus his time travelling woes led him to the bottle too (although Charlie and Hurley were exploiting him a bit).
    • Sawyer is fond of doing this as well.
  • The Canadian TV series Butch Patterson Private Dick, features a title character who drinks for a number of reasons, not least his shame over his tendency to wet his pants, to prematurely ejaculate, or his inability to have sex without paying a woman for it. He normally keeps up a brave front, but he occasionally lets his private shame and self-pitying show through, bursting into tears, yelling at whoever is in the room and then running away.
  • Angel appears to be doing this in the pilot episode of his show, but it's merely a cover to allow him to stake some (other) vampires.
    • Wesley, Lorne and Spike all drowned their sorrows after Fred died.
    • Played straight when Angel fires the rest of his staff - they immediately go to a karaoke bar they know, get incredibly drunk, and sing "We Are The Champions". Badly.
  • Michael attempts to do this in Roswell, only to discover that he's genetically an extreme lightweight. He spends the rest of the night in severe pain.
  • Ashes to Ashes. Alex Drake may be the only woman born who can hold her own in a wine bar with Gene Hunt and an epically bad mood, and she has every excuse in the world for doing so.
    • It happens in both versions of Life On Mars as well. "What? I had no idea how long this stakeout was going to last!"
  • Nathan Petrelli, complete with Beard of Sorrow, at the beginning of the second season of Heroes.
  • When Mulder is presumed dead at the beginning of Season 3, Frohike shows up at Scully's house and mumbles something vaguely nonsensical. Scully takes one long look at him and asks, "How drunk are you?" to which Frohike replies by holding up a near-empty bottle of something that is probably stronger than wine. She just nods knowingly and lets him in, implying that she's done a bit of drinking herself.
  • When Leonard's mother, a neurophysiologist and psychologist, comes to visit on The Big Bang Theory, her influence prompts Leonard to knock on Penny's door and simply ask, "Do you have any alcohol?" The two of them spend most of the rest of the episode getting sloppy drunk.
  • Damar of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine spent several episodes getting drunk, to drown out first his unease and his conscience over dealing with the Dominion, his murder of Dukat's daughter, then his problems when promoted to leader of Cardassia. His snapping out of this and becoming a good guy marks the beginning of his becoming truly Badass.
    • And he slips a bit of information to Quark, leading to a particularly entertaining scene in which he is trying to tell Kira and Odo what he learned while roaring drunk.

"I just shared a bottle of kanar...with Damar!...Hey...that rhymes! (unintelligible giggling)"

  • In Supernatural, it's shown that Sam and Bobby both drink a lot after Dean's death. Bobby at least had been hinted at avoiding alcohol now, but with the whole apocalypse Sam using his powers, and Dean in hell thing, the boys have still been drinking in a not-so-healthy way.
    • After finding out that God doesn't intend to do anything with the apocalypse, Castiel goes and drinks a whole liquor store.

Castiel: I found a liquor store.
Sam: ...and?
Castiel: And I drank it!
later
Dean: Where have you been?
Castiel: On a bender.

  • Battlestar Galactica has this happen to several characters several times during the show's run. Bill Adama hits this trope hard in the fourth season, so much so that his best friend and second in command (and accomplished alcoholic himself) Saul Tigh has to snap him out of it.
  • Ben Harper from My Family: One episode features him being unable to get at his booze, resulting in him grinding through a fair chunk of the 10,000 or so choices on the combination lock in order to get at whiskey that turns out to be cold tea, courtesy Nick's new job as a background actor.
  • Subverted in an episode of Titus: Christopher Titus' father, habitual drinker Ken Titus, goes on the wagon, and his relatives find his sober behavior so insufferable that within two weeks they have an intervention to urge him to start drinking again.
  • In I Dream of Jeannie Roger and Tony were depressed and decided to get loaded on ice cream sundaes.
  • A flashback in one episode of Frasier shows Niles hitting the (wine) bottle especially hard during his divorce with Marris, making a reference to the term when he said, "Who knew my sorrows were such strong swimmers."
  • Babylon 5: Vir, after killing Emperor Cartagia. Notably, the scene manages to go from dead serious to completely hilarious and back, mostly because Vir doesn't get drunk very often.

Vir: I was drinking to Emperor Cartagia... but he wasn't here, so I had to drink for him. So first it was me drinking for Cartagia, and then me drinking for me, and then I got caught in this cycle... and then Emperor Cartagia, his glass broke!

Alex: When your life is sucky you get drunk and sleep with inappropriate men. It's your thing.

Hawkeye: Drowning your sorrows, Margaret?
Margaret: No... just taking them out for a little swim.

  • Modus operandi of Chuck Bass.
  • After being killed and brought back to life in Torchwood, Owen went out drinking. This, however, ended badly for him seeing as dead people can't digest anything. He also goes through more mild forms of this after Diane leaves him.
  • On Fringe, Walter Bishop is normally on any number of psychotropic drugs at once. When he hits rock bottom, instead of drowning his sorrows, he smokes them out. To similar, but far more hilarious, effect.
    • Also, Olivia does this so often it's pretty much her nightly ritual now.
      • At this point, most of the cast has gotten in on this at one point or another.
  • On Good Times, Keith does this after feeling frustrated about not being able to play football, working part-time as a cab driver, and the lack of full-time work. The drinking escalates when his old college roommate (now a pro football player) comes to visit. Keith then starts insulting everyone around him and he slaps Thelma. Thelma packs his bags and tells him that he can either quit drinking for good and stop feeling sorry for himself or he can leave her for good. Keith chooses Thelma.
  • Colleen McMurphy, on China Beach.
  • In Farscape, Aeryn spends all of "The Choice" drunk while she mourns Crichton's death.
  • In Yes Minister, Jim Hacker, at the end of "The Whisky Priest," seems at first to just Need A Freaking Drink (OK, several drinks). Then:

Annie: You're sort of a whisky priest. You do at least know when you've done the wrong thing.
Jim: Whisky priest?
Annie: That's right.
Jim: Good. Beat. Let's open another bottle.
Annie: You haven't got one.
Jim: That's what you think. *Turns, opens a red box, which turns to be filled with bottles of whisky* Who said nothing good ever came out of Whitehall?

  • During the Las Vegas season of The Real World, Frank drinks water in anger during Steven and Trishelle's first hook-up.
  • Many Korean Dramas use this trope, both as drama and as comedy.
    • In Best Love, Ae Jeong drinks an entire bottle of wine in one gulp to make a point, Jae Suk gives a drunken confession of love to his boss, and Aw Hwan mumbles a request to Jenny not to drink red wine with anyone but him. And so on...
    • Woo Ri and Min Sook get sloshed while male-bashing in Can You Hear My Heart. Joon Ha does it one night which leads to his confession that he's the Long Lost Sibling.
    • The fusion historical drama Sungkyunkwan Scandal has Kim Yoon Shik giving a drunken Lee Seon Jung a ride back to the school one night.
    • Twinkle Twinkle: Mostly serious sorrowful drinking, especially by the female leads.
    • You Are Beautiful: Go Mi Nam gets drunk on champaigne his first night and ends up throwing up on the lead singer of the band he just joined. This is after throwing up in a flower pot, and before anyone knows he's a girl.
  • In the Community episode "Mixology Certification" Annie starts off the night odering Root Beers but as she gets progressively worked up about planning out her entire life sheeventually ends up switching to screwdrivers.
  • Inspector Lynley, after his wife's death in the series five finale, which he believes is his fault, takes to this. His partner, DS Barbara Havers, is not amused, but even though she's his Most Important Person, even she can't reach him. It takes an It's Personal case, a near brush with arrest for murder, and Barbara nearly being killed to make him something remotely like himself again. The first thing he does after he comes to his senses is apologise to Barbara, after which she remarks, "You know, I probably shouldn't say this, but d'you fancy a drink?" Clearly, this time she trusts him not to go off the deep end.
  • On Boy Meets World, Cory does this once after his break up with Topanga in season five. In a later episode, Shawn does this after he is unable to find his real mother.
  • In the third episode of Black Mirror Liam ends up getting drunk after suspecting his wife was flirting with another man. Decides to get the babysitter involved before driving over and attacking the guy.
  • On Lie to Me Foster gets totally smashed (on a bottle of Lightman's very, very expensive Scotch, no less, which she stole from his office). When he confronts her, she is both hilarious in her chattiness and heartbreakingly honest, as she displays her vulnerability and her love and loyalty for Lightman, while finally taking a stand against his aggressive personality.

Music

  • "Neon Moon" by Brooks and Dunn
  • "Killin' Time" by Clint Black
  • "Senorita Margarita" by Tim McGraw
  • "Drinkin' Me Lonely" by Chris Young
  • "Bottle Let Me Down" and "I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink" by Merle Haggard
  • The Irish folk song "Keg of Brandy" may qualify. The narrator seems to be a (rather sweet) alcoholic tramp who is very world-weary, especially on the subject of romance and marriage.
  • For true bottom of the bottle sorrow:

So buy this weary fool some spirits and libations, it's these railroad station bars
And all these conductors and porters, and I'm all out of quarters.

I do if for the drugs... I do it just to feel like I'm alive...
I do it for the love.... that I find at the bottom of the bottle...

That's Tom Waits, "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart." Waits' voice is almost uniquely suited to this kind of song. He has quite a few other songs like this, including "The Piano Has Been Drinking", "I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You", "Invitation to the Blues", and "Saving All My Love for You".
  • "Drink" by They Might Be Giants.
  • "Ball and Chain" by Social Distortion: "Well it's been ten years and a thousand tears/ And look at the mess I'm in/ A broken nose and a broken heart/ An empty bottle of gin..."
  • "Another Drinkin' Song" by Mighty Mighty Bosstones
  • "Alcohol" by Barenaked Ladies
  • "Straight Tequila Night" by John Anderson
  • "Alcohol" by Gogol Bordello
  • "Margaritaville" by Jimmy Buffett
  • "Red, Red Wine" by Neil Diamond
  • "Beer" by Reel Big Fish
  • "Russia on Ice" by Porcupine Tree
  • "The Price of Love" by the Everly Brothers, with its laboured yet lovely rhyme:

Wine is sweet, gin is bitter
Drink all you can but you won't forget her.

  • The Byrds' "An empty bottle, a broken heart, and You're Still on My Mind".
  • "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" by John Lee Hooker, later covered by George Thorogood.
  • "Whiskey Lullaby" by Brad Paisley, oddly by both the cheated-on soldier or his cheating girlfriend. It...doesn't help.
  • Yowane Haku, the fan-made Anthropomorphic Personification of clumsy new users to the Vocaloid software, does this constantly because she feels she'll never be as good as Hatsune Miku, the character on whom she was based. Because of this and her woobie tendencies, she's become just as popular as Miku herself.
    • As of late, she and Akita Neru eventually became official vocaloids and Haku's popularity led to a rise of instances she was shown to be much more capable of singing than she used to. If it isn't for the previous reason of her dreams of singing as beautifully as Miku being shattered that makes her drink herself into stupor, she does so for the fun or sake of it and usually is portrayed as sluggish, lazy and clumsy, but a little more happy than originally portrayed.
      • Of course, this has in turn been met with mixed receptions, since Haku, as mentioned above, is supposed to be the Anthropomorphic Personification of people who fail to use the Vocaloid software effectively/correctly, and doing a bad Miku song/Haku song on purpose defeats, in itself, Haku's raison d'etre.[1] It's all kinda complicated and rather Fan Dumb-y.
  • "Slo Gin" by Tim Curry is a text book example with lyrics like "slo gin, gotta wash away the pain inside" and the somewhat infamous refrain, "I'm so fucking lonely and I ain't even high".
  • "Whiskey Bottle" and "I Got Drunk" by Uncle Tupelo.
  • A great deal of country music practically glorifies this trope. In addition to the ones already mentioned, "Queen of the Silver Dollar" and "Whiskey River" come to mind.
  • The Rolling Stones' "Honky-Tonk Women" features the line "I just can't seem to drink you off my mind."
  • "Novocain," by Jeremy Messersmith. And it's one of the prettiest song you'll ever hear.
  • "Here Comes A Regular" by The Replacements
  • Bob Dylan clocks in with "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues," ending with this verse:

I started out on burgundy/But soon hit the harder stuff/Everybody said they’d stand behind me/When the game got rough/But the joke was on me/There was nobody even there to call my bluff/I’m going back to New York City/I do believe I’ve had enough

  • "How You Remind Me" by Nickelback features elements of this.
  • The appropriately-named "Drinking Song" by Jenny Owen Youngs. The chorus, "There's solace at the bottom of the bottle", is oddly cheery.
  • Gary Stead, The Alcoholic of the Saint Etienne Concept Album Tales From Turnpike House appears in three of the twelve tracks. In "Milk Bottle Symphony" he has a hangover and by "Teenage Winter" he's ignoring the debt collectors to go down to The Hat And Fan (no longer a British Pub, but a horrible franchised Wetherspoons-style mess mostly staffed by Australians) again, but "Last Orders For Gary Stead" tells the true story of a man hiding in the bottom of a beer glass to escape the reality that his life is rubbish and his wife has left him.
  • The Charlie Daniels Band's "Drinkin' My Baby Goodbye".
  • "Tear in My Beer" by Hank Williams Sr (and a mashup duet created by his son)
  • Invoked by Glaswegian Baroque Pop band Camera Obscura in the first verse of "Let's Get Out of This Country"

I've drowned my sorrows and slept around...

I'm going out/I'm going to drink myself to death.

  • Brazil has "Garçom" ("waiter", the guy who the binge drinking protagonist speaks about his broken heart) and "Pinga Ni Mim" (Double Entendre: as it can be both "drops on me" - as the chorus mentions a leak - and "cachaça on me"; but many don't know it's about drowning romantic sorrows as they only learned the chorus).

Theater

  • Parodied in the musical Bye Bye Birdie. Hugo's girlfriend has left him. He announces that he's going to go drink himself to death and leaves. Several scenes later, he staggers back onstage: "Milk. But it worked."
    • At one point in the interim, he's shown trying to order a drink, but since he has only a vague idea what even the names of alcoholic drinks are, he doesn't do it very well. He ends up asking if the bartender can make him a "vodka malted."
    • Note that this also depends on the production. Some will portray him as just having gotten angry...and some imply that he somehow managed to get a hold of actual alcohol.
  • The song "Make It Another Old-Fashioned, Please" from Panama Hattie.

Tabletop Games

  • In Exalted, Demetheus accidentally killed a friend during a fight, and then proceeded to go on such an epic sorrow-drowning bender that the Goddess of Intoxicants herself, Burning Feather, came down from Yu-Shan to sober him up.

Video Games

  • Gorman in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask does this with milk, and somehow ends up drunk anyway, even though he himself states this is impossible.
    • Played straight by an NPC in Twilight Princess. After you complete his quest, and leave his house, you can come back and find him missing. He's gone to the local tavern, and is seated at the bar, crying his eyes out because his girlfriend is seeing someone else.
  • Escape from Monkey Island has Carla drinking at the microbrewery on Jambalaya Island to forget her time on Monkey Island. Unfortunately, Guybrush inadvertently reminds her of what she was drinking to forget, and she complains "Thanksh a load, Threepwood. Now I gotta shtart all over again."

Guybrush: Drinking isn't the answer, Carla."
Carla: That depends on the question, doeshn't it?

  • Wing Commander III: Halfway into the game, Col. Blair drowns his sorrows after discovering Angel's fate. After the cutscene showing her fate, you're given a choice of talking with Rachel or drinking some more. Unless one is a masochist, talking is probably better than drinking.
  • Haku Yowane from Vocaloids is notorious for this; she drinks because she knows she's just a failed Expy of Miku. Neru Akita, on the other hand, has a different way of handling her jealousy of Miku...
  • The Japanese version and the DS retranslation of Chrono Trigger implies that Frog did this when he learned King Guardia was wounded in battle, though the act itself is not shown on screen. In the SNES translation, such a thing would be unheard of.
  • Similarly happens in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, where Cid is originally drinking heavily after the death of his wife. In the American translation, he merely has trouble keeping a job.
  • The Demoman in Team Fortress 2 is characterized this way. His melee weapon is the very bottle he draws his "comfort" from, and his taunt for said weapon features him shouting "Cheers, mate!" and taking a hearty swig. A good number of his in-game lines either sound completely drunk or reference his being so ("I'm drunk - you don't have an excuse!", "Imagine if I hadn't been drunk!", etc.). His "Meet the Team" video features the strongest example of this trope, with him going from sober to somewhat wasted by the end and bemoaning the fact that he is "a black Scottish cyclops".

"They got more *BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP*s than they got the likes o' me!"

  • Nearly every dwarf in Dwarf Fortress has in their bio: "Urist McAlequaffer needs alcohol to get through the working day" and will add "and is working more slowly due to its scarcity" should the fortress run out. Given the myriad horrible things that can (and frequently do) happen to the dwarves, it is rather easy to see why they would drink so much? Besides them being, you know, dwarves.
  • Cloud from Final Fantasy VII is implied to do this rarely and only when he gets really, really, REALLY depressed, like in On the Way To a Smile: Case of Tifa.
  • While it is unknown if he actually does this, Yuri from Infinite Space occasionally makes other characters (usually his sister) worried that something is bothering him when he starts to drink a lot.
  • This seems to be the source of Oghren's alcoholism in Dragon Age: Origins. He got on the sauce after his wife left him and he was restricted from ever carrying a weapon while in the city or fighting in the Deep Roads. Other dwarves openly mock him for it. Constantly.
    • Hinted at with Fenris in Dragon Age II. Hawke can find him drunk on the anniversary of his escape, which could also be the same day the people who helped him were killed by his hands. Oddly, though, he's more cheerful drunk than he normally is.
  • Deadly Premonition: After the murder of her daughter, Sallie Graham starts spending a lot of time getting drunk at the SWERY '65 bar.
  • More or less speculative, but...in Final Fantasy IX, when Garnet resigns herself to becoming The High Queen, Zidane is found by their friends in a bar sulking about the possibility of his and Garnet now becoming more distant regarding their relationship. The way Zidane speaks throughout the whole scene certainly seems like he was in a drunk stupor, but...
  • In Mass Effect 2 DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker, you can find info on Captain Anderson that due to the pressure of being in politics and working with the head-up-their-asses Citadel Council, he's since taken up heavy drinking.
    • And watching conspiracy vids, just to see how much bull the public is fed, probably bringing Udina along just to see the conspiracy shitstorm
    • During Mass Effect 3, Tali of all people is seen getting soused after Miranda dies on Sanctuary. She manages to get wasted off of triple filtered Turian brandy, introduced through an "Emergency induction port".

Shepard: That's a straw Tali.
Tali: Emeeerrrgency. Induction. Port.

    • Ashley also gets wasted at some point, but you only see the aftermath, what with her curled up on the floor with a massive hangover. Shepard can then proceed to make fun of her.

Shepard: I was just thinking it would be a good time to test the fire alarm.
Ashley: I'll pay you a million credits not to do that, sir.
Shepard: Two million, and we have a deal.
Ashley: You're a damned space pirate.

  • After Starkiller defeats him at the TIE fighter construction facility above Nar Shaddaa, Rahm Kota is found in a bar in Bespin.
  • Deego in Rogue Galaxy is first found drowning his sorrows after a combat mission went badly wrong.
  • Cass, one of your possible companions in Fallout: New Vegas is found doing this in a crappy military bar after her caravans have (suspiciously) been vaporized. She's still The Alcoholic after she joins your party but at least she isn't depressed.
  • Taro Namatame from Persona 4.
  • One of the Game Overs in Hotel Dusk: Room 215 has Dunning offering to cheer Kyle up by getting drunk with him. It's a Game Over because Kyle is too drunk to do anything else for the rest of the night.

Web Comics

Minhelm: Some drink to forget. I drink to remember.

Web Original

  • In The Gamers Alliance, Ax, Nobuo and Refan tend to drink heavily whenever things go horribly wrong for them.
  • Daniel in Lonelygirl15, in "Truth Or Dare", and again in "Intervention". Jonas in "Beer Bath" (in a scene that lasts for nearly 8 minutes; it's not pretty).
  • Gavin of Kate Modern binges on large quantities of alcohol when depressed.
  • In I'm a Marvel And I'm a DC, Spider-Man does this once with milkshakes. No explanation is ever given as to why he'd use something non-alcoholic when the majority of the story takes place in a bar.
    • Superman did the same thing and even joined him.
    • Iron Man went through this when Batman's movie surpassed his movie. He got so drunk that he ended up at Wayne Manor.
      • Iron Man getting drunk? Perish the thought!
  • A World of Laughter, A World of Tears sees President Walt Disney drowning his despair in whiskey once it's clear how much damage his reaction to the Civil Rights Movement has done/is going to do.
  • Strong Bad drowns his sorrows when he finds out that his friend The Cheat is dating Marzipan.
  • In Theatrica, drowning one's sorrows is just what the doctor ordered.

Western Animation

  • Parodied in Futurama. In "I, Roommate", Bender gets so depressed about Fry throwing him out of their apartment that he stops drinking and (since robots need alcohol to function properly) starts to act drunk.

"I'm crazy and sober and don't know what I'll do!"

  • SpongeBob SquarePants drowns his sorrows in ice cream on The Movie. It has the same effect on him as alcohol.
  • Probably the only reason Moe's Tavern has stayed in business all these years.
    • With a special nod to an episode where he gives Homer a special drink, specifically made to cause short-term memory loss. Of course, when he can't remember what he's supposed to forget, Homer comes to some pretty wild conclusions.
  • Both parodied and played for drama in Moral Orel. In the first season, Clay Puppington's alcoholism is less pronounced and played for laughs. But in the later parts of the second season and the entire third season, things take a darker turn, Like in Nature where he gets progressively drunker and at one point of sorrow, screams "WHY DO YOU STOP WORKING ON ME?" at the bottle. Another example is in the episode "Sacrifice" where he gives a very depressing and drunken monologue about life in the aptly named "old Forgetty's Pub" and then antagonizes everyone inside the bar so much, that he drives them all away.
  • Teen Titans: In "Car Trouble" in the first scene of the third act Cyborg is sitting despondently on a curb, having failed to get his car back from Gizmo, surrounded by empty milkshake cups. Presently Raven shows up, looks at the cups and remarks, "Fourteen milkshakes. Not a good sign."
  • Toki Wartooth does this after his father's death in Metalocalypse, getting hammered numerous times since then. The other band members note on this, with Skwisgaar saying he doesn't want to babysit Toki during Seth's wedding, and everyone being shocked that he's drinking straight vodka in the morning. Ironically, he knocks out Nathan's assailant with a vodka bottle in the season 2 finale.
  • Gorillaz bassist Murdoc Niccals has apparently been perpetually drunk for months on end, as of current canon. During his Pirate Radio shows, he rambles about how lonely he is. It's unsurprising: Noodle was missing in action after the "El Manana" video and may or may not have been trapped in Hell, so he replaced her with a cyborg; Russel was also missing, whereabouts unknown, so he replaced him with an automatic drum machine; and 2D wanted nothing to do with him, so Murdoc kidnapped him and kept him prisoner, and 2D is now sober enough to start realising exactly how bad Murdoc's treatment of him has always been.
  • K'nuckles from The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack seems to do this with "maple syrup". Also, in "High Land Lubber" he actually asks Peppermint Larry for something to drown his sorrows, even though Peppermint Larry gives him prune juice.
  • In the Bugs Bunny version of Casablanca, Bugs himself is drinking carrot juice saying something similar to the film's true quote.
  • Occurs in the Recess episode, "I Will Kick No More Forever", when Vince starts losing his touch in every sport. The scene that features this trope is when he stays home from school binging out on root beer and donuts (complete with Balloon Belly) while watching video recordings of his previous games. Mikey even asks, "Don't you think you've had enough!?"
  • In the South Park episode "Ass Burgers", this is effectively what the cynics do, all ridiculousness aside. By the end of the episode, this is what Stan turns to, possibly on a long-term basis, just to get through a normal day.
  • In the first season finale of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, "The Best Night Ever", Spike is disappointed when the girls leave to do their own thing at the Grand Galloping Gala instead of enjoying the night together like he suggested. At the end of the episode, we find Spike's spent the night stuffing his face with donuts and hot cocoa at Pony Joe's donut shop. He even briefly acts like a sullen drunk.
  • The Legend of Korra features Bolin doing this with noodles after he sees his crush Korra kiss his brother. He becomes uncoordinated, sullen and the next day is clearly hungover.

Real Life

  • Sir John A. Macdonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada. Even in the 1860s and 1870s, Macdonald's drinking binges were legendary, but in truth the poor guy had good reason to want to get loaded, not least of which were the serious financial problems he faced, and the even more serious problems stemming from the poor health of his wife and daughter. On top of all that, Canada has been described by many of its prime ministers as extremely difficult to govern. It's not hard to see why Macdonald would need a good stiff drink now and again.
  • It seems that John Kerr, former governor-general of Australia, did this after the public backlash resulting from him dismissal of the Prime Minister in 1975 started to get to him. When presenting the 1977 Melbourne Cup, he was visibly drunk.
  • Let's face it: Many, many people do this, and sometimes they don't stop.
  • There's often a joke about this. Basically, if you're drinking to forget, remember to pay in advance.
  1. ↑ After all, you're not a failure if you've successfully, and with intent, failed.
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