The Alcoholic / Live-Action TV

• Amish Mafia has Crazy Dave. He kept on screwing things up with Levi and was caught drinking while driving a buggy. It got so bad that he ended up in an Amish Crazy House.
• Otis Campbell, on The Andy Griffith Show is regularly seen drunk. Andy even has his own jail cell reserved so Otis can come in and lock himself up on the weekends. On a couple of occasions, some of the others will try to get him to sober up, but nothing ever sticks. By Return to Mayberry, however, he appears to have sobered up on his own.
• 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.
• Mrs Slocombe from Are You Being Served? is frequently seen drinking, even at work, where she hides liquor around her counter. She turns to alcohol as a first resort for things like preventing illness, warming up, and coping with her emotions.
• Lucille from Arrested Development. She's rarely ever seen without a drink in hand. At one point, her rival Kitty challenges her to a drink-off with George Sr. as the prize. Lucille promptly grabs a glass of wine from a passing waiter, downs it, and casually says "That one doesn't count." She continues to sip wine between turns throughout the contest.
• In Season 1 of Arrow Quentin Lance is shown to have started drinking after the death of his daughter, Sara, five years previously. In Season 2, Laurel starts using alcohol and anti-depressants to cope with her own grief and depression.
• Babylon 5:
  • Garibaldi; 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 5, but some say that season never happened anyways.
  • Londo Mollari is almost never seen drinking anything that isn't alcoholic, and he spends most of the first season at bars, strip clubs, and casinos. It actually helps him later on when he's infected with a Keeper, which has a lower alcohol tolerance than he does.
• Bar Rescue: Unfortunately, quite a few owners have resorted to sampling their own goods, something that Taffer has very little patience for. Tim in "The Olive Pit" is a specific example, but others include:
  • Both owners in "Chilleen's" are so intoxicated in their initial meeting with Taffer that one of them, Donna, admits the next day she has no recollection of the meeting. Taffer threatens to walk out if either owner has another drink the entire time he's there, brings a breathalyzer in to test the owners' blood alcohol content every day during his stay, and even sets them up with an addiction counselor.
  • R.G.'s Lounge has a customer so over-served and so drunk that, by the time Taffer shows up, she gets arrested for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct after leaving the bar.
  • Karen from O'Face Bar rings a bell by her seat at the bar whenever she wants a shot, which is a lot. Her husband and manager aren't much better.
  • The moustachioed drunk from ZanZBar, whose inebriated rambling was both awkward and hilarious to watch.
  • The owner of The Dugout, who's been at odds with Taffer at every turn, shows up late, drunk, and uninvited for the unveiling of the remodeled bar (The Press Box). This was the last straw for Taffer, who refuses to hold a grand re-opening and advises all the bartenders to quit.
• Barney Miller had a number of people who were brought in drunk, but only a couple who were explicitly alcoholic. One was a minor federal official who was Drowning His Sorrows over being stuck with the department of "underdeveloped suburban areas, mines, parks, and Indians" for his work on Nixon's campaign. Another was a career robber who tried to hold up a store with a Finger Gun, having been too drunk to remember that you put it in your pocket first.
• 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").
• The Beauty Queen Of Jerusalem: Ephraim is drunk half the time he's on screen, and it rarely ends well for anyone around him.
• The Big Bang Theory:
  • Penny 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 5 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 1 learned that he is 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. He eventually learns that he can drink non-alcoholic beer and get the same effect, so long as he believes the drink had alcohol.
• Bernard Black from Black Books, and to a very slightly lesser extent Fran (whose surname is German for Hangover), are seen drinking all the time. Bernard appears to drink at all hours of the day.
  Bernard: You can sort your life out any time; the pub closes in five hours!
• 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.
  Richie: What's in this?!
  Eddie: Brandy...
  Richie: Good!
  Eddie: Meths, pernod, paintstripper, Mr. Sheen, brake fluid and Drambuie!
  Richie: [sarcastically, with an effeminate voice and camp gesture] Drambuie?! Oooh hoo-hoo hoo-hoo!
  Eddie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, alright! You've gotta put something in for the birds, haven't you?
  Richie: [takes a whiff] Jesus! How are you alive?
  Eddie: I may very well NOT be.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A significant portion of Xander's family are either directly stated or implied to be alcoholic. Of course, being the Butt-Monkey, he's sort of contractually obligated to have a family drunken assholes. Who are implied to be even more unpleasant.
• Sam Axe from Burn Notice is constantly seen knocking back a drink of some sort, with his preferred drink being a mojito. He once presented Mike with a birthday present; a six pack of beer — imported beer. Well, a five-pack. And then he took one to drink, with the very lightest of prompting. But in spite of the large quantities of liquor he consumes, he's only been noticeably drunk at the beginning of Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe, and only ever mentioned having a a hangover once. In fact, the way you know something is hitting Sam especially hard is if he refuses to drink!
• Sam Malone on Cheers is a recovering alcoholic.
• Jeff on Chuck. Although in the final season, it was revealed that his constant state of stupor was caused by routinely sleeping in his car with the motor running, and once he stopped doing that, he became incredibly lucid.
• There are a number of alcoholic women who appear on Columbo, usually as the long-suffering wives of the main suspects.
• Margaret is usually seen drinking several times an episode in The Cool Kids.
• CSI: NY: In "Dead Inside," Det. Flack's sister, Samantha, gets fired from her bartending job for drinking while on the clock, and is later seen attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where she finally admits she has a problem.
• Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story: The titular character himself. His drinking is brought up a number of times, he can occasionally be seen drinking from a can of beer, and can also occasionally be seen with several beer cans nearby.
• In Dickensian, Mrs. Gamp, the incompetent nurse from Martin Chuzzlewit, is portrayed as motivated entirely by beer and gin.
• Doctor Who: In "The Unicorn and the Wasp", Lady Eddison is nearly always seen with an alcoholic drink in hand. Even when she claimed to have been drinking tea.
• Nearly all the main characters on The Drew Carey Show are seen drinking beer in their spare time. One of Mimi's pranks on them included drugging them so they couldn't have alcohol for a few weeks without getting sick (she did this around St. Patrick's Day). Everyone's alcoholism is usually Played for Laughs.
• 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.
• Family Ties had a second season episode "Say Uncle", where Special Guest Tom Hanks plays Elyse's brother, Ned Donnelly. Unemployed since he was fired for embezzling millions from his previous company (to prevent the layoff of 1,800 co-workers) and unable to find work ^note (this was depicted in an episode aired a year earlier), Ned — already a steady drinker — becomes a hardened, full-blown alcoholic by the time he arrives at the Keatons', staying with them after he gets a job interview at the PBS station (where Steven is station manager) for a reporting and economic analyst's job. Things spiral out of control during the episode:
  • Ned stays up all night drinking, at one point, desperately rummaging through the pantry to find anything with alcohol (he even chugs a bottle of pure vanilla extract).
  • He gets upset at Alex and threatens him after he declines his help studying for an important test. Ned blames Alex for him considering him "not being good enough" to provide help, although Alex (already assuring him he could manage fine) is clearly uncomfortable asking someone who is drunk for help.
  • Still drunk the next morning, Ned nonchalantly drinks a screwdriver for breakfast, concerning Elyse.
  • Drunk for the interview, Ned makes a complete fool out of himself, angering the station owner and embarrassing Steven, who had made special arrangements to set up the interview and custom-made position for Ned.
  • That night, Steven tells Ned point blank that he is an alcoholic and is in need of professional help, but Ned is resigned to his fate as a hopeless, unemployed drunken loser. When Alex tries to reassure him that he's not finished yet, the two get into a fight and Ned punches him. That seems to shock him into realizing he needs to confront his demons head on ... now.
• Father Brown: Lady Adams in "The Flying Stars". When she's found drowned in the lake, it's initially assumed that she accidentally fell in while drunk.
• Father Ted: Father Jack Hackett knows four words: "Girls!", "Arse!", "Feck!", "Drink!". Without regular supplies of the fourth one he gets peppery. He's been known to drink Toilet Duck and floor polish when he's run out, the latter of which temporarily killed him and Ted notes during Lent that he hasn't been sober in over a decade.
• Fellow Travelers: After his son's death, Hawkins Fuller becomes a drunkard. Among other incidents, he ruined his daughter's baby shower by knocking over the gift table because he was so inebriated. It had gotten so out of control that his wife Lucy gave him an ultimatum: seek treatment for his drinking or live somewhere else. Hawk chose to leave home and stay on Fire Island where he can indulge in substance abuse. His friend Rafael is concerned about his deteriorating health and confides to Timothy Laughlin that he needs to see a doctor. When Hawk vomits in the bathroom, Craig explains to Tim that he has developed gastritis due to the alcohol.
• The First Lady: Betty Ford becomes this over time, along with using pills, to ease her pain from an injury.
• The Five (2016): Pru is revealed to have had a severe problem with alcohol in the past. As things start to unravel for her, she falls off the wagon. She's seen out at the bar frequently after this until Mark stops her.
• On The Flight Attendant, it becomes increasingly clear as the series progresses that the main character Cassie Bowden is an alcoholic and her father was too, having introduced Cassie to beer at an early age. She later progressed to the hard stuff.
• Forever (2014):
  • As pointed out by Henry in the pilot, Jo has taken to drinking after the death of her husband. This improves greatly during the course of the series, as she finally begins to open up and let herself feel again.
  • Henry himself appears to have had a bout of this after Abigail left him, judging by the flashback in "Punk Is Dead" where Abe finds Henry passed out on the floor with an empty bottle near his head.
• 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.
• 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.
• Frontier (2016): Father Coffin, the town priest at Fort James, is a drunk. This makes him both easy to bribe as well as inherently untrustworthy.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Robert Baratheon has fallen deep into alcoholism and is often seen with a drink in hand, which eventually leads to his death. In one memorable scene, he discusses the state of the Seven Kingdoms with Cersei, saying that every powerful man in Westeros has a different agenda. When Cersei asks him what he wants, Robert simply holds up his goblet of wine.
  • Like her late husband, Cersei shows an increasing fondness for wine throughout the series as there are an increasing number of scenes where she has a cup close to hand, and she notably gets quite drunk during the Battle of Blackwater. In the books, this trait is because as Queen Regent she increasingly turns to drink while crumbling under the pressure of ruling seven kingdoms and politicking the great and good of the royal court to keep her children safe. Jaime mentions it in "Two Swords" and Margaery uses it as a barb in their Politeness Judo in "High Sparrow".
    Margaery: I wish we had some wine [for you]. It's a bit early in the day for us.
  • Tyrion is definitely a very high-functioning example, since he is almost never seen without some kind of booze at hand. Tywin is particularly annoyed by this and tends to withhold wine during their interactions. Recent events put Tyrion into full-blown Drowning My Sorrows early in Season 5. Varys tries to keep him functional, as the first thing Tyrion does when he gets out of the crate in which he crossed over to Essos is grab a bottle of wine and drink until he pukes. Daenerys quickly picks up on it and criticizes him and starts restricting his drinking, but in Season 6 there are literally only a couple of scenes in which he appears without a glass or decanter of wine nearby. Between Cersei and Tyrion, it seems like a safe bet that the Lannisters are genetically predisposed to alcoholism. In the books, other Lannisters from (relatively recent) Westerosi history would also stand as evidence of this genetic predisposition, such as Lord Tytos Lannister, Tywin and Kevin's father. This may go a long way in explaining why Tywin has such a grudge against it. By the time he returns to Westeros, though, he largely seemed to have kicked the habit or reduced it dramatically.
    Tyrion: It's not easy being drunk all the time. If it were easy, everyone would do it.
  • Ser Dontos Hollard shows up to a tourney so drunk he struggles to pick up his own helmet.
  • The Hound's drinking is somewhat toned down, but he still needs a freaking drink during the Battle of Blackwater, is captured by the Brotherhood after drinking himself into a stupor, and pounds back Polliver's ale before their confrontation.
  • Thoros of Myr is an unabashedly self-aware one, even referring to himself as "only the drunk who says the prayers."
• General Hospital:
  • Dr. Noah Drake, who was Put on a Bus for many years, returned to the show as a Shell-Shocked Veteran with a drinking problem.
  • Luke Spencer has been drinking non-stop for years and years. It only became a full-blown problem when he ran over his grandson.
  • Add A.J. Quartermaine to the list, because of his drinking he's wiped his brother's memory, lost his child and his mind, and had to fake his death.
• Gentleman Jack: Sam Sowden is a vicious drunk who abuses his family and nearly gets them thrown out onto the streets because of his inability to play nice with his landlady. After Sam dies and his oldest son Thomas because the family patriarch, Thomas outright bans alcohol from the house, telling his uncle that it's the root cause of all the family's struggles.
• Adam on Girls is a recovering alcoholic who has been attending AA meetings since age 17.
• In Good Girls Revolt Cindy hits the bottle pretty hard, at first when she’s stressed, by the end of the season she has a little bottle of liquor with her when she goes on travels and takes a swig when she’s happy.
• Good Times: Keith develops a drinking problem, despondent over the loss of his football career and inability to find a decent job. He has a Heel Realization after slapping Thelma in a drunken rage.
• Gotham: After spending a night drinking, Bullock jokes to Gordon that it would take him a couple more drinks for him to sober up.
• In Halt and Catch Fire, the first time we see Gordon Clarke, he's being released from the drunk tank.
• When a Hannibal character makes an offhand comment about recovering alcoholics in Jimmy Price's presence, he quickly apologizes, which Jimmy brushes off with a blithe "Oh, I'm not recovering."
• Hightown: Jackie is one, along with a cocaine addict. She goes to a drug rehab clinic and attended meetings (initially to avoid jail time for a DUI) but soon drops out, before coming back where she gets clean.
• In the second series of Horatio Hornblower, Dr. Clive has taken to drinking as his method of coping with the fact that his old friend Captain Sawyer is having a drawn-out mental breakdown and Clive can't do anything to help because it's the 19th century and the best medicine he's got is laudanum (which doesn't do much to help). Later, when Acting-Captain Buckland is suffering the painful awareness that he himself is a poor captain, Clive hands him a bottle and advises him to empty it.
• The Hour, which is set in the fifties, has nearly everyone drinking at some point, but Lix and Hector drink far more than the others and are the only ones labelled as such. Randall used to be one, but he's recovered.
• The Imperfects: At the beginning of the series, Tilda acquires Super-Hearing that causes Sensory Overload. Alcohol is one of the few things that helps with making the whole thing even remotely more bearable, so she ends up with a very high alcoholic drink consumption. The owner of the house that serves as headquarters for the protagonists in all but name has a small wine cellar that Tilda is making fast work of.
• Innocent: Tarık is a chronic alcoholic who turns to excessive drinking after the death of his wife, which he believes he caused.
• 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.
• This is one of Ted Altman's many personality flaws on Intelligence (2006). Rarely does an episode go by that he is not seen drinking, even once.
• Everyone from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, 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. A later episode had them quarantined without alcohol, thinking they all had an infectious disease but eventually realising they were going into alcohol withdrawal. An even later episode has Mac suggest that they drink mouthwash while on a dry cruise "to stave off the shakes". The main characters' alcoholism isn't helped by the fact they're owners of a bar.
• Sarah Mackenzie in JAG is a recovering alcoholic. Got once Off the Wagon after her ex-boyfriend died in her arms.
• Jessica Jones (2015): Jessica is shown to be quite dependent on alcohol, and even mentions most of her money goes towards booze.
• Judith from Last Tango in Halifax. She can't even quit drinking when she's pregnant.
• In The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Colbert parodies the 2016 presidential election as (it was eventually clarified) "Julius Flickerman", in the manner of The Hunger Games, with bizarre wigs, colorful jackets, and a glass of something alcoholic in one hand. A few installments into The Hungry for Power Games, we got:
  Julius Flickerman: Sadly for these Tributes, it's time to bid farewell... and even sadly for me, because this is part [sic] of the show I'm allowed to drink champagne in. Ha haa! (I have a problem!)
• Lennie Briscoe from Law & Order was this before the series started. He relapses in the final episode of Season 6, which indirectly leads to Claire dying in a car accident while she was driving him home from the bar. The guilt he feels is enough to keep him sober for the rest of the series.
• Don Cragen from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is a recovering alcoholic. He occasionally mentions attending A.A. meetings. Olivia's mom becomes one after being raped, resulting in Olivia's conception. This allows her to relate to a girl with a similar problem.
• Let the Right One In: Isaiah's dad is an alcoholic, though he's now in AA.
• Nate Ford on Leverage. "Are we still unclear? I'm a functioning alcoholic, you know? And the trick is not to get hung up on the alcoholic but celebrate the function part of the sentence." When the crew relocate after Season 1, they comment on the fact that Nate took an apartment that's just upstairs from a bar.
• Little House on the Prairie: Various one-time characters were alcoholics, and the consequences associated with their drinking would always be played seriously. However, the one where it was played most dramatically was Isaiah Edwards, the Ingalls' long-time friend and confidant. Early in the series (and hinted at in the pilot movie as well), Edwards is a drifter who consumes alcohol in large quantities, all to drown the sorrows of losing his wife and daughter from smallpox. Thanks to the Ingalls, Edwards is able to sober up — or in the very least keep his drinking under control — while he becomes a family man and somewhat successful farmer, and later a logging tycoon. However, during Season 8, John Jr. dies under mysterious circumstances, and while Mr. Edwards is deeply in grief, when he learns the truth about his eldest son's death –- he was killed by a corrupt businessman whom newspaper reporter John Jr. was about to expose as a crook — he falls off the wagon, destroying his family and business in the process... and it nearly also destroys his bond with the Ingalls. Only with the help of God and the Rev. Alden (himself a recovering alcoholic) does Mr. Edwards find resolve to go on without the bottle and face his demons head on.
• Christian and Jack Shephard after he left the Island on Lost; also Frank used to be one.
• Mad Men:
  • 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". At this point, it's fairly clear that we are witnessing Don Draper's Slow Descent Into Alcoholism.
• Malcolm in the Middle: Later in the series, Francis reveals that he joined Alcoholics Anonymous after his drinking began to get out of control. However, it turns out that he barely drank at all even before joining, and he simply convinced himself he was an alcoholic as part of his old habit of blaming his problems on anything but himself.
• M*A*S*H:
  • Almost the entire cast, but especially Hawkeye, due to the constant suffering they have to deal with. Fortunately they're all functional enough to still be an excellent M*A*S*H unit. In one episode, Hawk manages to kick drinking for a while, but admits that he needs alcohol to get by, and he relapses by the next episode.
  • One episode has one of Margaret's old drinking buddies join the nursing staff. When she shows up to the OR drunk, she gets Nailed to the Wagon, promising not to drink. A few days later, delirium tremens hits when she's in a crowded mess tent; Colonel Potter recognizes the symptoms, gets her to the recovery tent immediately for proper treatment, and admonishes Margaret for making her quit cold turkey.
• Midnight Sun (2016): Sparan is the town drunk, as a means of coping with his son's death.
• Midsomer Murders:
  • Wine critic Nadia Simons in "Vintage Murder". Even she admits it's a cliché.
  • In "The Ghost of Causton Abbey", Emani's drinking problem is part of the motive for her murder.
• My World… and Welcome to It:
  • Ulysses S. Grant is portrayed as a drunken sot in the story John makes up in "Man Against the World." He is seen slurring his words and staggering around after being wakened up, immediately heads for a bottle of whisky sitting on his desk, and is so soused that he surrenders to Robert E. Lee at Appomattox at the end of The American Civil War despite having won the conflict.
  • Phil Jensen, John's writer friend from The Manhattanite, is seen drinking in Cochran's Bar (the magazine's nearby watering hole) as often as he's seen at work. When he says "I'll drink to that" in the episode "Rules for a Happy Marriage," one of his magazine colleagues replies that he'll drink to anything. In "Child's Play," Phil suggests he and John write their collaborative article assignment at Cochran's — and when John says they can't spend two whole days in a bar, Phil says, "Why not? I've done it before." And in "The War between Men and Women," his wife accuses him of having drunk twelve martinis at John's party the previous evening — Phil corrects her, saying he only had nine!
• It's revealed in Night Court (2023) that Harry's daughter, Abby Stone, is a recovering alcoholic. She got sober long enough for Harry to see before he passed, but at the same time, she feels like she lost so much time with him. Dan Fielding quickly picks up on this as his own late wife was also in recovery when they had met, and he noticed some similar terminologies that she used.
• Odd Squad:
  • Oprah, otherwise known as Ms. O, is the Director of Precinct 13579 and is depicted as a G-rated version of this, with her drink of choice being juice instead of anything truly alcoholic, like beer or wine. She has 1,000 juice boxes on the daily and not drinking at least one causes her to experience severe withdrawal symptoms much like an alcoholic in Real Life would. It helps that she had a stake in the Shmumbers business, working alongside Yucks Shmumbers, her business partner and friend, to invent juice boxes before becoming an agent of Odd Squad. Her office also consists of a juice bar, complete with stools for her to sit at. When she becomes the Big O in Season 3, she gets a new office with a new juice bar that has white juice boxes, which match her color theme. She claims they taste like "power with a hint of cranberry".
  • If "Odd Together Now" is to be believed, Orpita, Oprah's Suspiciously Similar Substitute, also has a love for juice boxes on the same level as Oprah herself (since this trope is a key job prerequisite to being the Big O). The Juice Inspection department introduced in the episode, which Olando is placed in, has agents inspecting juice boxes to make sure they're up to snuff. She calls it her favorite department.
• Our Miss Brooks: Two examples, one real, one fake.
  • "The Loaded Custodians": The former custodian Mr. Jensen was said to have been dismissed for drunkenness. Curiously, in his few radio appearances (i.e. "Key to the School", "School Safety Adviser"), Mr. Jensen isn't a drunk. His main idiosyncrasy is that he's extremely Literal-Minded.
  • "Cure That Habit": Walter Denton plays a prank, sending a postcard in Mr. Conklin's name to the titular agency. The Head of the Board of Education, Mr. Stone, hears of it and comes to see his supposedly drunken principal. Mr. Conklin is suffering from an unfortunate case of the hiccups, having pets mistakenly placed in his office, and being spun around in a chair.
• The Outer Limits (1995):
  • In "Essence of Life", Dan Kagan was a severe alcoholic until his wife Juliette became seriously ill and he became sober so he could care for her.
  • In "Family Values", Brooke Miller started drinking as she was depressed over the fact that her husband Jerry was hardly ever home and left everything, including raising their children Candace and Russ, to her. She typically drank at least one glass of vodka and three glasses of wine per day. She eventually gave up drinking after the robot Gideon was able to get the Miller household in order.
• Political Animals: Margaret and her grandson T.J. both drink heavily throughout the series. Margaret rarely goes a scene without either having a drink in her hand or having one made for her (usually by T.J.). Her stories about her youth suggest she was a Hard-Drinking Party Girl, now grown into a snarky Lady Drunk. However, she highly dislikes the idea of a person getting themselves in deep enough to have an addiction, having witnessed T.J.'s grandfather self-destruct due to his drug addiction, and she bluntly informs T.J. that he's headed down the same path as his grandfather if he doesn't get a hold of himself soon. That being said, she has apparently struggled herself when attempting to abstain from alcohol in solidarity with T.J.
  Douglas Hammond: Last time you tried simpatico sobriety with T.J., you lasted about two hours.
• Tommy Gavin on Rescue Me has a decidedly volatile relationship with the bottle (specifically whiskey), as do many other characters.
• The often heard, but never seen Carlton the Doorman from Rhoda is often reportedly drinking on the job. He's not one to deny it either. Rhoda and friends will occasionally supply him with alcohol from time to time. It's all Played for Laughs.
• The Rising: Neve's dad Tom often drinks heavily, even out in public right from the bottle (in fact, he's rarely without one). He later starts going to a support group for alcoholics, meeting Michael Wyatt there, who's revealed to be another alcoholic this way.
• 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. J.D. also calls him a "borderline alcoholic" in one episode.
• SCTV:
  • News anchor Floyd Robertson (who goes off to a rehab facility to dry out but returns to drinking literally one sketch later)
  • Prima donna actor/producer/midday show host Johnny LaRue (who seems to be a Drowning My Sorrows example).
• Frank Gallagher from Shameless (US). His son Lip puts it most succinctly:
  Lip: ...and he drinks, and he does drugs. That's his whole life.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: The Original Series:
    • 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 in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Relics", one of the first things he does is find Ten-Forward (Enterprise's bar) and berate the bartender for serving poor quality "scotch", and then goes to drink alone in a holodeck.
    • 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.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Damar picks up a bottle of kanar after killing Tora Ziyal and doesn't put it down until the final season. Weyoun even describes him as "half-dressed" when he starts turning up to work without a bottle, not realising that Damar is sober now because he's decided to backstab the Dominion in the hope of saving Cardassia.
  • Star Trek: Picard: Raffi is a heavy drinker, and she even jokes (or not) that she's planning to drink herself to death.
• Supernatural:
  • Dean Winchester. After six seasons of already-reckless drinking and Drowning My Sorrows, he hits the sauce hard during his depression in Season 7. 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.
• Taken:
  • In "High Hopes", Russell Keys mentions that he drank a fifth of vodka every night for eight years, seemingly to ease the stress associated with his repeated abductions by the aliens.
  • In "High Hopes", it is revealed that Colonel Thomas Campbell became an alcoholic after Owen Crawford stole the UFO project from him in 1947 (as seen in "Beyond the Sky") and died of cirrhosis of the liver prior to October 1962.
• Kitty Forman on That '70s Show, although not so much early on in the series. Later as she goes through menopause it becomes a running joke.
• Tidelands (Netflix): Rosa, Cal and Augie's mom, is an alcoholic. Because of this Laura expresses incredulity after learning Rosa owns a bar when she gets out of prison. While she's sober in the present, running a bar seems like a bad temptation.
• 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, to which Papa Titus took offense because he "hasn't earned it."
• Jim Lahey's defining character trait in Trailer Park Boys, getting progressively worse as the series continues. He's not the only example, either. 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.
• The Twilight Zone (1959):
  • In "A World of Difference", Gerald Raigan is a severe alcoholic whose drinking has cost him numerous acting jobs in the past.
  • In "A Passage for Trumpet", Joey Crown's alcoholism has ruined his once promising career as a jazz trumpeter.
  • In "The Night of the Meek", the department store Santa Henry Corwin is a chronic alcoholic. After the store manager Mr. Dundee fires him for showing up late and falling over drunk in front of the customers, Henry angrily tells him that he drinks because he wants to forget about all of the misery and poverty that he sees on a daily basis and so that he can believe that he is the real Santa Claus.
  • In "The Dummy", Jerry Etherson began drinking heavily after he became convinced that his ventriloquist's dummy Willie was alive. As a result of his drinking, he missed 110 performances and his agent Frank had to cover for him. Jerry tells Frank that he drinks in order to cope with his nightmares about Willie.
  • In "In Praise of Pip", Max Phillips is an alcoholic and bitterly regrets that his drinking caused him to miss so much of his beloved son Pip's childhood.
  • In "Spur of the Moment", Anne and David Mitchell are both alcoholics in 1964. Anne's mother Mrs. Henderson scolds her for drinking and ignoring the fact that their house is going to be repossessed but Anne retorts that it helps her. She clearly drinks as an attempt to escape her miserable life with David.
  • In "The Encounter", Fenton is an alcoholic whose drinking has recently cost him his job and seemingly his marriage. It is implied that he drinks due to the PTSD that he suffers from fighting in World War II.
• The Twilight Zone (1985):
  • In "Cold Reading", Milo Trent replaces Earl Sedgewick, who usually plays the title character's younger brother Timmy in Dick Noble, African Explorer, as he has reportedly taken ill. The writer Nelson Westbrook's assistant Carla makes a drinking gesture at Milo, indicating that Sedgewick is too drunk to record his part.
  • In "Time and Teresa Golowitz", the Prince of Darkness tells Bluestone that Mary Ellen Cosgrave spends most of her time in 1987 drinking vodka in a vague malaise about what she imperfectly remembers as her golden years.
  • In "The Hellgramite Method", Miley Judson is a severe alcoholic whose drinking is ruining his life. Over the years, he has tried to quit many times through psychiatric treatment, aversion therapy and other methods but he always starts drinking again after two or three months at most. Miley's drinking has cost him many friends and is on the verge of costing him his marriage as his wife Frannie can't cope with much more. He admits that he both loves and hates alcohol. One night at a bar, Miley is approached by Dr. Eugene Murrich, who gives him a matchbox advertising the Hellgramite Method for treating alcoholism. When he goes to Dr. Murrich's house, he is given a pill to swallow. Murrich tells him that this is all there is to it. The next day, Miley discovers that he can't feel the effects of alcohol no matter how much he drinks. He confronts Dr. Murrich, who explains to him that the pill contained the larva of a Hellgramite worm. The larva has already grown and is absorbing all of the alcohol that Miley drinks. Murrich tells Miley that he can starve the worm into dormancy but he will have to go cold turkey in order to do so. He also warns Miley that even if he is successful, the worm will come back stronger if he ever takes another drink.
• 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 than one occasion, but he wasn't always drunk. In the later seasons, any scene of him at home usually has him with an alcoholic drink of some kind and well on his way to being drunk or already drunk.
• One episode of Ultraman (Ultraman Taro) features a giant monster with a drinking problem. The monster carries around a huge sake gourd, which he drinks from, while wreaking havoc on Japan. A child singing star and a group of panda-like aliens try to defeat the monster by performing song and dance routines. But it takes Ultraman Taro to truly give the monster an effective intervention.
• The West Wing:
  • President Bartlet's Cheif of Staff Leo McGarry is an alcoholic with at least one relapse in his past. He's firmly on the wagon for the duration of the series, but in one episode he tells an employee that he still struggles with his condition and can't have "just one drink". His alcoholism is said to be an Open Secret in Washington D.C., everyone knows but most of his political opponents respect him too much to use it against him.
  • Vice President John Hoynes eventually admits to Leo that he too has a history of alcoholism and currently runs a private support meeting. Hoynes quit drinking in his early twenties due to a family history of the condition and some "experiences" during college. He was able to keep his condition so private that President Bartlet only learns about it during their third year in office.
• 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.
• Half of the characters on The Windsors, including Harry (who unsuccessfully tries to quit in season 3), Fergie (who's so bad she'll even drink White Spirit when nothing else is available), and Camilla, who's pretty much always either seen with a mixed drink in hand or pouring liquor out of a flask into some other beverage. There's also plenty of references to the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret frequently having been drunk, to the point various people think they might be being haunted by their ghosts when they think they hear the clink of liquor bottles or someone stumbling around in a supposedly empty room.
• The Wire: Jimmy McNulty. He lays off in Season 4 as he gets his act together, but falls off the wagon again in Season 5. 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 FBI guys profiling his fake serial killer] in Season 5.
• Without a Trace's Martin Fitzgerald notes that fellow agent Danny Taylor doesn't drink. Danny confirms that he's a recovering alcoholic — "I haven't had a drink in 7 years, 6 months, and 18 days". We never see him struggling with the temptation to drink, but when Martin himself develops an addiction to painkillers after being shot, he recognizes the signs instantly — "I know what an addict looks like". ^note  His father and brother are drug addicts as well, so indeed, he'd recognize it even if he weren't an alcoholic himself.
• WKRP in Cincinnati:
  • Played for Laughs with Dr. Johnny Fever who has abused his body with drugs and alcohol for decades, culminating in an on-air sobriety test with a state trooper where his reflexes get better with every drink he takes, to the great ire of the trooper.
  • Played seriously with Herb Tarlek who is shown to have a very serious drinking problem that almost destroys his family and career.
• On the 2015 season of Worst Cooks in America, contestant Sarah makes nearly orgasmic noises when informed that wine is an ingredient in a dish, and consumes at least as much of it as she uses in her dish.
• While he hasn't become a full blown alcoholic per se, Sam has started turning to alcohol in the second season of The Wrong Mans, being caught drinking on the job at least once. This is because his seemingly-recovering life was turned upside-down by an attempted car-bombing, forcing him to relocate to an area where he's not as popular and (try to) accept that his girlfriend thinks he's dead. Combined with the fact that Phil's suddenly become popular and his Mean Boss constantly abuses him, it's not hard to see why.

---