Drink in hand, bitter expression, generally haggard appearance...yep, we've got ourselves a Classic Drunk.
"I drink because I don't stand a chance and I know it. I couldn't drive a truck like other men and I couldn't get on the cops with my build. I got to sling beer and sing when I just want to sing. I drink because I got responsibilities I can't handle."
WHERE'S MY BOURBON?
He or she likes his or her liquor, and in large amounts. He or she may realize he or she has a problem, and get on and Off The Wagon, or he or she may be a Drunken Master, and this is merely a part of his or her 'training,' or a result of his or her — 'skills.'
Sometimes, this character is merely Drowning His Sorrows, and will bounce back later in the series. Other times, he or she's been this way from the beginning and has no plans to stop anytime soon. Worried friends may try to help by Nailing Him To The Wagon, though this attempt at forcing him or her to go Cold Turkey isn't guaranteed to succeed.
Real Life alcoholics are not always lying in the gutter - sometimes they are just people who drink alone, or for the sake of drinking, but never appearing to drink to excess (due to tolerance). Hollywood, however, prefers the 'gutter' form as it is more obvious and pathetic than the man or woman who wanders around the house with a glass in his or her hand, constantly in a mild stupor.
There is no cure for alcoholism. Someone who has managed to quit the habit is considered a recovering alcoholic, and if committed to it, remains in whatever therapy he or she used to become sober.
The Always Female versions are Hard Drinking Party Girl and Lady Drunk, but alcoholism is only one of her character traits.
Compare Drunken Master, Hard Drinking Party Girl, Off The Wagon, Beergasm, Quick Nip, I'll Tell You When I've Had Enough!. Oddly, there are "alcoholics" who can get drunk off of milk. The Teetotaler is his direct opposite.
Examples:
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Berman, of the Magic Bullet infomercials, is quite obviously hungover when he stumbles into the kitchen. He's the drunk of the whole shebang.
While Happosai, one of the most consistently villainous characters in Ranma 1/2, is better known for his other appetites, he's also quite a boozehound when the opportunity arises. When your students' first plan to finally kill you is to feed you several barrels of sake, then seal you up inside one and throw it and some dynamite into a cave that they then block with a Zig Zag Tassle boulder... and it works... you've got a drinking problem.
Fairy Tail: Cana drinks thirty percent of the liquor from a giant barrel.
Hiroshi's neglective father in Domu: A Child's Dream. He does nothing but lie around his apartment intoxicated and that's why his wife and son left him.
In Brigadoon: Marin and Melan Tadashi is nearly always seen drunk, drinking, or asking for more sake. It's shown to have seriously damaged his family.
Mr Fujisawa from El-Hazard: The Magnificent World. He is even sad that he can have his fantastic strength only if he doesn't drink.
Howard Nissen from Give Me Liberty, after having to deal with more than fifty separatist movements in the US and his mostly right-wing secretaries actively opposing him. Moretti may also be blamed.
Tony Stark went through a serious alcohol problem in the comics, which was treated realistically and respectfully. But thanks to Never Live It Down, this is the default portrayal of him in other media. In The Movie, nearly every scene that's not a fight scene has him drinking an alcoholic beverage of some sort. As the sequel was partially an adaptation of the storyline dealing with the drinking problem, it was Foreshadowing.
Stark helped Carol Danvers (aka Ms. Marvel, Binary, Warbird, and Captain Marvel) get a handle on her drinking problem. The Ultimate version takes this to the Ultimate extreme. A prime example is this dialogue between Black Widow and Stark:
"Listen... but do you really think it is wise to knock back so many vodkas before you fly that thing?"
"Oh, absolutely, darling. In fact, it's really quite essential... I mean, who in their right mind's going to climb into it sober?".
Of course, there's a secondary reason for Ultimate!Stark's alcoholism: he has an inoperable brain tumor that will kill him in under five years, which means he must be dealing with some massive migraines.
Ultimate!Stark also has brain tissue all over his body that makes him more intelligent but also causes him to feel constant agony. Wearing a special bio-suit and being plastered 24-7 helps him to cope with it.
Sunfire from the Uncanny Avengers, who turned to drinking after an ill-advised Face Heel Turn where he betrayed the X-Men and joined Mr. Sinister's Marauders. When Wolverine finally tracks him to Tokyo, Sunfire drunkenly assumes that his former ally is there to kill him for his betrayal.
Captain Haddock in Tintin. The portrayal is horrifying in his first appearance - The Crab with the Golden Claws, where he's arguably more dangerous to Tintin than the baddies they're fighting. Although often the subject of jokes, readers are left in no doubt that it's an addiction and has terrible side effects not only on Haddock himself but everyone around him. It's also a running gag that he is so addicted to alcohol, he's incapable of drinking non-alcoholic drinks, especially water. Fortunately, his addiction slowly weakens during the course of the series thanks to a combination of Character Development, horrible repercussions, and Tintin's efforts to keep him away from alcohol.
In Watchmen, the Mothman's alcoholism gets so bad that he is eventually committed to a sanitarium. This would not have been unusual for the time period, though.
In PVT Murphy's Law, a brigade of troops coming back from a long deployment overseas find themselves craving alcohol so badly that back in the US, a beer company executive bolts upright in bed because he can feel a great disturbance in the force. This has actually happened twice in the comic so far.
Jack Point carries a hipflask of whiskey everywhere and drinks it at every available opportunity.
As Gotham Central progresses Renee Montoya descends further and further into depression as she experiences the violence and corruption of the Gotham City Police Department. After being involuntarily outed by Two-Face, forced to beat up a Corrupt Cop in order to get evidence to exonerate her falsely-implicated partner and experiencing the general events of Gotham City she begins to drink heavily and grows increasingly violent. This is noticed by her girlfriend, Daria Hernandez, and her partner, Crispus Allen, and it looks like she might actually decide to get some counseling to deal with this issue...when Crispus is murdered by Jim Corrigan who thenwalks on the crime. When her character returns in 52 the creator commentary reveals that she has become an actual alcoholic and has driven away her remaining friends and family.
In Astérix and Caesar's Gift, Tremensdelirius, like other legionaries, is awarded a plot of land by Julius Caesar for twenty years of service. But since he spent all twenty of them drunk, Caesar decides to award him the title deed to a certain little Gaulish village. Tremensdelirius sells it to an innkeeper for more wine when he's broke.
Inspector Gill of Fish Police. This is even mentioned in one letters section, where a reader points out that Gill went a whole issue without drinking. Moncuse counters that by saying that the violence and sex in that issue make up for it.
Arsenal from Red Hood And The Outlaws is a recovering one. He laments hanging out in a bar in #4 even though he's only drinking soda.
The Immortal Game has Sir Unimpressive, who's never seen without a flask of whiskey. Twilight at one point wonders where he keeps managing to get it refilled.
Earth And Sky: Prince Blueblood is sloshed in every scene he's in. Justified by the fact that being stuck in a loveless marriage of convenience with Diamond Tiara is hardly a state of marital bliss.
In Under The Northern Lights King Ukko is a bitter drunkard. Heavy drinking is socially mandated among reindeer, but he does it enough that even they react negatively.
Blackjack from Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons never, ever passes up an opportunity to get wasted, especially when Wild Pegasus whiskey is available. Though seeing how she's been through more mental, physical, and spiritual trauma than nearly every fictional character except for Guts from Berserk, can you blame her?
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic background character Berry Punch is very often portrayed as a drunk due to her cutie mark (Symbol of a special talent) of grapes and a strawberry (Common ingredients in wine). Lauren Faust mentioned in a Q&A that her nickname for the character was Pinot Noir (A well-known type of wine), making this about as close to canon as possible for a kids show.
Uncle Tadpole in Bran Nue Dae, evidenced when he spends Willy's last few dollars on booze, forcing them to hitchhike a very long distance. Don't really see him drinking again after that incident though.
Jack Torrance from The Shining. Tried to stay on the wagon but the haunted hotel kept throwing him parties with ghost booze that worked like the real stuff.
It is, however, completely played straight. In a parody of different ages of superheroes, Captain Invincible made the transition by getting betrayed by the people he helped and running away. Years pass in an alcoholic stupor and he returns Darker and Edgier with a tendency to drink himself catatonic.
Iron Man 2: Tony Stark. Apparently kills the pain of palladium poisoning.
Anton Vanko is also implied to have been one, with his "20 year vodka filled rage" destroying himself and his son Ivan.
The lead couple in Days Of Wine And Roses. When they meet, she won't touch the stuff, but then he finds an alcoholic drink she likes (he already has a bit of a problem). By the end of the movie, they've both hit bottom. He dries out, but she doesn't.
Ben Sanderson in Leaving Las Vegas is purposefully drinking himself to death.
If Dean Martin is in a film without Jerry Lewis, Martin is probably playing one of these. "Dude" in Rio Bravo is just one of many examples.
Literature
The Hunger Games gives us Haymitch, who is perpetually shown drunk or at least mildly intoxicated, largely an effect of the horrors the Hunger Games he competed in. He is an alcoholic to the point where the main characters worry about him after police shut down the local liquor brewers.
Sam Houston in Trail Of Glory is shown as a high-functioning alcoholic, which he also was in real life.
The protagonist of Russian novel Moscow Petushki by Venedikt Erofeev.
Several Stephen King protagonists (especially the writers), have this particular affliction, most notably Jack Torrance from The Shining and Jim Gardener from The Tommyknockers. King himself went through alcoholism and recovery during the course of his career, so that's not too surprising. Ironically, many people think he wrote better books before he stopped drinking. In his memoirs, King himself denies that there's any relationship between being a good writer and being an alcoholic.
He mentioned in his memoirs that he had no recollection of writing Cujo. That was one pretty impressive bender there.
Commander Sam Vimes from Terry Pratchett's Discworld is a recovering alcoholic, though he objects to the term (he was a drunk, he wasn't rich enough to be an alcoholic).
In fact Vimes actually has a negative blood alcohol level, which means he has to drink to avoid being knurd. Colon estimated that he was two drinks under par and needed a stiff double just to be sober. Of course, he didn't always get the dose right.
Winky the house elf, who being an elf gets drunk on butterbeer.
And Professor Trelawney with her cooking sherry.
Hagrid is heavily implied to be one. He swears at least once that he'll never drink again (it doesn't take), and the trio end up taking care of him more than vice versa.
Charles Bukowski's alter ego, Henry Chinaski. Most of Bukowski's novels are autobiographical, so it's pretty obvious that he really enjoyed beer by the bucketful.
Several characters from A Song of Ice and Fire. Cersei becomes one over the course of the series, which is part of the reason Jaime finds her increasingly repulsive. Sandor Clegane has long been one, and even in the second book is rarely seen sober; in the third book, he basically wanders around getting drunk when and wherever possible (with a ten-year-old in tow, no less). It's his downfall. Turns out it's kind of hard to fight when you're that drunk.
In Expendable, former Explorer Phylar Tobit is an alcoholic. Festina is disgusted by him, but also secretly feels somewhat envious. All Explorers receive psychological conditioning to make them fastidiously clean and tidy; in becoming a stinking drunkard, Phylar has managed to overcome that programming and in a way beat the system.
Played for cynical effect in The Black Cat. An alcoholic protagonist kills his black cat in an insane manner, and later kills his wife when he's hunting for another black cat with little to no remorse.
Stag Preston in Spider Kiss, and it just makes his other negative traits that much worse.
Renzo Leoni in A Thread of Grace occasionally gets so drunk that he'll pass out in the bed of a strange woman and has to check the fabric of his clothes and the class of woman to remind himself which fake identity he had adopted the night before. He's still a charismatic and effective resistance leader.
Jakub Wedrowycz stories: Jakub, as well as pretty much everyone in his home village, this being set in Poland. Yet they don't seem to be intoxicated very often, or at least not strongly enough to decrease their Badass Grandpa abilities.
Harry Hole, the protagonist in a series of crime thrillers by Norwegian Jo Nesbř. A detective in the Oslo Police Department, Harry is usually tolerated by his superiors and colleagues despite his habitual alcoholism and unorthodox methods because he is a brilliant detective.
David and Simon from Haunted 1988. The former had cleaned up in the film version.
Bertie's Uncle George in Jeeves and Wooster "discovered that alcohol was a food well in advance of modern medical thought." Occasionally "his liver lodges a formal protest" and he goes to a healing center to get cleaned up, only to go back to drinking as soon as he returns to London.
Several Marian Keyes-novels feature alcoholics, such as Lucy's father and her boyfriend Gus in Lucy Sullivan is getting married and of course the alcoholics in the treatment centre in Rachel's Holiday.
Kurak in the Star Trek: Klingon Empire novels. At one point, she refuses to believe that she has alcohol poisoning, because as far as she's concerned alcohol is only a poison to "weak" races such as humans. Usually Klingon physiology fights off the negative effects of alcohol, but she'd consumed so much that even Klingon biology couldn't cope.
The Wakecliff family in A Brothers Price had some very bad and rather suspicious times. A family of fifty-eight all died within one season. Eldest Wakecliff, the head of the family, took to drinking heavily and later died of alcohol poisoning after going on a binge when she heard about six of her kin dying in a carriage accident.
In The Girl Who Would Be King, Lola's mother Delia was an alcoholic. Over the course of the novel, Lola ends up becoming an alcoholic herself.
Grantaire in Les Misérables almost always had a bottle in his hand, and actually sleeps through the final battle because he's passed out from alcohol.
Garibaldi from Babylon 5 - For most of the series, he avoids alcohol, except for a couple of occasions where he is either drowning his sorrows or falling Off The Wagon due to intense job stress. Overall, through the course of five years, we only see it happen twice (albeit one occasion had it happen for half of season five, but some say that season never happened anyways.
White Collar gives us an interesting subversion. Mozzie takes immense pleasure in diminishing Neal's wine supply on a regular basis. He has a drink in his hand in pretty much every other scene. Unlike many of his alcohol-loving counterparts from other shows, however, Mozzie can hold his liquor (or in his case, wine) with no problem. Only one episode shows him getting drunk, and that was justified, given that he was helping Neal with a case where they had to counterfeit a bottle of whiskey.
Battlestar Galactica: Both Saul Tigh and his wife Ellen, especially in proximity to one another though his biggest bout of drinking was on Galactica after he was forced to kill her on New Caprica. Kara "Starbuck" Thrace is also referred to as a {very high-functioning) alcoholic both by other characters (there are repeated references to "not needing another Tigh onboard") and by the actress portraying her (Katee Sackhoff is quoted saying that Starbuck "drinks most of her calories").
In The Big Bang TheoryPenny is pretty well stated as having a difficult relationship with alcohol, binge drinking whenever sad or upset. When Leonard's mom, a cold psychiatrist, first came to visit she quickly psychoanalyzed Penny's insecurities and all the childhood issues Leonard had came to the forefront. Needless to say when Leonard was considering "turning to alcoholism as a career path" he visited Penny, who was all ready for downing shots. In the first half of season five it's implied Penny was depressed over her... complicated... relationship with Leonard and thus showed her to be drinking more often.
Raj didn't drink before the series began but mid season one learned that he was able to overcome his "can't talk to women" issues with a bit of a buzz. For the most part he manages okay, but being introduced to alcohol gave way to occasional problems with it.
Victor from German crime comedy Dr Psycho. It is the main thing he and psychiatrist Max clash about, but after someone gets shot while Victor is drunk on duty, his police colleagues chime in with Max as well.
Leo McGarry on The West Wing was a recovering alcoholic.
Also, Vice President John Hoynes - stopped drinking at age 22.
Fun Bobby, an occasional boyfriend of Monica's in Friends. Alcohol was what made him entertaining. When he quit drinking, Monica started upping her alcohol intake to cope with his stories about shoelaces.
Herman "Duck" Philips from is a recovering alcoholic. Until, that is, Season 2's "Maidenform," when he falls Off The Wagon in the middle of his nasty divorce. While somewhat sympathetic and under control at first, the liquor gets the best of him, and by Season 4's "The Suitcase," he is a raging alcoholic and a massive dick, too.
Freddy Rumsen, who once gets so drunk at work that he passes out and pees himself during a pitch to Samsonite. Naturally, he's fired (which doesn't do anything for his sobriety) and Peggy inherits his office (much to her chagrin, as Rumsen had been the first to notice her talent for copywriting) and his legendary office stash of booze.
After this incident, Rumsen was Put on a Bus until Season 4, when he shows up again, a member of AA. Roger Sterling has come to hate going out with Rumsen for this very reason, as he apparently thinks Freddy is a bit holier-than-thou about it.
While Don Draper has been drinking like a fish since the beginning, he was never shown as really drunk (lubricated perhaps, but never hammered) until Season 4 (in the wake of his divorce from Betty). After that, he's depicted as being sloshed at least every other episode, even to the point of puking in "The Suitcase." (Hm. That episode was about a Samsonite ad campaign. Perhaps Samsonite=alcoholism to the writers?) At this point, it's fairly clear that we are witnessing Don Draper's Slow Descent Into Alcoholism.
So much so that when one of the characters thinks to put boxed wine in soda cans for public consumption, everyone thinks it's a great idea.
Eddie of Bottom, who cheerfully drinks Old Spice, cooking oil, and bleach. Note to reader: Only one of these things actually contains alcohol, and only one of these things is supposed to be edible. They are not the same thing.
They appear to be setting this up with Dr Zoe Hanna in Casualty.
Sports Night had a nice aversion: Dan Rydell refused to drink alcohol, and stated once that he had had his last drink some years before on a specific date. He was inundated with commentary (both positive and negative) about his being a recovering alcoholic, which he consistently denied. Nobody believed his denials, the network was getting pressure to make him come clean about his supposed alcoholism, forcing him to go on the air with the real story: his brother got drunk once and wrecked a car, killing himself, and on that day, Dan stopped drinking.
Ned The Wino on Good Times and Woodrow Anderson on Sanford and Son: they were played by the same person.
Jim Lahey's character trait in Trailer Park Boys, albeit not the only example. At one point, Ray was desperate enough to pull the copper pipes from his walls to sell for booze money, and he always has prodigious stacks of empties lying around. Julian is rarely seen without a rum and Coke in his hand. Ricky never misses an occasion to get drunk, either.
This is one of Ted Altman's many personality flaws on Intelligence. Rarely does an episode go by that he is not seen drinking, even once.
Every one of the Riggins men in Friday Night Lights . Dad Walt Riggins and his sons Billy and Tim are all frequently shown drunk, drinking or hungover.
The Wire: Jimmy McNulty. He lays off in season four as he gets his act together, but falls off the wagon again in season five. Bunk, his drinking partner, is also something of a Mr. Vice Guy - McNulty has to bail him out of trouble more than once, but it's pretty clear which of them is the most self-destructive. McNulty is indirectly called a "high-functioning alcoholic" by the F Bi guys profiling his fake serial killer] in season five.
Calamity Jane on Deadwood. Al also drinks a whole damn lot.
Angel: The term is never overtly used but while all the characters have a reason to drown their sorrows mid-series, Wesley is the one who doesn't stop. The latter half of series 5 has the gang mentioning with increasing frequency just how heavily Wesley is drinking. It's also implied that Wesley's fully aware it's becoming a problem.
Example from Community, Shirley's backstory before she came to Greendale is shown to be partly this trope.
Dave Attell in Insomniac With Dave Attell always managed to hit several bars in one night no matter the town, usually drinking beer and shots of Jagermeister.
Adam on Girls is a recovering alcoholic who has been attending AA meetings since age 17.
While never explicitly stated, Star Trek has two likely examples:
Scotty's solution to distracting an alien that takes over the ship in the episode "By Any Other Name" is to have a drinking contest with him, during which it's shown that he hides booze in his quarters. Upon finding himself in the 24th century, one of the first things he does is find Ten-Forward (Enterprise's bar) and berate the bartender for serving poor quality scotch.
Dr. McCoy often prescribes alcohol to his patents, seems to store booze in sickbay, has been seen drinking that booze on-duty, and prepares beans with bourbon.
Sam Axe from Burn Notice is constantly seen knocking back a drink of some sort, with his preferred drink being a mojito. But in spite of he large quantities on liquor he consumes, he's only been noticeably drunk at the beginning of The Fall Of Sam Axe, and only ever mentioned having a hangover once. In fact, the way you know something is hitting Sam especially hard is if he refuses to drink!
Dr. Cox from Scrubs is well defined as drinking way too much, presumably as a way to cope with some very big personal issues as well as the stress of working at a hospital. The Janitor mentions he has access to all personnel records and his major hang-up is "drinks a lot." For the most part it doesn't affect his job, except for one instance detailed in "My Fallen Idol" where he shows up completely drunk. That episode has Jack say "Daddy drinks a lot," which Jordan says is his first full sentence. JD also calls him a "borderline alcoholic" in one episode.
Papa Titus from Titus, as per Christopher Titus' stand-up act. Christopher turned to alcohol after his custom car shop went under and started calling himself an alcoholic, which Papa Titus took offense to because he "hasn't earned it."
Dean Winchester in Supernatural. After six seasons of already-reckless drinking and Drowning My Sorrows, he hits the sauce hard during his depression in season seven. He's heavily implied to have learned it from his dad.
Also partially learned from his surrogate dad, Bobby Singer. Sheriff Mills only knows Bobby as "the town drunk" before she learns the truth about his life.
Sam also has this tendency when he finds himself overwhelmed (it's implied that he spent the first few months after Dean went to Hell in a constant drunken stupor). Rufus and Ellen were hard drinkers, too. It seems to be a pretty common affliction for hunters, which is pretty understandable, considering.
Charlie Harper from Two and a Half Men became this in later seasons. At first, he did drink a lot and was drunk on more then one occasion, but he wasn't always drunk. In the later seasons, any scene of him at home usually has him with a alcoholic drink of some kind and well on his way to being drunk or already drunk.
Magazines
Kopalny, one of the mascots of the Top Secret magazine, is a lovable bum who loves beer and has frequent hangovers, and spends most of the time complaining about having to work menial jobs around the office.
Music
Screamin' Jay Hawkin's breakout hit "I Put a Spell On You" was intended to be a love ballad, but Hawkins (and the rest of the band) were so drunk when they recorded it that it came out as ... well ... just listen to it. When it became a hit, Hawkins had to teach himself how to sound like that when sober.
Alice Cooper was a massive alcoholic at the height of his career. He said on Top Gear that after he vomited up blood, he'd decided it was time to stop.
Elvis Costello's "Beyond Belief" is very clearly being narrated by someone on the verge of a drunken stupor: "So in this almost empty gin palace / In a two-way looking glass, you see your Alice." The singer himself once got into serious trouble because of remarks he made while inebriated. The lyrics to "Man out of Time" are also noticeably booze-sodden: "You drink yourself insensitive and hate yourself in the morning.
Kid Rock has shown up drunk to recording sessions.
Both Bon Scott (from AC/DC) and John Bonham (from Led Zeppelin) died in 1980 from alcohol abuse.
Lemmy Kilmister from Motörhead. He claims to drink a bottle of Jack Daniels a day, and that he has done so since he was 30.
Shane MacGowan, founder, songwriter, and lead singer of The Pogues, is legendary for his drunken performances, self-destructive behaviour, dental problems, and almost-miraculous ability to stay alive despite doing things that would have killed any normal man. Basically, he has been drinking heavily pretty much nonstop since about 1970 or so. His alcoholism got so bad that The Pogues threw him out of the band in 1991, not wanting to put up with his crap anymore. They didn't acquiesce to working with him again for another ten years. A lot of his songs make heavy reference to alcoholism, in all its various forms.
X Japan. Almost everyone out of the band (aside from vocalist Toshi, who by almost all accounts Can't Hold His Liquor) is legendary for their alcohol problems: late guitarist hide died in part from his alcoholism in a drunken accidental suicide, bandleader/drummer/pianist Yoshiki is well known for being The Alcoholic (and a rather destructive one and a repeat Drunk Driver before he seemed to have learned his lesson about it), ex-bassist Taiji was a documented, confessed alcoholic and possibly Off The Wagon around the events of his death, and rhythm/second guitarist Pata is sadly well known for being an alcoholic.
Gary Stead, from the Saint Etienne Concept AlbumTales From Turnpike House. He spends most of the album as a comedy alcoholic in the Barney Gumble mould (in "Milk Bottle Symphony" he "staggers downstairs with a heavy head", i.e. a hangover), but eventually "Last Orders For Gary Stead" reveals him to be Drowning His Sorrows over an awkward divorce.
The unnamed subject of Richard Thompson's bitter, brilliant "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.
The narrator in Bob Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" may or may not be, as might the narrator in "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again." The narrator in "Moonshiner" definitely is.
Metallica used to be called "Alcoholica". James Hetfield even had to enter a rehab facility, but he has been sober ever since. As insane as it is, Dave Mustaine, who used to be in Metallica, was kicked out of the band because of his drinking problem. James Hetfield fired him for drinking too much. Part of the problem though, was simply Mustaine's behavior when drunk, as he was apparently a quite violent drunk, while the other members would be more withdrawn under the influence.
"I was really starting to believe that there was something amusing and wonderfully American about being a drunk. I ended up telling myself to cut that shit out."
GG Allin. The guy was even burried with a bottle of Jim Beam beside him in his casket.
From Savatage's Streets A Rock Opera, the main character, DT Jesus, is a junkie with an implied drinking problem as well. What motivates him to turn his life around is finding his childhood hero, a famous blues guitarist, is little more then a homeless wino.
Swedish rocker Eddie Meduza. He was known for his "party hard" lifestyle, which spiraled into full-blown alcoholism in the '80s. Eventually he cleaned up his act in the '90s after doctors told him he would die if he had another drink. Unfortunately he couldn't keep it up and relapsed, which led to his death in 2002. Many of his later songs sarcastically "praise" the "joys" of being drunk all the time.
Elton John (and his main lyricist Bernie Taupin) often 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 1970s and Elton followed in 1990.
The aptly named song "Alcohol" by the Barenaked Ladies, which opens with the line "Alcohol, my permanent accessory" pretty much sums up the attraction of drinking in the line "Alcohol, Alternative to feeling like myself."
Ringo Starr, of all people, had a major problem with this, which escalated after the breakup of The Beatles. Fortunately he's made a good recovery and is now completely sober.
"Between the Bars", and some other songs by Elliott Smith, is about this.
Professional Wrestling
Scott Hall in WCW and later WWE. That his real-life drinking problem was played for laughs left a bad taste in many viewers' mouths.
Andre The Giant was notorious for his ability to drink somewhere in the region of 7,000 calories of booze each day. Thing is, being a giant, it took INSANE amounts of booze to get him drunk—for example, 1,428 oz (that's 119 12-oz bottles) of beer to make him pass out.
Jake Roberts: During his original run in the World Wrestling Federation, substance abuse problems began to mount for "The Snake," and came to a head after he left the organization. By 1996, he returned, having cleaned up and was now depicting himself as a born-again Christian who had left the bottle behind. A feud was created around his newfound sobriety, with Jerry Lawler playing the shameless antagonist. Lawler – then a mean-spirited, arrogant heel – constantly mocked Roberts and alleged that he had shown up at events under the influence. Roberts eventually had enough and eventually came to the arena "drunk" to lower Lawler's guard.
Keni'chiro Arai of Dragon Gate. His initial gimmick was a hardcore fan of the Hanshin Tigers baseball team who'd drink heavily at the games. The drunk part of his gimmick slowly disappeared - then he went through a Face Heel Turn, dropped the baseball fan part of it and became a full time alcoholic who carried bottles of beer and sake to the ring with him.
Radio
Jackie "The Jokeman" Martling, Artie Lange, and especially Jeff the Drunk of The Howard Stern Show.
Comedy pair Hudson And Landry featured a few skits involving drunks making phone calls. Their best known skit is about a already hammered drunk ordering more liquor.
Phil Harris portrayed himself this way on The Jack Benny Program; once even claiming that he only drank so Jack would have something to joke about.
Beyond Harris, the entire band was portrayed as being a bunch of drunken reprobates, particularly guitarist Frank Remly.
Barry Cryer is seen as this by everyone else on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. He seldom mentions it himself.
Jack: One of the judges for this year's Beer Festival was our very own Barry Cryer. Barry sampled several dozens of different lagers, a variety of beers, and one or two champagnes, and as such, never made it to the festival.
Stand-Up Comedy
Foster Brooks made a career of jokes built around his heavy drinking. This was often played off as Fair for Its Day, with Brooks explaining that he had mixed up his dates and would never have intentionally shown up in this condition.
Christopher Titus described his dad as always having a beer in hand, including funerals, waterskiing and PTA conferences. It's a firmly established part of his childhood memories that associates the can opening up with his dad saying something soul crushing.
Dean Martin used to do his act seemingly drunk with a glass of whisky (usually claimed to have actually been apple juice, though stories vary) in his hand, but while he wasn't a teetotaler, he wasn't the lush he pretended to be either. The HBO movie "Rat Pack" lampshades this rather hilariously: the camera pans up the side of the Sands hotel, showing glimpses of what's going on in everyone's room: Sammy has a girl and a drink, Peter has a girl and a drink, Joey has a girl and a drink, Frank has two girls and a drink ... and at the very top is Martin, sitting in bed alone watching TV, drinking a glass of milk.
Theater
Cyrano de Bergerac: Ligniere. He dislikes orange juice and milk, only stays at the theater to drink four glasses of wine, he happily retires to betake again his pet vice in a tavern, and when Christian tries to save him for a trap, he’s advised to left notice to Ligniere at five different taverns.
Doc Delaney, in William Inge's Come Back Little Sheba.
The title character of PDQ Bach's The Stoned Guest, whose voice type is described as "basso blotto."
Eric in An Inspector Calls is frequently "squiffy". It's obvious to most of his family, but his mother's in total denial about it.
Video Games
In Max Payne 2 it is revealed that former deputy police chief Bravura is a recovering alcoholic, and he offers to take the protagonist to meetings with him. It isn't made clear if he is merely misreading Payne's survivor's guilt or if Max actually has a problem.
In Max Payne 3, Max has become a full blown alcoholic. About halfway into the game it becomes one of Max's main goals to quit drinking.
Mr. Galloway of Bully who is also arguably the coolest teacher in the game.
Part of the first quest in Fable II is returning a drunk's lost bottle. The 'good choice' is to give it to his wife, who's trying to make him quit, while the 'evil' one is giving it back to him.
Granin in Metal Gear Solid 3. To the point that he divulges Sokolov's location to Snake while intoxicated.
Gen of Saga Frontier is a drunken samurai. His 'win' animation after the battles show him drinking...and drinking...and drinking.
Players of Final Fantasy X could speculate that the jug of sake hanging from Auron's belt was well used.
Jecht is a better example: Tidus mentions having trouble remembering a time when he wasn't drunk. This apparently ended when he stabbed a shoopuf in a drunken panic (he thought it was a fiend); after Braska was forced to give the animal's handler all their money, Jecht never drank again. (You can find a recording of the aftermath of the incident around the same area where it happened.)
In the first Diablo game, there was Farnham the Drunk, a comedic character who actually had a tragic side to him; he had to watch most of his friends get slaughtered during a raid in the dungeons. In the sequel, there's Geglash in Act II. While he is played for comedy, he is also an experienced fighter, and Atma notes that he has been drinking more than usual since the 'troubles' began.
Demoman: (on sudden death) Thankfully, I already don't remember this.
Sleip of Blaze Union. She doesn't fit into the Always Female versions at all—she's young, she's cutesy, she's Ms. Fanservice, and she's very resistant to the idea of sobering up.
Oghren in Dragon Age: Origins and the expansion, Awakening. His alcoholism seems to have started as a way of Drowning My Sorrows. Oghren used to be a renowned warrior and his wife was named a Paragon, the greatest honour a dwarf can ever achieve. When she left him and set off into the Deep Roads, however, things went downhill.
Depending on the choices you make in the game, Alistair may become one as well.
Dragon Age II gives us Fenris, who spends his free time drinking alone. Given his backstory, you can't really blame him.
Possibly Bo Rai Cho from Mortal Kombat. It's never actually confirmed that he has an addiction, but seeing as he invented Drunken Boxing and can use vomit as a weapon during a fight, it is possible.
And, to an extent, the series's creator ZUN as well. Pictures of him are hard to find. Pictures of him without some form of alcohol are nonexistent.
Jim Raynor in Star Craft II, in reaction to what he feels is his role in Kerrigan being turned into the Queen of Blades. Matt Horner apparently has to clean up after him a lot.
Grayson Hunt of Bulletstorm is a revenge-obsessed drunkard. The player can decide to take Ishi's threat to kill him if he starts again to heart, by shooting the bottles of alcohol you see.. or taking a drink, and getting point bonuses for killing enemies while drunk.
Dwarf Fortress: The one thing that all of the dwarfs have in common is that they "need alcohol to get through the working day". Almost everything else will vary between them (including what they like, what they hate, their personality traits, etc.), but alcohol is their default drink of choice (though, that said, the type of alcohol that they like best also varies).
Dwarves are born alcoholic: dwarven babies drink booze instead of breast-milk.
Baofu from Persona 2: Eternal Punishment always enjoyed tipping a few back. With him, alcohol is integrated as a philosophy and as a way to know a real person as "the truth can be seen in a shot glass". An example below:
Baofu: Hey Maya, why don't you try to become the best wine?
Ulala: What do you mean?
Baofu: The best wines are those that are treated well, but ultimately become spoiled or bad if misused over time. It's the same with humans.
The town doctor in Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist was such a habitual drunkard that in an early puzzle, a prescription written by him had to be looked at through the bottom of a whiskey glass in order to become legible.
Web Comics
Hazel from Girls With Slingshots is often drinking or drunk. She writes all of her articles smashed. Occasionally Lampshaded when she gets so drunk she forgets what happened, or realizes how common intoxication is for her. Such as when she "levels up" her faux sober threshold to nine beers.
Kyotoshi Lypha from Inhuman, starting after his parents were killed in a planet-wide massacre. His fridge contains only vodka and a clean, folded towel.
Edison Lighthouse, in Groovy Kinda, rarely appears without a drink in hand. At 39, she's old enough to be a Lady Drunk, but she's far too cheerful.
Faye Whittaker in Questionable Content. Almost everyone in Questionable Content drinks frequently (like a lot of 20-somethings) but Faye is the only one whose pointed out to take it to excess.
Martin's mom is also a bit of a lush.
Out There: One of the most common settings is Sherry's bar, but only Clayton fits the trope. Miriam is more accurately described as a Hard Drinking Party Girl, and none of the other characters seem particularly dedicated to the task.
String Theory has the alcoholic Dr. Schtein. He's also an avid user of a large number of other drugs.
No Need For Bushido has Ken, who, after running out of sake in the middle of a battle, decides to go maul an enemy camp and take their supply. He then proceeds to do this several more times until he get so drunk he falls unconscious, and when he regains consciousness, he finds he's run out yet again and goes out for some more.
Elf Blood has Shanna, who was constantly depicted drinking alcohol in the earlier sections of the comic. She doesn't appear to suffer any deleterious effects from her condition though, or at least none that have been shown yet.
Lyle Gabriel from Achewood is nearly always drunk and usually blitzed well beyond the point of coherence. It gets less comedic as time goes on; later strips depict him as being unable to function if he doesn't drink constantly.
Taisei from Sakana is "drunk 50 % of the time". When having a hangover is also pretty much the only time he is depressed.
Nitrous Blight of Zokusho Comics could head this way if he's not careful. He is a powerful telepath and alcohol is one of the few ways to dull the volume of the thoughts of others.
In Victoria games, you need alcohol to train and supply army units. You can have all the metal, gunpowder, and men in the world, but you literally cannot make even one more cannon if it's crew don't get there beer.
Homestuck: Roxy Lalonde spends the first three parts of Act 6 hammered. By the fifth part, she admits that she had a problem.
Starslip Crisis has Cutter Edgewise, space pirate!. Well, former space pirate, anyway. He's nearly always at least semi-drunk, though he's still likely to be more level-headed than Vanderbeam.
Web Original
Danielbeast in lonelygirl15 became an alcoholic at one point, as a result of trying to drown his sorrows.
Glitch, of the Whateley Universe, who's obviously alcoholic, and a sophomore in high school. He blames his parents for all his problems.
Arthur's mother in Theatrica who falls of a roof, pissed, and dies.
During her review of Xanadu, due to not being impressed with how bored the voice actor of Zeus sounded, The Nostalgia Chick's impersonation of him made him sound ridiculously drunk instead. She herself is nearly always seen with a bottle of beer.
Harley Morenstein of Epic Meal Time rarely appears without a bottle of Jack in hand. One time, he and the others made breakfast with alcohol.
The Nostalgia Critic: The Critic is a complete and utter lightweight, but still drinks a lot.
In the "Ask Jack" video from the The Horribly Slow Murderer With The Extremely Inefficient Weapon series, Jack reveals that the reason he is still fat despite running from the Ginosaji for years is because he's developed eating and drinking problems to cope with the insanity. During the segment he's trying to eat a plate of spaghetti and drink a glass of wine while the Ginosaji is still slowly beating him to death with a spoon.
514 from Lucky Day Forever. His fridge is filled with Little Prolie Beer. Used to show that 514 buys into the Whites' propaganda.
Western Animation
In Futurama, robots are alcoholics by default, as alcohol works as their fuel. However, they stumble around as if they were drunk when they're sober... and at other times (particularly in earlier episodes) they are portrayed binge-drinking human style. Bender himself speaks with a mild slur at all times.
"I don't need to drink, I can quit any time I want."
"Bender, you're blind stinking sober!"
In one episode where Bender can't/won't drink, he's depicted as staggering, slurring his speech, and with a patch of rust resembling beard stubble.
In the episode Benderama, Bender uses a self replicating device to make 2 smaller copies of himself. This process repeats itself until thousands of molecule level Bender's turn earth's water into Alchohol, turning everyone on earth drunk.
Miriam Pataki from Hey Arnold! is a textbook example, though mainly off screen. On screen all she wants is a "smoothie".
It turns out he was introduced to alcohol by Bloberta. Once he became an alcoholic, she quit being one.
The entire band Dethklok in Metalocalypse, but particularly Pickles the drummer. Alcoholism and drug use is such a heavy part of Pickles's past and personality that when his former bandmates headlined a Straight Edge-esque concert with a new singer, he was mortally offended and vowed to crash the concert.
Special points also to Nathan Explosion, who apparently needs regular liver transplants, and is shown receiving one as part of fan touring of Mordhaus.
Brian Griffin is rarely seen without a glass of something in his hand. In comparison he is probably worse than Peter - Peter usually goes out drinking for fun with friends, but Brian often drinks alone, or to 'drown sorrows', or for the sake of drinking.
Homer Simpson. He can consume more beer (leading into excessive intoxication obviously) than Peter can.
Homer: And [I'll get to] get drunk on a Tuesday.
Marge: Today's Tuesday and you've had six beers!
Homer: But I'm not drunk.
It's a running gag that when somebody asks Homer if he's been drinking, he never says no.
Marge: How drunk are you?
Homer: Not. Very.
Barney Gumble appears worse than Homer, but is often seen trying to overcome his problem — Homer has not even acknowledged he has a problem. He does occasionally, but usually for a throwaway gag, not as part of an episode's plot.
Lionel Hutz is shown to have a pretty severe drinking problem on occasion.
Hutz:"Mrs. Simpson claims she forgot she had this bottle of sweet, Kentucky Bourbon... brownest of the brown liquors... What's that? You want me to drink you? But I'm in the middle of a trial! ...Excuse me! (runs out of courtroom)
Also:
Lionel Huts: Mrs. Simpson, you're in luck, your sexual harassment suit is exactly what I need to rebuild my shattered practice! Care to join me in a belt of scotch?
Marge: It's 9:30 in the mourning.
Hutz: Yeah, but I haven't slept in days. (Takes a large belt of scotch, and waves the dregs at temptingly at Marge) Last chance! (Finishes the bottle)
In the 14th season episode Bart vs Lisa vs the Third-Grade Ms McConnell, who is something of a Gossip Girl, denotes that Lisa's Teacher Ms. Hoover an alcoholic, though if you had students like Ralph Wiggum you would be too.
Lindsey Naegle is a self-proclaimed alcoholic and has been seen at AA meetings.
In each of his guest appearances, Ron Howard appears wearing a bath robe and with a drink in his hand. Seeing Homer drinking a cocktail of his own invention—a concoction of vodka and wheat grass which Homer dubs a 'lawn mower'—he cheerfully asks Homer to make him one.
Uncle Waldo from The Aristocats. He is first seen being chased out of a restaurant as an attempt to avoid being killed and eaten as part of a dish called "Prime Country Goose a la Provencale" that apparantly involved him being "stuffed with chestnuts and basted in white wine." And because of the latter, Uncle Waldo actually became extremely drunk as a result of this.
Captain K'Nuckles of The Misadventures of Flapjack comes off as this, always needing a pick me up or becoming wasted at the Candy Barrel.
