History Main / TheAlcoholic

* In Gang of Youth's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5aMav6q-o0 Achilles Come Down]]", Achilles is warned to put down his bottle, as what he finds in it will only tell him "chaos, confusion" that is not worthy of listening to. A bit of RealitySubtext as the singer was drunk on the night he attempted (and failed) suicide.

* The unnamed subject of Richard Thompson's [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism bitter]], [[TearJerker brilliant]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-noSz2XsIY "God Loves A Drunk."]] Notable for the balance of the portrayal -- while drunkenness itself is portrayed very harshly, the eponymous drunk is treated quite sympathetically and gets to do his own lashing out against the banal nature of the life he's escaping.

* Music/EltonJohn (and his main lyricist Bernie Taupin) often [[PlayedForLaughs played this trope for laughs]], or at least as character study, in songs like "Elderberry Wine", "Social Disease", and "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting" with the occasional tragic drunk thrown in as in "Talking Old Soldiers". Understandably, it slowed down as Taupin himself sobered up in the late [[TheSeventies 1970s]] and Elton followed in 1990.

* Cry Baby's mother in Music/MelanieMartinez's ConceptAlbum "Music/CryBaby" is an alcoholic who drinks because of her husband's infidelity. She's implied to be an abusive (or at least neglectful) parent. [[spoiler:She ends up murdering her husband and tries to kill Cry Baby]].

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMSuHzX-c6I Old Red-Eyes is Back]] by Music/TheBeautifulSouth tells a tale of a sad old drunk who looks back on his life and regrets how he spent it. When he dies, every bartender in the area mourns him, and he is buried with an empty bottle of whiskey beside him.

* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4382UVl0oc music video]] for "A Reason to Fight" by ''Music/{{Disturbed}}'' symbolises this with a guy trapped in a bottle held in his own hand. The lyrics are a more general PepTalkSong that could apply to a struggle against alcoholism or something else.

* It is claimed some 30% of all country music songs are about alcoholism, with another 30% of the ''consequences'' of alcoholism (marital issues, fights, homicides and prisons).

* In Gang of Youth's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5aMav6q-o0 Achilles Come Down]]", Achilles is warned to put down his bottle, as what he finds in it will only tell him "chaos, confusion" that is not worthy of listening to. A bit of Realitysubtext as the singer was drunk on the night he attempted (and failed) suicide.