I Need a Freaking Drink

A drink to help you think!

"In victory, you deserve champagne; in defeat, you need it."

— Napoléon Bonaparte

Ever just have one of those days? Where things just go From Bad to Worse? Everything that could go wrong does go wrong? Does the entire universe have it in for you? Or have you just had enough of being the Only Sane Employee / Only Sane Person Surrounded by Idiots?

That's when you just say to yourself (or whoever happens to overhear)... "I need a freaking drink."

This comes in one of three flavors:

• Someone recites this phrase or a variant thereof; usually omitting the "freaking" or replacing it with something else.
• Someone reaches for the nearest alcoholic beverage, or if they are currently holding one, will down the rest of it in the blink of an eye.
• Someone discards the alcoholic beverage to grab one of greater volume and/or potency. Alternatively, they may pour a glass, pause, and then drink straight from the bottle.

While this is similar to Drowning My Sorrows, this is only a temporary solution. If the situation is especially bad, the drink can incite the same reaction as the Beergasm. Once they have the freaking drink, they're back on their feet with their head securely attached and ready to get back to business. Someone who needs a freaking drink will never have a Beard of Sorrow, either. If they need nicotine to go with their alcohol they may opt for a Cigarette of Anxiety.

Like with a Precision F-Strike for a character that rarely swears, seeing The Teetotaler or a likewise Straight Edge person engaging in this kind of behavior is a surefire sign that things have gotten really serious.

Contrast No More for Me and Liquid Courage. Also see Gigantic Gulp. Occasionally, the drink might be milk or tea for Brits.

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Examples:

Advertising

• After the exercise equipment company Peloton released an infamous ad, titled "The Gift That Gives Back", that seemed to imply that a woman's husband was forcing her to work out of dissatisfaction with her weight (and presenting this as heartwarming), Ryan Reynolds, co-owner of the liquor company Aviation Gin, responded with an ad of his own, "The Gift That Doesn't Give Back". In it, the actress who played the woman in the Peloton ad is seen at a bar with two of her friends getting plastered on gin, clearly trying to suppress her memory of the whole experience.

Anime & Manga

• Haida in Aggretsuko resorts to drinking during his roughest points. At one point in the Christmas Special, a bartender hands him a bottle of whisky and he downs half of it in less than thirty seconds.
• In Attack on Titan, there are few situations that warrant a drink more than being in the grip of a Titan. To emphasize the cruelty of the series, one guy who is in this situation finds a bottle of good wine and tries to have one last drink...but the bottle is empty.
• El-Hazard: The Magnificent World: From the OVA, Fujisawa-sensei has a moment like this when he realizes that he and his student Makoto aren't at Shininome High School anymore and scrambles for both a cigarette and a nip from his handy flask:
  Fujisawa-sensei: You saw him, too? I thought I had the DTs. I need a cigarette... Everything's fine, relax, stay cool... (takes a long drag) That's it, a drink! That'll calm my nerves. Where is it? Ahh... (sees empty flask) Ahh, gone! No drink?! I need a drink! I can't live without it!
  Makoto: Sensei...
  (woman heard screaming off-camera)
  Makoto: Hey!
  Fujisawa-sensei: Oh, shit! Someone else is out of alcohol!
• In The Familiar of Zero, Louise sees her familiar/servant/friend/love interest/(It's complicated!), Saito in a hot bath (heavily improvised, late at night, and out in school grounds) she angrily stormed off (all the while making herself even angrier by insisting to herself she had no reason to be angry) and grabbed a drink about to be ingested by another student. Through a long series of events (irrelevant to this example), the drink was spiked with a love potion (that also seriously altered her personality, apparently...) and only made the issue worse... for everyone.
• Hero Union BBS:
  • One thread is about a kogal (in this case, an airheaded one) and a samurai who are paired together and given guns in poor condition in order to fight the dark lord. In response to the duo's ignorant actions with the firearms, one hero, a serious assassin, finally breaks down and says, "Screw it, I'm drinking! I can't handle this!"
  • Oracle Hero was so fed up with the way his adventure was turning out that he made a rant thread titled, "I can't keep this up without drinking", got completely drunk, then spammed his thread so much that it crashed the entire board.
  • A Running Gag involving Shrine Maiden Princess has her claiming to need her "restoratives" whenever she gets sufficiently stressed out or bewildered by the contents of the current thread. If she does actually leave to get them, she will always return totally hammered.
• Non-alcoholic example in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War where Maki asked Ishigami for a full pot of herbal tea after being told by her unrequited crush, Tsubasa that Kashiwagi has gotten pregnant with his baby.
• Project Ako: Captain Napolipolita was such a nervous wreck her bottle ran dry before her spaceship arrived on Earth. The dub employs the trope without the F-word while the original Japanese had her screaming for sake. Her situation does not appear to improve much after her ship becomes stranded on Earth.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica: From the latter half of Episode 6, from Madoka's mom, when Madoka talks to her about her problems, and how it's harder to recover from mistakes as an adult:
  "It's always hard being a grown-up. That's what alcohol's for."
• This is Reika's response to the Zombie Apocalypse in Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, constantly getting drunk so she doesn't have to think about it. This leaves her addled and unable to defend herself when a Zombie Infectee approaches her, leading to her infection.

Card Games

• Magic: The Gathering gives us Fleeting Image. It starts out as No More for Me. But when the floating thing comes back, he decides trying to sober up didn't help.
  Horas swore off drinking, but after meeting the creature a second time he decided he'd better start again.

Comedy

• Dr. Conway (known as Uncle Kage) was talking about his woes with the "ABC" Security Company — then he slipped and said the company's real name (ADT). While he usually sips wine from a glass throughout his show, after that goof he chugged straight from the bottle, much to the amusement of the audience.
• Kathy Griffin's mother's reaction to hearing that Kathy would be going on a cruise with lesbians and their children: "I need a drink!" *click*

Comic Books

• The guidance counsellor in Archie Comics does this in response to the students' crazy personalities/aspirations. This being Archie of course, he goes to Generic Pepto-Bismol to deal with the stomach ulcers caused by the stress rather than alcohol. He's typically downing an entire bottle of the stuff by the end of one of his stories, if not by the middle.
• In Atomic Robo: The Shadow Beyond Time, this is Carl Sagan's response to encountering an Eldritch Abomination:
  Sagan: I require a stiff drink. Several of them, in fact. Enough to paralyze a cow.
• In the PSmIth arc of Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire, Der Rock the Destroyer ends up making a big order at the bar after getting Out-Gambitted by the hero.
  Der Rock: You. Get me a drink. Make it large, strong, to go and put it on Godot's tab.
• Firefly: The Sting: When Inara is faced with the task of seducing Logar, she mutters that she's going to need a glass of champagne, adding in her thoughts, "Or twelve. I prefer choosing my own clients, not being used as an accessory."
• The Flash: Captain Cold needs a damn beer.
• The Hellfire Gala: After reading Captain America's mind and discovering she reminds him of his mother, who was born at least a hundred years ago, Emma Frost has the appropriate response:
  Emma: I need a drink.
  Kate: You have one.
  Emma: I need another!
• Infinity Wars (2018): After saving Adam Warlock from (yet another) death, Dr. Strange feels the best reaction to seeing what it was they just saw is have a drink.
• Iron Man:
  • A great inversion of this during the original "Armor Wars" story arc: "Even though I've never wanted a drink more... I've never needed one less."
  • During Fear Itself, the Grey Gargoyle's slaughter of Paris forces him back into alcoholism, not helped by enabling dwarves and endless amounts of mead.
• Nextwave: "My robot brain needs beer."
• Red Sonja is frequently shown arriving in town, heading to the nearest bar, and drinking just to deal with the difficulties of getting to the town. She lands the trope line when she arrives in New York and starts wandering Harlem trying to figure out what a modern tavern looks like.
• Revival has a scene where Wayne and Ken converse in Ken's living room. Diane offers Wayne a beer, which he refuses. She violently demonstrates that she is a reviver and he accepts the drink.
• In The Simpsons Charlie and the Chocolate Parody, Krusty starts his promotional tour of his new merchandise factory (after initially forgetting about it and sleeping in) with a look at a cyborg monkey-run assembly line.
  Barney: Is there anything to drink?
  Krusty: You bet, and I'm going to need it after this death march.
• In Superman crossover Escape from the Phantom Zone, when Supergirl says she needs her help to break into a black ops facility, Batgirl decides she needs coffee to get through that conversation.
• Tintin:
  • Captain Haddock is like this all the time. Of course, he runs around with a danger-prone reporter who's probably wanted in several countries, so this is not surprising.
  • Tintin usually abstains, but even he ends up draining a bottle after he's sentenced to death by Firing Squad. He's completely puzzled when he wakes up the next day dressed as a colonel in the revolutionary government that has just seized power.
• Wonder Woman: Dead Earth: After bringing Diana to the Batcave and placing her in the healing pod, Bruce, already dying from radiation poisoning, sits for a drink on a couch overlooking the ruins of Gotham, the same couch his corpse is found on centuries later.
• X-Factor (2006): Theresa is a recovering alcoholic. Throughout the series, she is subjected to a great deal of stress and trauma including the death of her baby and finally gives into temptation after an encounter with the Morrigan. She is only stopped by the ghost of her dead father.
• In Young Justice Secret Origins 80-Page Giant, Arowette's story, "Shafted", ends with her guidance counselor recording that her advice inadvertently encouraged Cissie to continue being Arrowette to spite her mom, and she's unable to do anything about it without breaking confidentiality. She is holding a very large glass of wine.

Comic Strips

• Bloom County: A harried Opus is the new Bloom Picayune "Ombudsman." After frantically answering phone calls from irate subscribers, we find out why he's called that:
  Opus: SOMEBODY POUR ME A BUD!
• Calvin and Hobbes: Calvin's teacher Miss Wormwood has done this at least once. She also variously downs antiacid medicine, coffee, and large quantities of cigarettes. But with Calvin in front of her for several hours every day, who wouldn't...
  Calvin: Does her doctor know she mixes all those medicines?
• Liō: When Lio's dad sees his son running around with mutant toasts, he begins pouring booze into his #1 Dad coffee mug.

Fan Works

• A Boy, a Girl and a Dog: The Leithian Script:
  • Beren often expresses that need in the Halls of Mandos. The sheer weirdness and tragedy of his and his wife’s situation is too mind-screwing to cope without alcohol.
    Beren: [shaking his head] If I was alive I would say this needs a drink to make any sense out of.
  • Tulkas also needs a drinking after an argument with Orome:
    Orome: [shaking his head] What my sister sees in you I will never know.
    Tulkas: That's pretty good, actually. —I need a drink to clear my mind.
    Orome: You always need a drink, if that's the case.
• Advice and Trust:
  • Strypgia said that Ritsuko would need a whole bottle of vodka after seeing both Unit 01 and 02 awakening and going berserk given the implications of the fact.
  • In chapter 8 Asuka and Shinji carry out a plan to let Misato know they are together and get her to accept they are also sleeping together and they will not stop. Every step of that plan (involving Strip Chess, foot massages, and Shinji and Asuka swapping roles) invariably gets Misato craving for alcohol. Plenty of it.
    'I need a beer, right away...' Misato stumbled her way back to the kitchen.
    "Hey, Misato! We saved the world yesterday! Can we have a raise in our allowance?" Asuka called after her.
    'A lot of beer...'
• Afterglow (Unfaithful): Walker's in dire need of "a shower and a beer or five". He eventually starts drinking his way through the Damned's leftover booze.
• A Gem in the Rough: Zoro discovers that he is not old enough to legally drink in Beach City. This displeases him greatly.
  Priyanka Maheswaran: "In our...dimension...you need to be at least twenty-one to drink alcohol!"
  Roronoa Zoro: "...kill me...kill me slowly..."
• Amateur Theatrics: Agent Coulson leaves to get a drink after having to tell Fury about a spectacularly bad mission that ended with Steve depowered, Tony gender bent, Natasha and Bruce body switched, Loki amnesiac and a child, and Thor in a coma (Clint ends up being left in charge purely because he's the only one who hasn't had any crazy shit happen to him).
• Upon learning Dr. Tofu has a crush on her in Anything Goes Game Changer, Kasumi is first horrified (the man is over a decade her senior and was her childhood doctor) then grabs a bottle of her father's sake and swallows half of it in one gulp.
• Harry offers Amelia Bones some scotch in The Awakening of a Magus, after she sees Remus in human form during the full moon (Harry worked out a procedure to change the werewolf curse into wolf Animagus ability).
• In The Big Reveal, after finding out Colin Morgan has been replaced by his character Merlin in a Real-World Episode sort of thing, Anthony Head reaches for a bottle of wine. He then puts it back down, stating he needs something stronger.
• After The Reveal in Blizzard of the Red Castle, the seemingly straight-laced destroyer shipgirl Mutsuki reveals that she has an entire stash of imported whiskey.
• Boldores And Boomsticks:
  • Yang asks about a bar after seeing Team Rocket members blast off in complete defiance of physics. Ruby objects, saying that if she has to remember Yang does too.
  • Remnant's scientists who try to understand the Grimm frequently turn to alcohol.
• Bring Me All Your Elderly!: Both Zuko and his movie counterpart, Z-Patel, visit a bar for similar reasons: the former just found out he's a cartoon character, while the latter is coming to grips that he's a good actor stuck in a bad adaptation.
• Diplomatic Relations: Kankuro and Temari's reaction when they discover their younger brother Gaara making out with Rock Lee.
• Doing It Right This Time: Misato being Misato, this trope naturally comes up quite a lot:
  • After several instances of her pilots behaving oddly, Misato demands an explanation. Before explaining things, Asuka suggests her picking a beer first:
    Asuka smiled sadly. "Knew you'd figure it out sooner or later. You might wanna grab a beer for this."
  • As she is listening to their story about futures gone awfully wrong and Time Travel, Misato decides a beer is not enough:
    Misato tossed back the whiskey she'd poured herself after realising beer just wasn't going to cut it tonight.
  • And then the next day, when she finds out about Ritsuko and Maya's Relationship Upgrade:
    Misato suddenly wished she hadn't promised Shinji she'd stop drinking beer with her breakfast.
  • Later that chapter, even Gendo gets in on it after a confrontation with Misato:
    Once he was alone in his office again, Gendo opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a bottle of inexpensive bourbon. He had what he liked to consider highly refined tastes in liquor and didn't normally drink this sort of thing, but a man of highly refined tastes in liquor didn't waste the good stuff by slopping two fingers into a cheap plastic tumbler and tossing it back in one swallow just because he'd had an exhausting meeting.
    And this had been a very exhausting meeting.
  • And this list will only get longer.
• Dungeon Keeper Ami: Multiple, in two consecutive chapters:
  • From "Cleaning Up", Cathy needs one after learning Ami hired what are basically the most dangerous demon type available:
    "Fuck. I need another drink," Cathy said, and glanced over at the blue-haired girl. "Actually, so do you. Have some fun once in a while!"
  • From "Beryl's Plan": Ami, on thinking about her crush having a possible Incompatible Orientation with her:
    Could it be that he was gay? She needed another drink!
• Elisif the Dragon-Queen: Elisif's initial reaction to finding out that she's the Dragonborn is to run to her bedroom, pull out a bottle of brandy and a glass, fill up the glass, then give up on the glass and instead chug straight from the bottle.
• Empath: The Luckiest Smurf: Many of the adult Smurfs end up having Tapper's sarsaparilla ale instead of smurfberry wine after witnessing Smurfette marrying Papa Smurf in an alternate timeline. In the normal timeline story "Papa's Big Crush", Duncan McSmurf goes with Tapper to the tavern for a drink to get the thoughts of Smurfette with Papa Smurf out of his mind.
• Ere we go, Pluz Ultra!: Izuku's ability to completely break the laws of physics with ordinary objects^note He made a subspace pocket out of a bicycle light quickly drives Powerloader to drink heavily.
• Eternity: The reason for Jun'you's heavy drinking habit is that she was one of the very few who fought Enterprise and lived to tell about it. For reference, When Enterprise, now Yonaga after serving Japan for decades, looks at the mirror and sees her Pacific War-self, she sees herself as a Wo-Class. Thankfully, the years after the War greatly mellowed her out.
• Eyes on Me: In I'll Follow You Into the Dark, Bitsy has Helen fetch her some sangria after being informed of Whitney's death.
• Fate/Harem Antics: Kirei Kotomine drinks when he fails to steal Bazett's Servant, and again when he is forced to team up with his estranged daughter Caren, who endlessly trolls him.
• Fates Collide:
  • Gilgamesh is ordered to fight Bazett Fraga McRemitz and he most likely loses. He comforts himself with wine. Nero Claudius and Weiss Schnee join him and share the wine, and Weiss impresses him with her knowledge of alcoholic beverages.
  • Zhuge Liang decides he should go drinking due to being stressed out by his job as Headmaster of Chaldea Academy.
• In Guardians, Wizards, and Kung-Fu Fighters, Nimue spends her brief appearance in Chapter 19 nursing a bottle of wine, to comfort herself over the failure of her plan during the subway fight which concluded in the previous chapter.
• Harry Potter fanfics:
  • Harry Potter and the Descent into Darkness: Snape, after he learns that Harry is a Dark Wizard and allied with Voldemort.
  • Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: Professor McGonagall goes into the bar for a drink after a long day of taking Harry shopping for school supplies. This is perfectly justified.
  • Minima Maxima Sunt: OC Jenny Anderson's reaction to her adopted stray dog turning into Sirius Black was "I need a drink, want one? I've got whiskey and brandy and wine..."
  • In The Lone Traveler, various iterations of Minerva McGonagall usually need a drink to make her brain stop hurting after one of the Traveler's schemes has come to light.
  • Raptor: Hermione starts habitually drinking and almost becomes an alcoholic after finally learning Harry's familiars are velociraptors.
  • The Sleeper Awakes: This is Percy Weasley's reaction to discovering that the Ministry is corrupt, Umbridge is persecuting innocent people, and Voldemort has the new Minister of Magic under the Imperius curse. Alberforth lets him get completely smashed because he knows that if Percy's incredibly drunk, the death eaters in the bar will overlook the anti-Ministry rant Percy goes on.
  • In Chapter 4 of Brutal Harry, Dumbledore, of all people, does this, pouring himself a shot of whiskey and chugging it down in an instant after he's informed exactly how badly Harry was abused at the Dursley's, which has resulted in a borderline sociopathic, justifiably pissed off and magically powerful child (reminiscent of Voldemort in fact), with all that rage directed at him and nearly every other authority figure. He also is considering how he's essentially allowed all of his students to suffer under Snape and other bullies at his school due to his inattentiveness.
  • In chapter 24 of Harry Potter And The Rune Stone Path, Victor Krum wants either alcohol or an "Obliviate" spell after seeing a morbidly obese version of himself covered in dirt and smears of food and condiments.
  • It's Always The Quiet Ones: After the Cthulhu incident is safely past, Professor Flitwick considers assigning a three-foot-long essay on why Great Old Ones shouldn't be summoned at dinnertime, or at any time ever, but instead goes out and gets very drunk.
• Higher Learning: When Misato realizes her wards Shinji and Asuka have just had sex her immediate reaction is to reach for a beer and pray to the gods of birth control.

• A Man of Iron has a couple of examples:
  • Tywin Lannister is so overwhelmed by the incredibly poor circumstances that his children and grandson's actions have put the family in by the end of the first book, he starts downing wine in large capacities. Tyrion is seriously freaked out by seeing this.
  • Tyrion himself gets a moment of this when he arrives in King's Landing in A Crack of Thunder. He's so overwhelmed by the sheer stupidity of the Small Council just accepting Sansa Stark "miraculously" coming Back from the Dead and justifying it with some half-assed excuses, that he just grabs a wine bottle and starts guzzling straight from it.
  • Stannis' reaction to seeing Thor fly later in A Crack of Thunder is to drain a tankard of ale with such gusto that it's noted Robert is probably looking down on him from the Seven Heavens with pride.
• Small colorful horses have a way of driving those around them to drink. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic includes two examples in the show and a lot in its fan works, including, among many others:
  • In The Ballad of Twilight Sparkle, Twilight Sparkle has this reaction to a movie studio's legal team trying to intimidate her into signing over the rights to her likeness for a movie the Great and Powerful Trixie is making. It probably didn't help that Twilight had thoroughly embarrassed herself in front of Trixie several times earlier in the fic.
  • Once Bitten, Twice Shy gave this reaction to Fluttershy of all ponies on a disastrous not-date with Twilight Sparkle. After one setback, Rarity gives her a glass of wine to help get her confidence up. Following a particularly stressful incident, Fluttershy drains most of the wine bottle and has to be magically sobered up before she's able to stand, let alone go back into the restaurant.
  • Ditzy Doo's Dismally Derpy Day : Big Macintosh says that if Ditzy were to die, "Ah might just have to break my own rule against Gran'pappy Moonshine's blastin' hooch. Don't think there's nothing else that could dull that hurt."
  • Windfall sees Nurse Redheart requiring a long pull of Granny Smith's "special" cider after having to deal with an outburst from mother-to-be Fluttershy, which according to Word of God included a dose of "The Stare".
  • Earth and Sky:
    • Diamond Tiara, when Professor Destiny blows her plan to tie up the Harmony Harness in a duel over patent rights by instead staking the royal charter on a race, grabs a glass of champagne and chugs it.
    • When Shining Armor realizes he has to tell Princess Celestia that the Flim-Flam brothers have escaped again and turned one of her officers into a giant grape, he pulls out a bottle of liquor and a shot glass. Then he puts away the glass and chugs the bottle.
  • Duel Nature: Luna's revelation that the theories he's developed over fifteen years of study are completely wrong, that he's misidentified an artifact of world-shaking power as an ashtray, and that the ancient religious document he's spent the last month trying to decipher is actually an ancient takeout menu prompt Buried Secrets to start taking pulls from a hip flask in the middle of the afternoon.
  • A Brief History of Equestria: According to one biographer, when Puddinghead finally won the chancellorship, her father responded by drinking heavily for almost a week.
  • Rarity and the protagonist constantly do this after their dealings with Cashmere in Sophistication and Betrayal. At one point Cashmere even offers them a drink for that very purpose.
  • Fluttershy and Princess Luna, at two different points, find themselves in need of alcohol in The Model Caretaker. Fluttershy steals Fleur de Lis' glass of red wine after Fleur kisses her and asks her out (though this is pretty much the culmination of a somewhat stressful Coming-Out Story on Fluttershy's part), and Luna asks for one after finding out just how badly managed Ponyville's disaster planning is.
  • Reading Rainbowverse:
    • Big Mac is reading Sonichu. His reaction is understandable.
    • Fluttershy also has this reaction when two of her co-judges spend their time arguing with each other rather then focusing on the Battle of the Pans.
  • And one semi-meta example. The Infinite Loops sometimes does this to Loopers who end up in some strange variant or other universe, but only Equestria has a bar specifically for visiting loopers to do this, run by Big Mac and/or Berry Punch. On one occasion, Sleipnir, the admin for the Equestrian loops, joins in after having to personally rescue Twilight from a particularly horrifying loop.
  • The Great Alicorn Hunt: After her short arc in Neigh Orleans — which included, among other things, being literally dragged through the bayou by her own magic — Rarity decides to get "smashed off [her] plot" (her words) once back on her airship. Fortunately, her servants eventually switch out the champagne in her mimosas for ginger ale, keeping her from doing too much damage.
  • Romance and the Fate of Equestria uses this constantly, starting in the very first chapter and remaining as a Running Gag throughout the story, sometimes Played for Drama. Fluttershy's relationship with Big Macintosh tends to be a source of these moments, from Applejack discovering he's a Chick Magnet, to Fluttershy calming her nerves on her first date with him, to Pinkie, Rarity, and Applejack taking shots of what turns out to be raspberry vinaigrette as more and more bombshells about a Love Triangle are dropped.
  • The Elements of Harmony and the Savior of Worlds: When Tirac's forces attack Ponyville, the Mayor's reaction is to get hammered, forcing Twilight to take over organizing the town's defenses.
  • Cultural Differences: Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy decide to get out some booze and vodka after learning that not only does Zephyr Breeze have a fillyfriend, she wants him to get a herd license to "spice things up."
  • In Chrysalis Visits The Hague, Judge Mullan advises the lawyer Estermann to fill Queen Chrysalis (his client) up with vermouth before breaking to her that in her absence, the Equestrian forces have begun closing in on her hive. Estermann mentions that, on top of being a queen, she's a mother to her hive too. Mullan concedes, and advises poitín instead.
  • A non-alcoholic example in Manehattan's Lone Guardian. After Leviathan discovers that she's somehow been transported to a land of colorful and civilized ponies, she expresses envy of humanity for their ability to drink and wishes that she had some tea for the sake of de-stressing.
• Nerve Damage: This is Jordan Lionstone's reactions towards who his servants are, and his servant Archer's reaction towards him.
• Once More with Feeling:
  • A hilarious version. Shinji, on a whim, reveals the whole bit about "I'm a time traveler who's trying to change the past to atone for my mistakes"... to Pen Pen. The bird's response?
    (PenPen) stared at his back for several long, long seconds before continuing into the kitchen, retrieving a can from Misato's stash, stopping in consideration, retrieving a second, and retreating into his fridge.
    "Yeah" Shinji muttered as he stacked the plates in the dishwasher. "That's about what I thought you'd say".
  • Played straight with Kaji, who admits he needed several hours of hard drinking after getting proof of Shinji's claims of time-travel.
• Only a Wisp of Smoke'': Poppy gets high on morphling after realizing that she's going back into the Games. Granted, she often gets high on morphling, but that time is preceded by a screaming fit.
• The Palaververse: "Part 19 of the Palaververse: The World Beyond the Mirror" is about the creation and first use of a magical mirror for travelling between worlds by walking into it, and starts with Meadowbrook getting drunk to deal with the effort it took to find the info to make that mirror:
  This happily didn’t interfere with my own designs at all, which were to sequester myself away in my own room with several bottles of liquor, some light licentious fiction, and other such objects that could help soothe my new intake of mental and emotional scars whilst waiting for whatever patches of my hide had proven all-too flammable to grow back.
• Past Continuous: Eleya needs one, and offers one to Berat as an apology, after she mouths off to him. She also quotes a Bajoran poet as having said "spring wine is the Prophets' way of showing us they love us."
• Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: It happens as a Running Gag, usually with the villains.
  • Giovanni gets a strong craving for alcohol when he realizes the future of Team Rocket is in the hands of Jessie, James and Meowth.
  • Hunter J goes straight for her liquor cabinet as soon as she finishes her assignment from the Bloodline King.
  • Professor Oak says he doesn't have the time or the alcohol to recount the story of how he found out Ash was a bloodliner.
  • A sailor named Scouse had to fill in as a waiter at a political dinner, and got himself very drunk to cope with the "exposure to so much concentrated hypocrisy", as one of his coworkers puts it.
  • Tobias gets a strong craving for whiskey when he realizes during his inter-dimensional travels, he has created Christmas.
• Queen of the Swarm: In Spawn 1.05 Taylor tells her father about her fight against powerful super-villain Lung and her latest meeting with Emma (in which she learnt that her ex-friend bullied her because she was in fact psychologically ill). After hearing her daughter's tale, Danny decides that he needs alcohol, pronto.
  Dad had gotten home just as I bade goodbye to the Barneses and I now had two long stories to tell him. By the end of the discussion, he needed some booze and I needed to relax.
• Rise of the Minisukas: After hearing Misato's plan to destroy Ramiel by hijacking Japan's entire power supply, Ritsuko wonders "if Ooi still had that bottle of vodka hidden away at her station."
• Ripples ends with Will/Van asking for a bottle of wine to be opened when she hears that Caleb is being chased, leading to the beginning of the Guardians' adventures in Meridian.
• Robb Returns:
  • This is the reaction of Rodrik Harlaw, his new wife Alys and Asha Greyjoy after they find out what the High Harlaw runes state.
  • This is also several characters' reaction to finding out about the canon future Robb was sent back from.
• In Role-Playing (Evangelion), Misato decides she nees a beer NOW when she happens upon Shinji and Asuka disguised as Nerv's commanders.
• Saying I Will, a Bleach fanfic, features this in the final major arc of the story: Byakuya drinks a 1000-year old Sake after finding out that Ichigo is the deceased Soul King's nephew and is next in line for the throne. Made worse by the fact his reaction is all recorded on tape.
• Shinji The Casanova: After seeing Shinji singing and dancing down the hall, wearing socks, a long white shirt and sunglasses, Misato decides she and Asuka need a beer.
  It was dead silent in the apartment once again. Misato silently got up, walked to the fridge and grabbed herself a beer. Without asking, she grabbed one for Asuka as well. Both of them downed their respective beers, cringed at the taste, then continued to stare at the wall.
• Six Days the Animorphs Were Idiots: When her date with Visser Three goes to hell — first his DNA allergy causes him to lose control of his morphing, and then the Animorphs show up — Visser One downs an entire bottle of wine.
• Strange Times Are Upon Us: Brokosh's reaction to finding out he's in a Stable Time Loop is to ask if the tavern Ba'wov and K'Gan visited in the previous scene is still open.
• Super Therapy!: In the episode "Avengers Therapy!", Dr. Lynn Matthews ends up taking a swig from Tony Stark's flask at the end of a session spent trying to convince Iron Man, Captain America and Thor to lay off the drinking.
• The Morning After: Odin asks for more wine after waking up from a coma when he finds out Loki has been in charge and has made several changes to Asgard, including instituting a parliamentary democracy, writing a constitution, setting up an electrical grid, and establishing banks (and bank holidays to go with them).
• Alot of this going on in Chapter 11 of Temporal Anomaly:
  • Cent and Two share a bottle of red wine outside of the after party of the latter's wedding.
  • After discussing various affairs with a group of nobels, One drinks directly from a wine bottle to deal with the headache that came from the conversation.
  • Zero herself is drinking from a bottle of ale, even offering some to Sougo. He politely declines, stating that he has had his fill of red wine.
• This Bites!:
  • Cross and Nami get this sentiment when Luffy, Masira and Shoujou start singing in Chapter 27.
  • Wiper gets this sentiment when he finds himself the Only Sane Man in a Straw Hat party.
  • Smoker, Hina, Tashigi and a visiting Captain T-Bone get this sentiment when Su joins Soundbite on Cross's SBS in Chapter 29.
  • Mr. 5 gets this when they realize Su has joined Soundbite full-time on the SBS.
  • Foxy shares a cask of rum with Apoo as he tells him exactly what kind of insanity he's getting into.
• This Was Easier on the Tabletop: After the Battle of New Avalon (his first direct experience of combat), John leaves the award ceremony for the cadets and he heads into city looking for a dive-bar.
• Through a Diamond Sky: As Flynn's working on escaping his captors, he remarks to himself that he needs a nap, a cold beer, and a long talk with his wife; not necessarily in that order.
• Unity (pink_shoes): Perceptor's response to Ratchet and Wheeljack descending into an argument is to down two cubes of high-grade energon he was saving for an emergency.
• Whispers: The mere mention of his brothers is enough to get Arcanus drinking wine despite asserting earlier in that scene that he has no taste for it.
• White Devil of the Moon: In an omake, Makoto suggests this when the whole war with the Dark Kingdom ended because Nanoha (in this fanfic the reincarnated Princess Serenity) admitted she was a lesbian and Beryl took that as a chance to go chase Mamoru instead of trying to kill everyone.
• In the Sailor Moon fanfic With Sprinkles, Setsuna/Sailor Pluto goes to the other senshi to both announce that the Great Freeze is no longer set in stone and find out if they know what caused the change. When she finds out they attacked a Planeswalker, she promptly starts chugging a bottle of whiskey. When Haruka learns just how quickly a Planeswalker gains power (gaining new mana in a few seconds, as opposed to the Senshi getting one more each decade), she follows Setsuna's example.
• With Strings Attached: Said by George (without the “freaking” part) after John reveals his wings to him. The four then proceed to a bar and get trashed (except for John, who can't any more).
• In when they built you, brother, they broke the mould, Catelyn Stark and Theon Greyjoy decide they need a drink or ten when Robb reveals Jon Snow is actually Lyanna's son by Prince Rhaegar.
• Who Silenced Elly Patterson: Anthony, who was supposed to be the designated driver, invoked this and said they can hire a cab instead when he figured out his father was arrested because he murdered his mother.
• You're Cute When You're Happy: England states that he needs alcohol when he finds out America didn't realize they had been in a real relationship when they were sleeping together (which they had been doing for over sixty years).
• Child of the Storm: This is Rhodey's usual response to the bizarreness that is his life. Since he's the Only Sane Man in an utterly bizarre universe, one that saves a particular serving of weird for him, it's also kinda justified (as well as being a Running Gag).
• In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Jor-El asks K.E.L.E.X. for a drink to dull his frustration over the Kryptonian Science Council's inability to accept evidence that Krypton is going to be destroyed.
• In My Huntsman Academia, Glynda of all people pulls out a bottle of Mistral Brandy to relax while trying to help Toshinori get accredited. She can toss back entire glasses in a single gulp and claims to have drunk Qrow under the table.
• Earth's Alien History:
  • Within ten minutes of arriving on the Enterprise for the first time, Kirk heads to his ready room to break open a bottle of brandy, after seeing Scotty try to dismantle Yoko's buddyroid For Science!.
  • The Terran Treaty Organization and Shield Alliance ambassadors to the Deltan Union retreat to a bar together after the Deltans decide to join the Pact of the Raptor instead of either of their respective blocs.
• Infinity Crisis: Hearing of the mass disappearances, Mick says he needs a beer and Nate remarks that for once, he's speaking for all of them.
  • In the side one-shot Detective Work, when Juan Sanchez-Villalobos Ramirez from the Highlander films finds himself in Earth-8107's Binghamton after his sacrifice in Highlander II, he states he could use a drink...before falling over because he's standing in the field of an ice rink.
• While dealing with Motoyasu's drunken boasting in Ambition of the Red Princess, two of his companions have obviously fixed smiles on their faces while the third is chugging her beer as fast as she can.
• RWBY: Epic of Remnant: Lancelot goes to Junior's club and orders as much alcohol as he can to try to forget all the craziness of his new circumstances. Unfortunately for him, he finds he can't get drunk.
• Zelda pours gin into her cup of tea in A Tale of Two Rulers after her fiancee Ganondorf breaks open her door, soaking wet, wanting to ground their daughter Rinku because Rinku pushed Ganondorf into a lake.
• In Foxy Lady, after Joyce gives tacit permission for an alternate Buffy (named Beth) to have sex with Xander, Buffy demands to know if she's drunk, to which Joyce replies that she's "working on it".
• Downplayed In King of Thrones where Tywin is thankful he does not keep wine in his solar while reading a letter from Cersei filled with nothing but complaints and orders.
• With this Ring... (Green Lantern): Carl Ferris isn't a drinking man. After his daughter Carol has gone missing again together with Hal Jordan, he wishes he was.
  Carl Ferris wished he was a drinking man at times like these. Sometimes, so did his wife, Yvonne.
• The Darwin Chronicles: In "You Heard It Here First", Logan needs a beer when Jubilee tells him he could have avoided to walk right in on Scott and Jean having sex on the garden if he had just listened to her.
  "And here I am trying to fill you in, and you totally get growly and blow me off, and that's why you didn't know that Scott and Jean are on this whole nature kick lately and you really can't go near the flowerbeds lately without making tons of noise to warn them, unless you wanna walk right in on them, like, dude, almost on top of them, and that's why you're all pissed off and ready to claw your own eyes out, but y'know, if you did that, they'd probably grow right back, right? How cool."
  "Kid," Logan said, slumping into a kitchen chair, "I dunno where you're going with this, but I got a feeling I can't get through this without beer."
  "Dude, I like, totally feel your pain, y'know?" Jubilee said, pulling a stool up to the kitchen table. "And not just because Dr. Grey's all, 'Oh, I was just checking him for ticks!' explanation is, like, enough to make anyone heave. You think you're all pissy? Dude, I bet they're worse. And they write up our midterms! So you totally know that in bio and calculus we're all gonna be paying big time for this, whattayacallit, carpe interruptus."
  "Oh, for fuck's sake," Logan muttered, hauling a second six pack out of the refrigerator.
• In Halloween Unspectacular: The Final Push, after hearing Cochrane's plan to take out the enemy fleet's biggest ship — which involves packing his own ship with barrels of gunpowder and ramming — Athena takes his discarded wine glass and downs the contents.
• In The SuperStarr Chronicles, Irene Adler goes straight for the bottle of Jack Daniel's when she gets a vision that Clara Creed has returned to Earth.
• In the Bleach fic To Undo it All, Toshiro demands some sake after a series of world-upending revelations from Ichigo.
• Hero Chat: Subverted. When a couple teachers discover that several of their students are superheroes, throwing themselves into danger on a regular basis, they want alcohol. But one of them points out that drinking heavily every time there's an akuma is a fast track to alcoholism, so they eat ice cream instead.
• A Flower's Touch:
  • Aerith's therapist, who in this case is Jessie's mother, upon hearing how her daughter met her fate in the original timeline, getting crushed under the Sector 7 plate, shuts down their session and goes to hit a bar.
  • Sephiroth, after listening to his recordings of Aerith's therapy and hearing how the One-Winged Angel kept returning and wearing down AVALANCHE until he beat them, finds the hardest liquor he has, lamenting that his Mako enhancements don't allow him feel more than a slight burn down his throat.
• Underneath the Sakura Tree: Before Yoshi and Tang Shen's sons were conceived, Yoshi would sometimes help himself to red wine when his daughter's death and clan's collapse start to get to him.
• Subverted in Infinity Train: Knight of the Orange Lily; after everything that The Fog Car gave everyone, up to and including, torture, pain, and very very hard looks at themselves, Gladion is depressed that he's not old enough to drink (he's 14).
• The Wedding Crashers: Dean breaks out a flask of whiskey and offers some to both Sam and Claire during the ceremony when the newlyweds and the bride's parents are making the most obnoxious, sappy, pretentious, ego-stroking vows and speeches anyone could possibly make. He also makes more than a few stops at the complementary champagne fountain for similar reasons.

Films — Animation

• In Fun and Fancy Free, Jiminy Cricket, of all people, on hearing Edgar Bergen's description of the giant, declares, "That calls for a drink!". He promptly drains an entire cocktail glass through a straw, then hiccups.
• In Ralph Breaks the Internet, Felix orders his first ever root beer from Tapper's after adopting the Sugar Rush racers when their game was unplugged. Woefully unprepared for managing fifteen hyperactive and chaotic children left him the most stressed he'd ever been in his life.
• In The Simpsons Movie, as the dome is being lowered on Springfield, congregants of the local church see it and run into Moe's Tavern. Meanwhile, those in Moe's Tavern run into the church.

Films — Live-Action

• Parodied in Airplane! by Lloyd Bridges' character, Steve McCroskey, complaining "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinking/smoking/amphetamines/sniffing glue" and then being shown indulging in the indicated substance immediately after.
  • Also, one of the excess emergency vehicles to show up at the end is a beer truck.
• A subtle version happens in Babylon A.D.. During a bonding session with the two women on his Live-Action Escort Mission, mercenary Toorop offers Sister Rebeka a Quick Nip from his hip flask. She refuses despite his kidding her over it. Suddenly Aurora says, "We're all going to die in New York". Sister Rebeka says, "She's just scared" then drinks from the flask.
  Toorop: Yeah, right.
• The Back to the Future trilogy:
  • The first film: This seems to be Marty's reaction to... "parking" with Lorraine, his future mother. Remembering that she's an alcoholic in the future, Marty confiscates the liquor that she's stolen, but then takes a swig of it himself.^note This COULD be Foreshadowing of his inferiority complex/"chicken problem" in the sequels, because this is right after Lorraine has called him a "square" for not wanting her to drink. He then sprays it everywhere after he sees her lighting up a cigarette.
  • In Back to the Future Part III, Doc heads to a bar after Clara dumps him, not believing his story about being a time traveler. Notably, Doc doesn't actually drink until the early morning... and as soon as he downs one shot, he collapses.
• Battle Beyond the Stars. Cowboy shows off his Utility Belt that dispenses Scotch, soda and ice; identifying to the girl he's with that he's drinking a Scotch and soda. Later, upon realizing that he can't flee because Sador's spaceship is already too close for a ship to leave the planet undetected, he pours straight Scotch.
  Lux: You forgot the soda and ice.
  Cowboy: No. No I didn't.
• Benny & Joon: Shortly after meeting Cloudcuckoolander Sam for the first time, Benny mutters "I need a beer."
• Done in the Robin Williams/Nathan Lane comedy The Birdcage. After Armand learns his son, Val, is getting married, Armand downs an entire glass of white wine, then goes to get even more. When the dinner with Val's conservative in-laws-to-be starts going off the rails Armand and Val both sneak into the kitchen and start drinking Scotch straight from the bottle.
• Subverted in Blood Brothers (2007). Mark, a professional assassin, survives a shootout, wakes up, and the first thing he asks for is a bottle of wine. He takes a swig... and pours the rest on his bullet in jury.
• Bridget Jones' Diary: When Bridget screws up her cooking, she takes a swig from a bottle of some alcohol.
• In Casino Royale (2006), Bond after his initial loss to Le Chiffre in the Poker tournament
  Bond: Vodka Martini.
  Bartender: Shaken or stirred?
  Bond: Do I look like I give a damn?
  • Bond also pours himself a stiff drink after killing Obanno in a brawl. When he returns to suite after finishing the poker game for the night he finds a broken wine glass indicating that Vesper Lynd, who witnessed the whole thing, apparently tried to do this before taking her Shower of Angst instead.
• In Clue, as the guests try to determine how Mr. Boddy died when it seems like he wasn't murdered, Mrs. Peacock shouts "Oh, I need a drink!" and helps herself to some brandy. But while drinking, Professor Plum theorizes "Maybe he was poisoned!", making Mrs. Peacock throw the glass on the ground and scream her head off.
• The Con is On: The Alcoholic Peter first says this when his wife Harry tells him they are going to Sidney for help. His says variations of it everytime something goes wrong during The Caper; usually followed by him heading for the nearest alcohol and drinking straight from the bottle. harry herself says it when things go especially off the rails.
• Constantine (2005): John Constantine has had a pretty rotten day. Between a bad exorcism, getting the long face from his doctor, hearing from Gabriel that he's damned no matter what he does, Midnite turning down his plea to use the Chair, and John himself hacking up blood, it's small wonder he busts out the Ardbeg when he gets home.
• In The Crossing, an Irish innkeeper and spy for the Continentals has somehow procured a bottle of Madeira wine, and declines to share a glass with Washington because it's a gift. Then Washington shares The Plan to attack the Hessians at Trenton. The innkeeper immediately changes his mind about that glass.
• Dark Night of the Scarecrow: When Otis is starting to crack up at the Halloween party, he goes to the refreshment table. The woman remembers that he doesn't drink and gives him a glass of non-alcoholic punch. Otis takes a sip, then puts the glass aside and helps himself to a glass of the alcoholic punch.
• Day of the Dead (1985): "Well if we stay down here long enough, I'll have to lay off the fuckin' booze, Steel, 'cause there won't fuckin' be any of it fuckin' left! In the meanwhile I will continue to indulge myself and I will continue doing my best in the good fight against dry-rot and rust."
• Deep Impact: Jenny Lerner downs an entire martini in one go while meeting with her father and stepmother. They assume it's because she's uncomfortable with their relationship. It's actually because she just learned that the government is covering up the fact that a comet is headed to Earth which, if it hits, will wipe out all life on the planet.
• Destroyer (1988): After chewing out the director and quitting the movie, Sharon Fox decides to have some shots.
• Comes up in Dogma, after the Metatron admits that God is missing and no one seems to know how to stop Bartleby and Loki from ending existence.
  The Metatron: Well I say we all get drunk, because I'm out of ideas!
• Near the end of Don't Look Up, this is how Bree Evantee and her co-host Jack Bremmer spend the last moments of life on Earth as the comet makes its final descent: getting absolutely plastered with what looks like every known alcoholic beverage, and swapping celebrity gossip.
• Down Periscope: Zig-zagged. After Dodge gives the command to push Stingray's old clapped-out diesel engines well beyond redline for an extended period of time, the chief engineer pulls out a bottle of whisky and pours a shot for himself and the engineer's mate. He then dumps the rest of the bottle into the fuel line, stating that upping the proportion of ethanol to diesel in the fuel will let him squeeze another 50 RPM out of the engine.
• The Fallout: ​Near the end of the film Vada unloads the fact that she has been drinking, doing drugs, and having sex with a girl all at once on her mother. Patricia's response is to down a glass of wine and then going to have a more in-depth conversation with her daughter.
• Fitzwilly: When Juliet tells Fitzwilly that she let their boss give away $50,000 that the household can't afford to lose, they both sit down and down glasses of wine.
• Frankenstein Created Woman: After hearing Hans's voice calling to him in the street, Anton dashes into the cafe, grabs Karl's drink (over Karl's objections) and drains it in a single draught.
• From Hell: One of the prostitutes says as much and goes out to buy some hooch. Bad idea with Jack The Ripper on the prowl.
• Galaxy Quest: "Where are you going?" "To see if there's a pub!"
• In Gattaca, Jerome says to Vincent that they "must get drunk immediately".
• GoldenEye: When General Ourumov finds himself being chased through St Petersburg by James Bond in a tank, he pulls out a flask and starts draining it.
• In The Godfather, after Sonny Corleone's death, Tom Hagen needs a drink to steady himself before he can break the news to the Don. Before he tells Vito (who can tell from Tom's actions that the news is going to be really bad), he hands him a shot as well.
• Early on in Gran Torino (Eastwood again), Walt offers the young Father Janovich a beer — to Walt's disapproval, Janovich opts for a gin and Diet Coke. Later, when Walt is embroiled in a war with the gang that's been terrorizing his neighbors, he makes the offer again. This time, Janovich says "I'd love one".
• Variation in Hellboy II: The Golden Army. "You're in love. Have a beer."
• The Holiday: After Miles catches his girlfriend with another man, Iris offers him a cup of tea to console him. When he asks her for "something a litle stronger" she takes the teacup away and hands him a glass of alcohol.
• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: Katniss Everdeen, once she finds out she'll be headed for another Hunger Games in the Quarter Quell. She specifically seeks out booze from Haymitch, who's alcoholism is all but explicitly stated to be caused by his own trauma from being in the games.
• Ice Cold in Alex: Captain Anson struggles with alcoholism throughout, but after his drunkenness leads to one of the party getting killed by German soldiers, he swears off alcohol altogether until they reach their destination in Alexandria. The fabled "ice-cold lager in Alex'" becomes part of the driving force keeping him and the crew going through all their struggles. The scene when they finally reach their reward is perhaps the most iconic need-a-drink (and damn well deserving it) moments in cinema history.
• The Indian in the Cupboard had the cowboy character stumble hungover out of the titular magic cupboard, unaware that he'd been transported through time and space (and size). After swearing to lay off the hooch several times in a row, he realizes that he's surrounded by giants, and proclaims, "Oh my dear sweet Lord. I need me a drink."
• This is Ernie's reaction in It's a Wonderful Life after seeing Clarence escaping Bert's grasp by disappearing into thin air.
• In Kingsman: The Secret Service, one of Eggsy’s first acts upon witnessing Harry’s death is to rush to the nearest source of liquor, pour himself a generous amount, and gulp down a swallow.
• The Last Leprechaun: Henry sees his fiancee covered in mud and hears his kids accuse her of being a witch. When she offers him a drink, he gladly takes it.
• In The Little Shop of Horrors, Mr. Mushnik returns late to the shop to get some money to pay his restaurant bill and sees Seymour feeding body parts to the plant. He instantly dashes back to the restaurant and demands alcohol—any kind they've got, as long as he gets drunk.
• In Lucy, after being kidnapped and waking up to find she has a bag of drugs sewn in her stomach and is expected to serve as a mule for a crime ring, Lucy gulps down a drink she's offered.
• One of the Americans in The Mummy, while hiding from Imhotep (ineffectively; it's Imhotep) tells his friend to bring him "a glass of bourbon. And a shot of bourbon. And a bourbon chaser!"
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • In Thor, Coulson lets Selvig take Thor back to town with the admonition to "keep him away from the bars." Where does Selvig immediately take Thor? "To get a drink!"
  • In The Avengers, after his army is destroyed and he gets hilariously stomped by the Hulk, Loki admits to the Avengers that, if it's okay with them, he'll have the drink Tony offered him earlier.
  • In Black Widow (2021) Natasha and Yelena both reach for the vodka when their adoptive parents Alexei and Melina start shamelessly flirting in front of them.
• In Molly's Game, when Molly's lawyer Charlie tells her they're going to talk about the Russian mob, and asks if she'd like a drink of water, Molly replied, "I'd like a drink of bourbon." Of course, she was an alcoholic, so she couldn't drink.
• Most Likely to Murder (2018): When Billy finds out that his ex Kara is now dating the former unpopular kid Lowell, he says, "I'm gonna need a lot of drinks."
• In My Favorite Martian, while watching Martin try to fix their ship so they can get back home, Zoot's nerves get to him so he pours himself a glass of Downy. When Martin discovers the ship has an I.S.S^note Interstellar Safety System, Zoot drops the glass and guzzles the detergent right from the bottle.
• In My Man Godfrey, during a typical evening at home, Mr. Bullock takes a whole tray of martinis & asks Godfrey to repeat the order in 30 minutes.
• The Naked City: Pete Backalis, one of the killers, is conscience-stricken after the murder. He gets good and drunk and says "I'm gonna stay drunk for a long time." He's wrong about that, as his partner, later revealed to be Willie Garzah, promptly murders him.
• In 9 to 5, all three leading ladies — Violet Newstead, Doralee Rhodes, and Judy Bernley — decide to leave work and head for Charlie's for a drink when faced with their individual work crises (Violet being passed over for a promotion, Doralee's advertised "affair with the boss", and Judy witnessing one of the co-workers being fired over a private discussion of wage differences). And at each of their departures, Margaret the alcoholic secretary simply says "Atta girl!"
• Orphan: First Kill: Leena swigs down vodka after a tense first meeting with Tricia on a private plane as she chastises herself for saying how exicted she'll be to see Esther's grandmother but Tricia informs her that she's dead.
• In Paint Your Wagon Clint Eastwood's character, who doesn't usually drink, needs a drink really badly after Jean Seberg's character reveals to him and Lee Marvin's character that she loves both Eastwood AND Marvin and wants to live with both of them.
• Parenthood:
  • When Julie offhandedly announces she's pregnant, one of the first things Helen does is head for the liquor cabinet.
  • A variation—when Susan tries to plan a romantic getaway with Nathan, only for him to immediately begin planning to bring Patty along so she can start learning Spanish, she rushes into her bedroom. There, it's revealed that she's stashed candy, snack cakes, and other sweets in her closet, and indulges in them whenever she gets stressed.
• The Patriot. After getting thoroughly chewed out by his superior, Col. Tavington watches a ship full of munitions, supplies and General Cornwallis' good clothes get blown to splinters by Benjamin Martin's militia. This takes place at a very gallant ball overlooking the harbor (and the ship). One of the partygoers mistakes the destruction for fireworks. Tavington quickly downs his drink and spikes the glass into the ground.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl: "But why is the rum gone?" It's an impressive day when you can accomplish a mission "without a drop of rum".
• The Quick and the Dead. Lady after her gunfight with Dred; she resists a demand to Finish Him! by the Big Bad and heads straight for the saloon for a drink. As Dred just raped his daughter, the Saloon Owner is only too glad to hand her a free one. As he does so, it's shattered by a bullet fired by a Too Dumb to Live Dred, who's burst into the saloon after her. The murdered drink is immediately avenged by the quick-shootin' Lady.
• Raiders of the Lost Ark: During the fight in Marion's bar, she sneaks a mouthful of whiskey from a shot-up barrel before knocking out one of Toht's men.
• Red Dawn (1984) has Col. Tanner explaining military tactics to a bunch of high-schoolers: "Now I think that's pretty simple. Any questions so far?" Kid: "Yeah, what's a flank?" "What's a defilade?" Tanner: "I need a drink!"
• Red Rock West: Femme Fatale Suzanne is seen pouring herself a drink after her horseback ride, and it's later revealed that during that rider, she shot a blackmailer.
• Shorti does this in Scary Movie 2. Watching the butler "mishandle" the turkey for the feast forces him to down a bottle of red wine in short order.
• The Room: Lisa suggests to Johnny to have drink after the bad news about his promotion not being given.
• Star Trek:
  • Played with in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: After the not-quite-successful diplomatic dinner involving Kirk, Chancellor Gorkon, their respective senior staffs, and rather too much Romulan Ale, the Klingons have just beamed off the Enterprise, at which point Bones leaves the transporter room proclaiming, "I'm going to go find a pot of black coffee".
  • Star Trek: First Contact:
    • Zephram Cochrane is found very inebriated in a bar after the Borg shell his base camp — though it is implied that he could often be found there, Borg attack or no.
    • At the end of the movie, when the Vulcans in the first contact envoy have a seat at the bar, the leader of the envoy shoots up when Zephram starts up his favorite drunk dancing song on the jukebox ("Ooby Dooby" by Roy Orbison) at maximum volume. After seeing no real cause for alarm and that it's just human silliness, he sits back down and downs all his drink in one gulp.
• Star Wars: Attack of the Clones: After a wild skimmer chase through downtown Coruscant and an attempt on Padmé's life, Obi-Wan announces his intention of getting a drink — or two. Never get into a vehicle piloted by Anakin Skywalker.
• Strippers Vs. Werewolves: Franklyn downs a can of beer after wailing on the dead werewolf's body, which he had to do to make it harder to identify.
• In Suicide Squad (2016), Flagg reveals that the battle they're fighting is a bit lopsided, along with really personal for him, right as everyone is in front of a bar. Deadshot's reaction is "You can just kill me right now ...but I'm going to have a drink." as he goes inside. And everyone follows.
• Summerland (2020): After learning Frank's father died and she's tasked to tell him, Alice's first act is pouring herself a drink.
• An Invoked Trope in Sword Of Gideon (1986). A Mossad agent defuses several Booby Traps in his safehouse. Relieved, he opens the fridge to get a drink and sees an Incredibly Obvious Bomb just before it explodes.
• Terror at Black Falls: Juan's vow of revenge drives the nervous, stressed-out townspeople to drink, even the ones who usually stay sober. This means that the saloon is quite crowded when Juan takes it hostage.
• Titanic: After changing into his best evening wear to go down with the ship, Benjamin Guggenheim asks a steward for a brandy.
• In UHF, "Weird Al" Yankovic's character, George, has hit the low point of his life, so he leaves the TV studio saying that he needs a drink. His friend Bob points out that he doesn't drink, and George replies, "Yeah, but I've been meaning to start."
• Unforgiven, another Clint Eastwood film. Clint's character, who is trying to put his murderous past behind him, has sworn off the bottle because when he gets drunk, he gets mean. When the news that Ned was killed reaches him, he takes one drink after another, signaling a return to his murderous ways and one hell of a violent revenge coming against Ned's killer, Little Bill.
• At the end of The Untouchables (1987), with Al Capone finally behind bars, Eliot Ness is understandably exhausted as he packs up his office and thinks about Malone. When a reporter mentions that Prohibition is due to be repealed and asks Ness what he might do then, Ness responds, "I think I’ll have a drink."
  • During the whiskey raid at the Canadian border, Oscar Wallace sneaks a mouthful from a shot-up barrel once the gunfire has stopped.
• In the Veronica Mars movie, after being dragged to her 10 year reunion, and having to deal with her classmates, Veronica tells Mac, "Okay, I'm not kidding. Where's the bar in this place?"
• In Vertigo, Scottie asks for a drink after Elster tells him about Madeleine's relationship to (and seeming possession by) Carlotta Valdes.
• Wild Geese II. A Double Agent turns up at a meeting of high-ranking officers (including a hammy Patrick Stewart playing a Russian general) who are celebrating the death of Rudolf Hess (the MacGuffin of the movie). The Russian general boisterously invites the agent to toast the death of Hess, and is surprised when the agent doesn't join them. The agent then admits that he stuffed up and killed the wrong man, with the real Hess having escaped. A KGB man tells the agent that he should have that drink now, pours it for him, then executes him.
• Wild in the Streets: While fighting with his rebellious son Jimmy, Senator Fergus shouts "You could drive a man to drink!" Jimmy replies, "See? You're part of that alcoholic generation, Dad. You need to drink."
• Invoked in the Australian zombie movie Wyrmwood. After Frank is bitten by a zombie his partner retrieves the first-aid kit from the car. The box is empty but for two bottles of beer, which they share moments before Frank turns.

Literature

• Agatha H. and the Voice of the Castle: Boris, on finding himself in charge of the entire empire, feels that he could really do with a large glass of vodka.
• The Alice Network: Lili makes this comment to the waiter after a long day:
  Lili: It's been an absolute pisser of a day. So make it a double brandy, monsieur, and never mind looking sour.
• In "—And He Built a Crooked House—", Quintus Teal and the Baileys become trapped in the middle of his bizzarrchitectural masterpiece. When Teal hands Bailey a shot of liquor to help revive his wife who fainted, he downs it himself.
• In "...And it Comes Out Here" by Lester del Rey, this is the protagonist's reaction to meeting his own future self.
• In Best Served Cold, Cosca turns "A drink, a drink, a drink" almost into a personal credo.
• In Bring Up the Bodies, Henry VIII loudly and publicly accuses Thomas Cromwell of attempting to turn him into a Puppet King. It's not the first time Henry's been mad at him, but the level of rage and the particular accusation is enough to make Cromwell's head feel rather insecure on its shoulders. He just manages to withdraw by making a blacksmith's gesture that confuses Henry into shutting up, then immediately seeks out a goblet of wine.
• The first book of the Children of the Lamp series has a villainous example from Iblis Teer, who downs a decanter's worth of brandy in one gulp shortly after one of the protagonists, Philippa, tricks him into eating a mouse while he was in snake form.
• Ciaphas Cain: The titular Hero of the Imperium has often been found taking a swig of amasec (brandy) "far faster than such a fine example of the distiller's art deserved." Considering the Tyrannid swarms, suicidal terrorists, and other horrible reasons for needing the drink (and yet passing for normal in this psychotic universe), this is fully justified.
• In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, after Ed Boone hits his son Christopher because he found out that he was still deducing Wellington's murderer, he would have quoted this verbatim if he hadn't substituted the "freaking" for something else.
• The final chapter of Dave Barry Slept Here has only one discussion question at the end: "How about we go get a beer?"
• Deryni:
  • In Deryni Checkmate, after he meets a strangely well-informed grey-cowled figure on the road to Coroth, Duncan goes to Morgan's study and pours himself "a small glass of the strong red wine Alaric kept for just such emergencies", downs it and pours another for sipping while waiting for Morgan to gracefully exit his state dinner in progress downstairs. After Duncan begins recounting the event to his cousin, Morgan gets up and pours a glass for himself.
  • After Rothana shares Janniver's memory of her rape, Kelson wanders his camp for a time before going to Morgan's tent. Seeing the expression on Kelson's face, Morgan sends his stepson Brendan to bed and pours Kelson a cup of wine; Kelson gulps half of it down, sits down with a sigh, and takes a second deep pull before he can discuss the experience.
• Discworld:
  • Commander Vimes tends to think this when things are going particularly poorly, but after Guards! Guards!, he quit (with a brief relapse in Men at Arms), and for a long time afterwards had to remind himself that just one would be too many. William de Worde's first impression of him in The Truth is that Vimes is "badly" everything, as in badly spoken, badly dressed, and badly in need of a drink.
  • It's actually been mentioned that Vimes is in fact slightly "knurd", meaning that he's more sober than sober, and actually needs at least one drink in him to be "normal". Klatchian coffee is so strong that it has the same effect, but the Klatchians make very certain they are well and truly out of their heads on orakh (the only liquor on the Disc that can match scumble for potency, made from cactus sap and scorpion venom) before partaking.
  • In a scene in Witches Abroad, Nanny Ogg is both figuratively and literally stuck between Magrat and Granny Weatherwax after the two have a falling-out. As the three walk along a yellow brick road, Magrat says, half to herself "What some people need is a bit more heart," to which Granny replies "What some people need is a lot more brain." Nanny, meanwhile, thinks to herself "What I need is a drink."
  • Honorary mention of Carpe Jugulum here, in which having a damn drink actually helps the drinker resist vampire mind control... and Nanny rather seems to approve.
  • In Hogfather, when a huge surplus of extra belief floods Discworld, one of the beings created is Bilious, the Oh God of Hangovers, who experiences the consequences when other people engage in this trope. At one point, he much relishes a chance to turn the tables on a god who loves to get drunk: his brother, Bibulous, God of Wine. Thanks to a Hideous Hangover Cure, he gets to turn those tables around when Bilious gets the "humorous side effects" instead.
  • In Mort, drinking is one of the mortal pleasures which Death attempts. When he and the bartender discuss his lack of friends, he pauses, then muses aloud that he thinks he could be friends with the next bottle of booze.
• Defied in Divergent. Tris's fellow initiates pass around a silver flask with something strong right before Al's funeral. She refuses to partake of it.
• In Dragonrider: The Life and Dreams (So Far) of Anne McCaffrey, Todd McCaffrey recounts an incident in which one of his mother's beloved horses was injured while his sister was out riding. The horse recovered, but Anne was so shaken that Todd immediately brought her a glass of brandy, which she knocked back without a second thought and said, "Thanks, I needed that."
• An inversion appears in The Drawing of the Dark: Brian Duffy, a tavern bouncer and sometime mercenary, staggers into his workplace and demands an explanation for the crazy weird stuff that keeps happening to him. His boss responds: "You need a drink," and after a moment's thought, Duffy replies: "Yes, but if I have one I'll be sick." (Instead, he gets something to smoke.)
• Used in more than a few volumes of The Dresden Files. The biggest one occurs in Changes after Harry learns that he and Susan have an 8-year-old daughter who she never told him about.
  Harry: Um. I'd say, "Whiskey, Mac," except I'm not sure if you have any whiskey. I need something strong, I think.
• The Empirium Trilogy: Ludivine suggests partaking in some celebratory drinks after Rielle successfully completes the first trial. Much later on, Rielle damages the Gate even more and the Obex give Rielle the task of finding the Saint's castings on her own. Ingrid offers up a round of drinks to which Ludivine holds up a hand.
• Esther Diamond: Both Barclay Preston-Cole and Garry Goudini in Disappearing Nightly as they recount how their respective assistants disappeared during their acts.
• In Farewell, My Lovely, Marlowe narrates:
  I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun.
• This happens a lot in Garrett, P.I., as befits a homage to Hardboiled Detective fiction. Even the Grand Inquisitor demands brandy in a jar when he stops by to complain about his ecclesiastical colleagues. Upon his return from one emotionally-wracking case, Garrett's associates practically force a mug into his hand, anticipating that this trope is in effect.
• Good Omens:
  • Crowley and Aziraphale do this after Crowley delivers the newborn Antichrist to the hospital where he'll be switched with another family's baby, and the pair are forced to confront the possibility of The End of the World as We Know It, and all of the great things Earth has going for it.
    Crowley: ...The point is... the point I'm trying to make... is dolphins. That's my point...
  • This also happens to Crowley in the backstory:
    Crowley got a commendation for the Spanish Inquisition. He had been in Spain then, mainly hanging around cantinas in the nicer parts, and hadn't even known about it until the commendation arrived. He'd gone to have a look, and come back and got drunk for a week.
  • Crowley also considers doing this when he reaches his Darkest Hour (Hell has discovered that he misplaced the Antichrist and is seeking to punish him, Aziraphale has mysteriously disappeared, there's nothing Crowley can do to stop the end of the world, and he's stuck in a monstrous traffic jam). He could just get pissed out of his mind waiting for the world to end, but instead, Crowley regains his Heroic Resolve and keeps on going towards Tadfield in hopes of finding some way to stop Armageddon.
• Harry Potter:
  • Hagrid's reaction to only narrowly escaping the most powerful dark wizard of all time:
    Hagrid: [a little shakily] Haven't go' any brandy, have yeh, Molly? Fer medicinal purposes?^note She has.
  • A rather amusing variation happens in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban when Harry and Hermione go back in time to save Buckbeak and Sirius. When Fudge sees that Buckbeak somehow went missing since he last saw him, he starts freaking out, trying to figure out what happened. A very unconcerned Dumbledore (who seems to know what's going on, despite not actually having given Harry and Hermione the time travel plan yet) suggests that maybe Hagrid could fetch them all some drinks. Hagrid, who's over the moon about Buckbeak escaping, is happy to comply.
  • Harry Potter gets his first taste of Ogden's Fire Whiskey in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows after the Battle of the Seven Potters.
• In Hoka, this is a common response by humans to Hoka antics.
• Subverted in Honor Harrington. Queen Elizabeth and President Eloise Pritchart are meeting aboard Honor's flagship. Her steward, MacGuiness, asks everyone if they would like refreshments. Elizabeth considers having a rather strong drink but decides against it.
• The Hunger Games: Katniss in Catching Fire after the Quarter Quell announcement.
• Jane Eyre: When Mr. Rochester hears from Jane that Mr. Mason has arrived at Thornfield, he says that it's a blow, and asks Jane to bring him a glass of wine. She does and he promptly swallows the contents.
• This happens pretty frequently in Jeeves and Wooster, since Bertie's automatic stress response is to go someplace and order a few drinks. If Jeeves is in the vicinity, he'll prepare the drink, but he never needs a drink himself.
• John Putnam Thatcher:
  • Zig-zagged in Double, Double, Oil, and Trouble. One of the directors of the company the mystery centers around orders a drink after hearing Thatcher's summation. Another executive gloomily reviews the company's woes and agrees a stiff drink is in order. His colleague admonishes him, going into a detailed analysis of how the situation is only bad in the short term, while the future looks bright. The alcohol is actually for a celebratory toast.
  • In Green Grow the Dollars, when Gloria Vandam hears that her husband and several of his relatives are murder suspects, she suggests that they have some brandy before bed and makes it clear that it isn't just for her husband.
• Kane Series: In Darkness Weaves, young aristocrat Imel sees Kane for the first time at night, in an old tomb during a huge storm. When he looks into Kane's eyes, full of madness, hatred, and bloodlust, he immediately grabs a bottle of wine that's been standing nearby.
• Exaggerated in The Laundry Files. The Laundry operates its own pub, the Crown and Squid, explicitly for this purpose. They found it easier to just take over wholesale than to continously vet new owners and staff members to ensure that they had clearance to hear some of the things about which Laundry agents wanted to vent to The Bartender, mostly involving either political skulduggery or things with too many angles and tentacles. It is also rare that anyone in the Howard household does not polish off a bottle of scotch and a pound of chcolate after a mission.
• Laszlo Hadron and the Wargod's Tomb: Captain Elgar Humboldt frequently responds to having to deal with people he doesn't like by drinking, although he at least sticks to non-alcoholic drinks when he's on duty.
• In the first book of the Left Behind series, Rayford Steele indulges in some alcohol to help him deal with the loss of his wife Irene and his son Raymie when they were Caught Up in the Rapture.
• The Magicians: Early in The Magician's Land, Plum attempts to play a prank on Wharton (the student wine-steward) as revenge for constantly short-serving her and her friends at dinner — only to end up accidentally trespassing on a restricted area of Brakebills, falling through time, nearly getting killed by the "ghost" haunting the school, and finishing up her night by being expelled by the Dean for endangering everyone. Worse still, Plum also gets Professor Coldwater fired because he has to break the rules to rescue her, a fact that she's immediately consumed with guilt over. In the aftermath, Plum finally confronts Wharton over the short-serving, whereupon he meekly offers Plum a full glass of wine, and she accepts so quickly that she struggles not to down the whole thing in one gulp.
• Myth Adventures:
  • In Another Fine Myth, Aahz asks for a drink after he realizes just how stuck he is in Klahd's dimension.
  • Deconstructed in Sweet Myth-Tery of Life, in which Skeeve's constant need of a drink pushes him toward The Alcoholic.
• In The Night Mayor, Marlowe-inspired Hardboiled Detective Richie Quick narrates, before going on a prolonged bender:
  I needed a drink. Several, one on top of the other. I wasn't sure there were enough drinks in the City for what I had in mind, but, as the man said, a man's reach should exceed his grasp or what's a heaven for?
• While August from Of Fear and Faith usually bemoans needing a smoke, he mentions how he used to drink very heavily instead and invokes this trope after his painfully awkward attempts to introduce himself to the other main characters.
• Paladin of Shadows:
  • Mike Jenkins, in Choosers of the Slain, made plans for meeting Pierson in a bar after the talk with Senator Traskel, though meeting with the Senate leadership is noted to have been more of a "ballbuster" for him.
  • In Unto the Breach, after flying low and slow (due to the helicopter being heavily overloaded) past a trio of enemy bunkers Captain Kacey Bathlick says to her helicopter's crew chief that after "one hairy fucking mission" she seriously needs a drink... Kacey doesn't drink. She later laments in A Deeper Blue that she sometimes wishes that her water was beer when she's told about the Rite of Kardane and what happened with Gretchen.
• In Paratime, you know your case has gone straight to Hell when you see a colleague downing 150-proof palm rum.
• Peter Benchley's Creature: After Rusty sees the creature and lives to tell the tale, he goes straight to a local bar, puts down a $50 bill, and says to keep giving him drinks until that money runs out. When he finally gets kicked out three hours later, he just heads straight to another bar.
• Rats, Bats and Vats: In the first book, General Cartup-Kreutzler downs a large serving of alcohol after he's subjected to lots of physical pain and humiliation, has his adulterous exploits exposed to his wife, get chewed out for missing the first victory of the war, and finds out that his enemy Fitzhugh is now a revered hero. The drink fails to make him feel better, as it turns out that Ariel swapped the whiskey with rat pee.
• In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, after narrowly avoiding death by Vogon via escaping to the titular restaurant, Zaphod and Ford quickly head for the bar. Ford becomes so drunk that he's hilariously incoherent for much of the scene.
• In The Riddle of the Wren by Charles de Lint, this is Minda's reaction to meeting Grimbold, an ancient and powerful wizard who is also a giant badger.
• The Riftwar Cycle: This shows up in the Serpentwar Saga. Pug, Nakor and Miranda have finally tracked down the legendary wizard Macros the Black in their quest to get his aid in dealing with the Serpent Queen. Miranda (whose background has been a total mystery up to that point) addressed Macros as Daddy and then says
  Miranda: It's Mother. She's trying to destroy the world.
  Macros: I need a drink.
  Miranda: First you need a bath.
• Peter from Rivers of London, in one of his asides about police work, remarks that just being police is ample grounds for this trope. He also allows that if marijuana were legal, police of his generation would happily play an entirely different trope straight, but it's not so they head for the pub after a shift.
• Robots Have No Tails: Galloway Gallegher works best when plastered anyway, but special mention to the story "Time Locker".
  "Yeah, that's it," he murmured after a while. "Whew! I guess Vanning must have been the only guy who ever reached into the middle of next week and — killed himself! I think I'll get tight."
  And he did.
• In Running Blind by Desmond Bagley, British spy Alan Stewart is captured by KGB boss Kennikan, a former antagonist who he accidentally emasculated during a gunfight. Kennikan politely offers Stewart a drink, and he orders a light one. Kennikan mocks Stewart for following regulations: If the opposition offers you a drink, always order a light one. Kennikan then informs Stewart that he may or may not kill him, but if Stewart does live, he won't be sleeping with women anymore. Stewart then asks for another glass, and Kennikan says he'll make it stronger this time.
• In Scoop, a City Mouse is in desperate need of a nice cold drink after becoming lost in the country and stumbling around for hours. Unfortunately his hosts assume from his dishevelled state that he must be drunk already and refuse to give him one.
• After Willoughby breaks Marianne's heart in Sense and Sensibility, family friend Mrs. Jennings breaks out a fine old wine that her late husband used to treat his gout. Elinor claims the glass for herself as Marianne is already asleep — having spent the day being horrified by the news of Willoughby and trying to console her sister, Elinor figures she might as well test its restorative claims on herself.
• In Sheep's Clothing, two close encounters with vampires in 24 hours drive Dic Meadows to whiskey to calm his nerves.
• Spenser: In the book Widow's Walk, Spenser and Rita Fiore deal with the stupidest person they have ever dealt with (in a series notorious for the level of stupidity possessed by the characters the protagonist sometimes encounters), and Rita says to him "I need a drink". After finishing up and leaving, they go directly to a bar and have two martinis each.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • Various characters at various points in Death Star, as the ethical implications of serving on an installation that destroys planets become keenly felt. Stated in Atour's narration, almost word for word.
  • Owning your own bar is an advantage at the end of a stressful day. In Star Wars: Kenobi, Annileen has Orrin pour her a glass as he's bartending after the Tusken raid on the Claim and the subsequent retaliation. Then she grabs the bottle and goes to bed.
• As the Stephanie Plum series progresses, this is an increasingly common response by Stephanie's mother to the antics of her own mother or her daughter.
• A Study in Charlotte: In the novel The Last of August, while bailing Jamie out of a difficult situation, Charlotte asks for wine because she's had a long day.
• Temeraire: Lawrence says this (though not in those exact words) when Temeraire brings up the subject of prostitutes. Specifically when he notes that the runner Emily Roland seemed rather young to seek their services.
• The villain camp in That Hideous Strength contains individuals of a varying levels of evil, but when "Fairy" Hardcastle, who has very little respect for anybody, absolutely refuses to face the Head without a stiff drink, you know that guy must be something worse. As it turns out later, "the Head" is a demon possessing a dead human head.
• Lightsong, a Physical God in Warbreaker, is rather fond of avoiding his godly responsibilities by trying to get drunk, despite his long-suffering high priest's (accurate) insistence that he is physically incapable of getting drunk.
• Whateley Universe: From "Ratel and Hum'', with Rachel's mom, who swaps a drink, for ice cream instead:
  "Dammit, I need a drink." Mother shook her head and muttered. "No, no. I'm not going to fall off the wagon over this one."
• In The Wheel of Time, after Min, Aviendha and Elayne bond Rand, Elayne decides to take this opportunity to finally bed Rand, Birgitte — who's bonded to Elayne and, like everyone else is aware of everything Elayne is doing and feeling through their bond — and the other two decide that yes, they do indeed need a drink, in the plural sense and as soon as can be arranged.
• The Winds of War/War and Remembrance: Pug Henry declares his need for a drink when his son Byron is still missing somewhere in Europe, his son Warren the fighter pilot has apparently been shot down in his plane, his wife Rhonda is leaving him, and his battleship was sunk shortly before he was scheduled to take command of it.
• In You Are Dead (Sign Here Please), Brian — repeatedly frustrated by his Only Sane Man status — very quickly descends into alcoholism as the series continues.
• Marlow, the narrator of "Youth", asks his friends to pass him the bottle of claret they are sharing at several points during his recollection of his first voyage as a second mate, aboard a clapped out wreck called the Judea. These moments tend to happen when he falls into bittersweet nostalgia, such as recalling that he never saw the captain's wife again after putting her on a train from Newcastle to London, or reflecting on what the Judea meant to his career as a sailor.

Live-Action TV

• In the 30 Rock episode "Christmas Attack Zone", Liz downs her entire glass of white wine upon learning exactly want Jack was going to do: ambushing his mother with his biological father to get back at her for her hypocritical disapproval of getting Avery pregnant.
• Andor: Mosk is seen sitting against a wall in an alley taking deep pulls from a flask in the aftermath of the deadly riot on Ferrix.
• Arrow. Subverted when after the Season 2 finale battle is over, recovering alcoholics Laurel and Quentin Lance agree they need an AA meeting. An earlier episode plays this straight with Laurel, but the Black Canary (actually Laurel's sister Sara in disguise) talks her out of it after seeing her AA tag.
• In Auction Kings, the team needs to test a gasoline-powered blender. They resort to a margarita-making contest.
• Happens every now and then on Babylon 5. In one episode, Londo hands Vir an unpleasant mission while at the bar and Vir finishes off the drink his boss abandoned at the table before heading out. The temptation is probably pretty heavy for Garibaldi at times.
• As with virtually every other liquor-related trope, Battlestar Galactica has developed this trope into high art. Virtually every major character says some variation of "I need/could use a drink" at least once in the series, typically at a very important moment.
• The Big Bang Theory uses this as a Running Gag with Penny, notably in the Season 4 premiere where she is dragged into chaperoning Sheldon on his first "date" with Amy Farrah Fowler. As it becomes clear that Amy is the Distaff Counterpart of Sheldon, especially when it comes to No Social Skills, they eventually turn their combined lack of tact on Penny. Once it gets to calculating how many men she has slept with, she begs the waiter for a drink.
• In the Bitchin'Kitchen, when Nadia asks Panos' wife how she deals with her marriage, her response is "a little ouzo goes a long way."
• Amusingly subverted in one episode of Bones (paraphrased):
  Brennan: [searching] I need vodka!
  Booth: So do I, Bones, but we're on duty here!
  Brennan: No... to preserve the tissue samples.
• In The Borgias, a quite snarky version, courtesy of Machiavelli: "Now that we've surrendered Florence, can we at least pour the wine?"
• In an episode of The Brokenwood Mysteries, Detective Mike Shepherd goes to a bar on karaoke night and orders a drink. Then he realizes that the coworker who has been aggressively flirting with him since the day they met is the first person singing, has deliberately chosen his favorite song (suggestively titled "Please Help Me, I'm Falling In Love With You"), and even dedicates the song to him in front of everyone. Mike turns back to the bartender and tells her to make it a double.
• Buffyverse:
  • Anya in the Buffy episode "Doppelgangland". Subverted because she can't get even that as she's stuck in the form of a California high school student. "I'm 1,120-years-old! Just gimme a frickin' beer!!"
  • A season later, in Buffy's "Something Blue", Giles is driven to his limits by the sight of Buffy and Spike engaged and smooching each other (under the influence of a spell gone bad). When Buffy asks Giles to give her away at the wedding and declares "we're family," Giles can only reply, "It's all right. I have more Scotch." (And he's had more than a few shots by that point.) Later in the season, after Spike's attempt to split the True Companions, he goes into a depressed funk and consoles himself with drink.
  • In "Life Serial", the Trio had made a pretty good attempt at destroying Buffy's life, and Spike tries to console her with whiskey. She drinks most of it on him, then he invites her out to a demon bar to get information. She goes because there'll be more alcohol and when a drink of some indeterminate spirits is about to be poured for Spike, Buffy takes the bottle and spends the night going through it. Every shot is straight.
  • In "Potential", Buffy is showing the potential slayers the demon bar and Clem plays a particularly frightening joke on them, causing Vi to say, "I could use a shot of that yak urine right about now."
  • In "Checkpoint", Quentin Travers does the Stuffy Brit version after Buffy reads him the riot act.
    Travers: Uh, Rupert? When we inventoried your shop, we found a bottle of single malt scotch behind the, uh, incense holders.
    Giles: Well, it's, it's not, you know, during working hours...
    Travers: I think I could use a glass.
  • In "Calvary", Fred is rather alarmed when Angelus says this, because he's an evil bloodsucking vampire.
  • Lorne often needs a Sea Breeze, or as he calls it, Our Lady of the Perpetual Sea Breeze.
• Burn Notice:
  • Sam has "always loved his beer" as one guest star put it. It's when he stops drinking that you should worry:
    Madeline: Please, I'm not leverage. You want a beer? (opens the fridge)
    Sam: (slams the fridge shut) I don't want a beer, Madeline!
    Madeline: Okay, this is serious.
  • Played straight at least once, at the end of "Old Friends".
  • Sam double-subverted this in a Season 6 episode — with four guys outside with guns, he turns to Barry and says, "OK... I need a beer." Barry tells him to keep it together, this is no time to get drunk. Sam actually wanted the can for a plan, for which he needed the beer, some scissors, Barry's wallet, and a glass. What's the glass for? To drink the beer, after he's done with the can.
• Castle:
  • In an episode when Rick Castle is practicing making drinks in the kitchen, his teenage daughter walks in saying "I need a drink." When he gives her A Look, she explains she meant water.
  • In another episode, Castle "quotes" Ernest Hemingway as saying, "Man, I sure could use a drink right about now."
  • In one of the earlier episodes, Castle takes Beckett to a fancy ball. After being introduced to the mayor, Castle asks Beckett if she wants a drink, her reaction was very much this trope, though she tried to back out of it (Castle ignores her).
    Castle: Can I get you a drink?
    Beckett: Yeah. Vodka. Lots of vodka [he makes a great face and leaves to do so but she holds him back] ...But I'm on duty. So water?
    Castle: [rolls his eyes and smirks] Yeah. Vodka...
  • Beckett spent a few months in Ukraine as an exchange student, so, yes, she knows how to handle vodka.
• Cheers, being set as it is in a bar, has been known to infrequently feature this trope.
  • A non-verbal example happens early on, when Carla tells Diane a shocking secret, causing Diane to take a large swig of the Gargle Blaster Carla's mixed up, much to Carla's alarm. The secret is in fact a giant lie, made to see if Diane will blab about it.
    Diane: I don't believe it.
    Carla: (watching her drink in horror) Me neither. You're gonna die.
  • A typical reason for Frasier showing up, usually responding to something during work hours. In the finale, his response to seeing Diane again is to darkly mutter how he's over her, then angrily demand Woody serve him "the meanest swill ya got!"
• The Colbert Report: During this "The Wørd" segment after the 2006 Midterms (and giving the Democrats control of the House), Stephen Colbert was visibly depressed, slouched over and with his head in his hand. The bullet point reacted to this by displaying this exact phrase/Trope Namer.
  • Stephen proceeds to pull out what appears to be scotch and first the Word says "Fight it" before he gives up and pours, changing the message to "F*ck it" and finishing with "Oh, sweet brown medicine, take away the pain..." as he downs the whole glass.
  • He does it again the day after the 2012 presidential election, pulling out a beer and drinking it down while watching TV before the show experiences technical difficulties, and Stephen learns that he is contractually obligated to do his show.
  • On the July 29th, 2014 show, Stephen introduced a new segment, called "I need a drink", which is exactly what it sounds like. He started the segment with a Bud Light Lime, before switching to a glass of Jack Daniels almost immediately after hearing about the first news report, then switched the short glass for a tall glass after hearing about Iraq. Finally he started drinking rubbing alcohol straight from the bottle, after hearing about truly depressing news from the states. He concludes the segment by saying:
    Well folks, that concludes Stephen Colbert's I Need A Drink, which for the record did not work. Either this booze is broken or the news is just too damn sobering. We'll be right back.
• In the Community episode "Mixology Certification" Annie starts off the night ordering Root Beers but as she gets progressively worked up about planning out her entire life she eventually ends up switching to screwdrivers.
• In Crash Landing on You, when protagonist Se-ri goes vanishes into thin air after having recently purchased a very pricey life insurance policy, her insurance agent Soo-chan downs the entire beer in front of him.
• Done on The Daily Show when Jon and Mike Huckabee discuss abortion and the pro-life movement.
  • Jon Stewart after a bad day on The Daily Show:
  ...I could do with a hot fudge sundae. And a bottle of vodka.
• In the ill-fated early 90s reboot of Dark Shadows, after saving Josette from the zombie of Jeremiah Collins, his father Joshua says, "I need a stiff drink!"
• Doctor Who:
  • This exchange from the end of "The Dæmons" as Yates and The Brigadier are watching some Morris dancers:
    Yates: Fancy a dance, Brigadier?
    Brigadier: It's kind of you, Captain Yates. I think I'd rather have a pint.
  • "World War Three":
    • After the Doctor's attempt to bluff the Slitheen by threatening to "triplicate the flammability" of a decanter of port fails (alcohol is already 100% flammable), he offers it to Harriet Jones (MP, Flydale North).
      Harriet: You pass it to the left first. [the Doctor hands the decanter to Rose]
    • After successfully determining the Slitheen's home planet and weakness to save Jackie and Mickey, the Doctor, Harriet, and Rose all help themselves to a few gulps of wine.
  • "The Impossible Planet": After a severe earthquake shakes the entire base:
    Jefferson: Come on. I don't often say this, but I think we could all do with a drink.
  • "The Wedding of River Song": Amy needs another glass of wine when she realizes she's the Doctor's mother-in-law.
  • "The Snowmen": Captain Latimer's first response when things start going wacky is to head for the drinks cabinet. The Doctor pours himself one too... then hands it to the Captain.
  • "Spyfall": Charles Babbage is last seen taking a very large swig from his glass after the Doctor and Ada Gordon vanish into thin air thanks to one of the Kasaavin.
• In the Dragnet 1967 episode "The Bank Jobs," a woman tells the protagonists how criminals forced her at gunpoint to help rob a bank. At the end she says, "I had three options: start screaming, faint, or have a drink. This is my fourth."
• Elementary: "A Landmark Story" sees Holmes and Watson interrogating the Murderer of the Week about his connection to Moriarty. When Watson starts getting nervous about holding the man in their basement Holmes asks her if she wants some tea to soothe her nerves. Watson replies that she wants a drink, a comment that earns her a disapproving look from Holmes who's a recovering drug addict.
• Enemy at the Door:
  • In the episode "No Quarter Given", a character is seen using a bottle of whisky as accelerant to set fire to his house, which has just been confiscated by the German occupiers; in the midst of splashing it around, he pauses to take a swig out of the bottle.
  • In the episode "Escape", there's a scene where Dr Martel walks into the room, silently pours himself a drink, and knocks it back, before announcing that the man whose injuries he was called to tend to has died.
• Euphoria: Jules gets utterly trashed on Halloween in order to cope with Nate blackmailing her into giving false testimony to help him beat an abuse rap.
• It was always right around song #9 that Terry Wogan would reach for a drink during his commentaries of the Eurovision Song Contest, and he often advised the viewers to do the same. Graham Norton, his successor, has proudly upheld this tradition.
• One episode of Everybody Loves Raymond has Amy, upset by yet another visit from her meddlesome mother-in-law, ask where Debra and Ray keep their "after-Marie liquor." Ray starts in — "We don't have any liquor in the" — only for Debra to immediately cut him off: "Top shelf, behind the Cream of Wheat."
  • Another episode mixes this trope with Surprisingly Realistic Outcome. Debra down a few drinks at a house party after a battle with Marie. She goes out to her car to get some air, turns on the ignition to warm herself up, and then dozes off. Unfortunately, a cop comes along and arrests her for intent to drive drunk (even though she's clearly parked and the cop is apologetic, the keys are in the ignition and she's in the driver's seat, which is enough to, legally speaking, book her). After a lengthy comedy of errors, the judge, after spending five minutes with Marie and Frank, immediately reinstates Debra's license.
• Fawlty Towers:
  • In "Gourmet Night", the chef Kurt drinks bottle after bottle when Manuel rejects his advances, leaving him incapable of cooking for the venerable guests. It is hinted at that this has happened before.
  • In "The Anniversary", Basil goes to the bar to fetch an ashtray; and in his desperation, he grabs a bottle and swigs from it. At the same moment, Manuel plucks Basil's arm, causing the drink to go all over him.
• Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond.
  • Ian Fleming has just been fired by his only client for being an irresponsible Upper-Class Twit instead of a sober stockbroker. The waiter then comes up with another champagne bottle. Ian asks whose tab the bottle is on — on being told it's the client, he starts to drink the lot.
  • After Fleming and his secretary survive a bomb explosion, she agrees to go with him to a bar that doesn't close till 4 am.
• Frasier:
  • Fras has a fondness for sherry, even having a decanter set aside in his apartment. One episode plays with it, when Niles comes over with bad news, and needs a steadying drink, only Frasier's out of sherry at the moment.
    Niles: You always think it's going to happen to someone else...
  • A Season 7 episode has Niles bringing his new girlfriend Mel over. Daphne, who's just learned Niles has a crush on her but is engaged to someone else, and who hates Mel on sight, starts knocking back Bloody Marys.
    Daphne: I agree with Doctor Crane. We could all do with another Bloody Mary.
    Frasier: I didn't say that!
    Daphne: It was implied.
    • In the same episode Mel makes a snide comment about serving alcohol so early in the day. Roz responds by downing her own Bloody Mary and escaping to the kitchen.
• A double example appears in one episode of Friends: first Monica accepts Rachel's offer of margaritas after her painstakingly organised photo collection gets messed up; later, while collecting ingredients for the margaritas from Ross' apartment, Rachel accidentally overhears Emily leave a message on Ross' answering machine saying she's having doubts about re-marrying. She immediately unscrews the cap of the tequila she's holding and takes a swig straight from the bottle.
  • In the episode "Everybody Finds Out", Phoebe and Rachel decide to have Phoebe hit on Chandler to prove that he and Monica are seeing each other. This escalates to the point where they're in Chandler's apartment for a date. When Phoebe pours them wine and they toast, both promptly drain their entire glasses.
  • When Monica dates Fun Bobby, she notices that he drinks too much, and convinces him to stop. However, he was fun for a reason, and throughout the episode, Monica needs freaking drinks to deal with his boring stories.
• Game of Thrones:
  • In the first episode, the Lannister brothers are coping with having to drink with the Starks by downing a few beforehand.
  • After Tyrion and Sansa are forcibly married to each other, they retire to their bedchambers. Tyrion partakes in some wine set up in there, asking Sansa if she drinks. She says she doesn't usually (possibly because she associates it with Cersei), but when it really hits her that she's going to have to go through with consummating the marriage, she promptly grabs a glass and starts drinking.
  • Tyrion often needs one (or perhaps a dozen) to deal with stressful situations like his wedding.
  • Although she is reluctant to drink at first, Sansa takes a big one when Cersei tells her about the rape that comes with the sack of a city.
  • During the Battle of Blackwater, the Hound returns from a sortie shouting, "Someone, bring me a drink... Fuck the water. Bring me wine!"
  • Sansa reaches for a drink of ale with her brother, Jon Snow, in "The Book of the Stranger", even if it doesn't go over quite as well.
  • Before the Battle of Winterfell, Tormund tells a somewhat disturbing story of how he got the name "Giantsbane." Ser Davos Seaworth, having initially turned down Tyrion's offer, remarks "Maybe I will have that drink."
• On Good Girls Revolt Cindy grabs a drink in Ned's office when he makes clear to her that he’s not interested in a serious relationship after she’s told her husband she’s been having an affair.
• In Season 5, Episode 2 of The Good Wife, Alicia comes home to find her meddlesome mother has taken Alicia's daughter shopping for dresses. Alicia asks if the dresses are appropriate, her mother insists (with characteristic telling indignation) that they are. Alicia says, more to herself than anything else, "I'm going to start drinking."
• Good Omens (2019): As they did in the book (see Literature), after the Antichrist is delivered to Earth Crowley and Aziraphale get incredibly drunk on some vintage wine Aziraphale had stashed away.
  • In the series, unlike the book, Crowley does give up after the bookshop fire and is found in a bar, completely sloshed, lamenting his demonic luck to nobody.
• Grimm:
  • Monroe’s response to finding out that a hardcore Grimm might be in town, he keeps drinking a glass of red wine like it’s a lifeline while telling Hank and Nick about it.
  • Also, in "The Three Bad Wolves", after finding out that Hap was willing to cooperate with a Grimm (and also that none of them were trying to kill each other), this was Angelina's response.
  • Happens a lot to Monroe in "Season of the Hexenbiest", though the circumstances are more emotional than physical in the above cases.
  • Nick and Monroe both do this in Face Off, Nick after seeing Renard kissing Juliette and being told they're probably under a spell and Monroe a bit later. They're having that kind of day — at the end of that kind of week.
  • Monroe does this when he and Nick are trying to figure out how to undo the spell on Renard and Juliette. The reason he needs one is that all the twists and complications in the process pretty much involve every character in the show.
  • A lighter version occurs in "Mr. Sandman" as Nick, Hank, Monroe, and Rosalee talk about Captain Renard and his... complex backstory.
  • In "The Waking Dead", Juliette, Monroe, Rosalee, and Bud are unanimous on this point after events in the spice shop.
• Happens several times on Happy Endings. In one episode, after finding out that her husband Brad had taken her to a restaurant when they were dating, planning to break up with her, Jane says, "I will be at the bar, destroying myself."
  • Again in the Valentine's Day episode, after almost the entire gang has failed to have a good romantic evening, they watch Max leave after reconnecting with his ex-boyfriend Grant.
    Penny: What should we do now?
    Dave: Let's get drunk.
• Haven: Duke has a pretty good excuse when he's suddenly stranded in the past:
  Duke: What Year Is This??
  Man: It's 1955. It's the year you should think about sobering up.
  Duke: Actually, I think that it's the year I start drinking. Heavily.
• On Home Improvement, Jill hastily asks for some liquor when she is worried about her son Brad driving by himself for the first time. In another instance, Tim gulps down his drink after he is Mistaken for Gay at a bar.
• In the House episode "Role Model", House is pressured by Vogler into giving a speech. When House, in mid-speech, goes Off the Rails (putting it very mildly), Chase reaches for his glass, presumably of champagne, and downs the whole glass in one gulp.
• In an early How I Met Your Mother episode, Ted is going to break up for the second time with a girl he dated much earlier in life — the first time he broke up with her he accidentally did it on her birthday. When he realizes it's her birthday yet again and she starts to say how he's brought hope back into her life, he turns to the waiter and says "Oh so much more wine."
• Used in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries as "D'you fancy a drink?", usually said by one of the partners to the other after a particularly hard case.
• Jen does this in The It Crowd when hearing of how a high school classmate has the perfect successful life that Jen wished she had.
• JAG: The first season episode "War Cries" gives us Ambassador Bartlett, a snarky career politician who discusses matters of state and embassy security while sipping scotch. As the episode continues, we see that she has quite a bit to drink about.
• Nate says or does this every now and then in Leverage. As a recovering alcoholic, it's a bad sign. Notably, at the end of The Twelve-Step Job, after he has been in rehab with a happy-pilled Parker for several days.
  Sophie: [indicating that he should return to rehab] Well. Are you ready to finish what you started?
  Nate: I need a drink.
• On The Love Boat, Stubbing falls in love with a passenger on a cruise to the Netherlands. He tracks her down to her place of business in Amsterdam...and discovers she runs a brothel. The shock of it nearly drives recovering alcoholic Stubbing to break his decade-long sobriety until Doc stops him.
  Stubbing: I need...something...to help me cope with this.
  Doc: Yes, you do. But it's not this.
• Lucifer.
  • Chloe wakes up to find herself naked in Lucifer's bed. As Chloe starts to panic, thinking (incorrectly) that she had sex with Lucifer while drunk, he cheerfully offers her a triple espresso or a hip flask. Faced with Chloe's My God, What Have I Done? reaction, he replies, "Oh, right; both!" and pours one into the other.
  • Averted after Lucifer's fight with Amenadiel in "#TeamLucifer". They end up smashing every bottle in the bar, so he can't fulfill this trope afterward.
• Mad Men features this constantly, albeit usually without saying the phrase. Expect Roger (and Don during Season 4) to immediately reach for the booze when something goes wrong... or simply when they enter a room.
• A noteworthy example in a M*A*S*H episode is when Hawkeye takes a challenge to abstain from alcohol. The story climaxes with Hawkeye having the terrifying experience of keeping a prisoner's grenade from detonating in the operating room. After the successful conclusion, the gang goes to the Officer's Club where Hawkeye gets a drink saying that he needs it. However, after a few fateful seconds, Hawkeye pushes the drink away, saying, "I'll be back when I want it, not when I need it."
  • In an earlier episode, Hawkeye and Trapper are talking to Henry about getting an incubator and decline his offer of a drink, because they've finally shaken off their hangovers from the night before. When the conversation takes a complicated twist shortly thereafter, Hawkeye responds with, "Maybe I will have that drink."
• In the "Harper vs. Harper" episode of Mama's Family, Thelma files a suit against Naomi for damaging her carpet and Naomi files a countersuit for her damaged vacuum cleaner. After losing patience, Judge Packard fines Mama and Naomi $100 each, and they have to pay for their own damages to the carpet and vacuum cleaner, with the judge asking Vinton to accompany him after court adjourns:
  Judge Packard: I'm going out for a beer. As for you, Vinton Harper, if you have half a brain in your head, you'll join me.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., on the episode "Nothing Personal", Maria Hill tells Pepper Potts on the phone, after she's testified before Congress, "I swear, I need a cocktail and a lobotomy."
  • Daredevil: Subverted. Owlsley asks, "Does anyone need a drink as badly as I do?" and yet not touching a drop of his champagne. He was trying to convince Fisk and Vanessa to try the poisoned Champagne without drinking any himself.
  • The Defenders. As Matt Murdock, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage are taking the subway to Midland Circle for their final confrontation with the Hand, Jessica steals a beer can from a sleeping hobo and chugs it down while Matt and Luke stare at her.
  Jessica: ...It's been a long week.
• Subverted in an episode of Monk, in which Monk, who doesn't drink, is visiting Natalie's parents while despairing over a hiring freeze at the police department:
  Monk: There's never hope. I wish I drank. Is it wonderful?
  Peggy: Yeah. It's pretty great.
• On an episode of Mork & Mindy, Mork tries to explain religion to Orson, who becomes so confused he decides he needs a drink.
• Murdoch Mysteries:
  • Often invoked by Inspector Brackenreid. He thinks he deserves one to celebrate when they're successful, and he often feels he needs a shot to calm himself down.
  • Inspector Brackenreid once suggested it to Dr. Ogden. It was when Detective Murdoch and she had a falling out, and he began a relationship with a young widow.
  • In the final episode of Series 4, Murdoch himself suggests he needs one and that the Inspector could use one as well. Brackenreid knows it's a big deal because Murdoch drinks only very, very rarely.
  • In "High Voltage", Julia tells Emily and Lillian of her decision not to stand as a candidate in the provincial election, to her hearers' intense disappointment. After Julia leaves, Lillian says she knows of a bar that serves women, and Emily immediately expresses a desire to go there.
  • After Dr. Ogden cuts ties with Miss Hamilton over the latter's demands for censorship, she visits Dr. Grace at the City Morgue, in part to apologize for allying with Hamilton's Temperance League in the first place. (Dr. Grace had advised against it.) She produces a bottle of whiskey from a hidden compartment in a desk and the doctors quickly down three shots each.
• Ben Harper in My Family takes this to almost Catchphrase levels.
• NCIS. "Minimum Security". Gibbs grumbles "I need coffee" after being woken up by a naked Tony pointing his pistol at an iguana.
• Ms. O, head of the all-kid agency on the children's math edutainment show Odd Squad, sometimes gets flustered enough that she needs a freaking juice box.
• Once Upon a Time:
  • In the second episode, the Queen returns to her castle after the wedding of Snow White and Prince Charming. A man, her father, offers her a drink, only for her to snap back, "Does it look like I need a drink?" He doesn't answer, but he (and everyone in the audience) is clearly thinking, "Yes, yes you do."
  • In Season 2, when Emma is reunited with her parents, she never expected they were the same age as her, not to mention being the Snow White and Prince Charming. This was her reaction to deal with the news.
    Emma: Can we talk about this later? Like over a glass of wine or several... bottles.
  • It's almost a Running Gag in the show for people to go to Granny's for a drink after a rough day... which for people like Emma and Mary Margaret, becomes distressingly common. Leroy (a.k.a. Grumpy the Dwarf) hits the sauce pretty frequently as well.
• Out of this World (1962): "Little Lost Robot": After hearing about the impossible task they're asking of her, Dr Calvin decides that the liqueur that General Kallner had offered her is exactly what she needs.
• Toward the end of the Parks and Recreation episode "Dave Returns" (S4E15), Leslie says "And now I am going to endorse ten beers into my mouth because today has been very stressful." (Or words to that effect). Despite the large number of beers, it counts as needing a freaking drink and not Drowning My Sorrows because Leslie specifically cites stress as a factor, and it's a one-time thing (at a party at a bar, no less).
• In Pawn Stars, Rick and Corey get a Peter Lik print. While staring at the image, Corey remarks that it makes him want to have a beer.
• Person of Interest. John Dillinger (Reese's predecessor as The Man in the Suit vigilante) rescues a Damsel in Distress by shooting two hitmen about to kill her, then tells her he could use a drink after this traumatic experience. Cut to her waking up in his bed the next day, implying that he used the combination of alcohol and her gratitude to seduce her. This establishes Dillinger as a more sleazy and less moral character than John Reese.
• Princess Agents: Yuan Song resorts to drinking after a day of enduring Xiao Ce and his demands.
• Reba has some:
  • The fifth season episode "Reba and the One": Late in the episode, Reba is enjoying some alone time at a restaurant when Brock and Barbra Jean show up there as well. Desperate to keep the masquerade going, Reba drags another patron to be her pretend date, at one point making an off-hand disparate remark about musicians. After the dust settles, Reba asks him about his occupation. His response: "I'm a musician." Remembering what she said earlier regarding musicians, Reba finishes the glass of wine in her hand in one gulp without a word.
  • Early on during the episode "Have Your Cake", Cheyenne volunteers herself and Reba into a diet to show support for Barbra Jean, who worries about being overweight, going so far as to tell Barbra Jean she could visit anytime she wants to, 24/7. Then this exchange takes place after Barbra Jean leaves:
    Reba: Cheyenne, did you just tell Barbra Jean she could come over here 24/7?!
    Cheyenne: Now, mom, it's important to let her know she has support. Having a support system is how I got over my alcohol addiction.
    Reba: Alcohol. Good idea.
    Barbra Jean: [entering the house] Reba, I've got an idea — matching sweatshirts. [leaves]
    Reba: Alcohol. And a lot of it.
  • During the sixth season episode "The Housewarming", Reba meets Brock at a bar as his confidant and Designated Driver, albeit unwillingly. Too bad for Reba, Brock spends most of their time at the bar talking about himself and Barbra Jean "getting it on", resulting in Reba taking shots, followed by her asking the bartender to "leave the bottle". In a twist of comedic irony, Brock leaves the bar without needing a ride, whereas Reba calls for one.
    Reba: [talking through the phone] Kyra, can you come and pick up your mama?
• Rome. This is Marc Antony's comment after the religious ceremony (implied to be long and boring) to make him tribune. Antony's slave agrees, "Perhaps after the meeting?"
• Alex Trebek at least once in the Saturday Night Live "Celebrity Jeopardy" sketch, particularly after the response to the question, "This Ringo was the 'Starr' drummer for The Beatles."
  Sean Connery: Cravin Morehead.
  Trebek: Who is "Cravin Morehead"?
  Connery: Apparently you are!
  [Trebek pulls out a whiskey flask and takes a drink]
  • In another sketch, one category is "I Have A Chardonnay" which would allow Trebek to have a glass of wine if it's chosen. Cue Connery scratching out some of the letters with a marker to make it say "I Have a Hardon".
• In Sex and the City, Carrie and Samantha are stuck on an interminably long train ride. This includes "dining with the Amish", a couple who happen to be sitting next to them in the cafeteria. Momentarily forgetting her company, Carrie says "Oh, God I need a big ol' drink." The Amish couple looks at her. "Sorry."
• Sherlock. In "The Abominable Bride", Inspector Lestrade turns up to consult Sherlock Holmes who, noting how he keeps eyeing the decanter, orders Watson to pour him what he desperately wants. But Watson notes how quickly Lestrade has drained the glass, implying that he didn't "want" a drink, he needed it as the case Lestrade wants to consult Holmes on has him seriously spooked. Holmes congratulates Watson on his improving powers of observation.
• Stargate SG-1: In one episode, Bra'tac is shown conducting a wedding rehearsal for Teal'c's son Rya'c and his intended, Kar'yn. Things go okay until they reach the point where Jaffa tradition dictates that the bride should kneel to her husband to show subservience, and Kar'yn refuses to do it. A loud and angry argument ensues between her and Rya'c, and finally everyone storms out of the room. Bra'tac comments "I see now why these things must be rehearsed" and takes a long drink from the ceremonial wine.
• Stargate Universe, "Air" Part 3. Chloe Armstrong's mother finds out her husband is dead and her daughter is stranded on a ship billions of lightyears away. The way she throws down whiskey is this trope without the phrase.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: The Original Series has this scene from "Obsession":
    Spock: I need your advice.
    McCoy: Then I need a drink.
    Spock: I do not understand your reasoning.
    McCoy: You need advice from me? You must be kidding.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation: In "Rascals", a space anomaly de-ages Keiko O'Brien along with Capt. Picard, Guinan, and Ro. Miles, Keiko's husband, tries to deal with the awkwardness of Keiko's teenaged state by going to get coffee until Keiko insists upon getting it herself, which makes the situation even more awkward. Then they're so upset that neither of them takes so much as a sip from their coffee before setting down the cups.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Kira is helping two rival Bajoran clans resolve a territorial dispute. This exchange ensues.
    Quark: Kira! I always look forward to your infrequent visits.
    Kira: Quark, save the small talk and get me a Stardrifter.
    Quark: So how are the negotiations going?
    Kira: Make it a double.
  • Star Trek: Voyager. Captain Janeway usually drinks coffee, but in "Scientific Method", she's getting increasingly frazzled because aliens are (unknown to everyone) secretly doing experiments on the crew. After a scene where she snaps at Tuvok, she then settles down and talks of visiting a holodeck program involving a little inn outside Siena, Italy. Tuvok replies that he will join her for a glass of wine.
• Supernatural
  • In "Red Sky", Sam is escorting an elderly woman at a fancy-dress party, who is hitting on him ''very'' hard. At one point she presents him with a glass of champagne, raises her own, and says, "To us." Sam promptly downs the entire glass.
  • Also, in the episode "The Real Ghostbusters", Sam and Dean say "I need a drink" in sync after being thoroughly weirded-out by some LARPing fans. Of themselves.
  • Also, Castiel does a variation of this in the Season 5 finale (when they realise that they are really really screwed):
    Castiel: I suggest we imbibe copious quantities of alcohol.
  • Castiel again, after the events of the episode "The Dark Side of the Moon". In the next episode, after he gets a call from the boys:
    Sam: Are you... Are you drunk?!
    Castiel: No. (Beat) Yes.
    Sam: What happened?!
    Castiel: I went and found a liquor store.
    Sam: And?
    Castiel: And I drank it.
  • Also, Castiel in the episode "Free To Be You And Me". When Castiel is taken to a brothel by Dean and is introduced to a girl called Chastity, he downs a generously sized glass of beer before being pulled away to one of the back rooms.
  • And generally Dean does this on a regular basis. The only thing that separates this from Drowning My Sorrows is how quickly he recovers afterwards. Considering the things that are trying to kill him/beat him/torture him, you know things are really bad when he stops drinking! This is also a sign of him being absolutely crushed by everything and still (somehow) going: he stops enjoying things that used to make him feel good.
  • Spoofed in "Monster Movie". A witness to a monster attack drinks from a huge beer stein when giving his statement to the Winchesters, the next witness drinks from a supersize soda cup.
  • In "Frontierland" Sam shows Samuel Colt a copy of his diary from the future to convince him to help. Looking at the two diaries, Colt comments he's either had too much to drink or not enough.
• Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms: Bai Qian jumps off Zhuxian Terrace, becomes a high goddess, and regains her memories of everything she's gone through before and after becoming mortal. Unsurprisingly, a drink is the first thing she asks for.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles : After Sarah finishes telling Charley about the Terminators, he takes a deep breath.
  Charley: I need a...
  Sarah: Drink?
  Charley: I was gonna say a minute.
• In the The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "Night of the Meek", Mr. Dundee is skeptical of Corwin's claim that his bag magically produces gifts and sarcastically asks for a bottle of 1903 vintage brandy. Corwin immediately pulls a bottle of the brandy out for Mr. Dundee, rattling both Mr. Dundee and the police officer with them. They both decide to spend Christmas indulging in the brandy.
• The Untamed: When Wei Wuxian talks about Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan and how they had many bad things happen to them despite being heroic and selfless people, Lan Wangji suddenly snatches Wei Wuxian's drink and downs it out of frustration. This is clearly because both of them remind him of Wei Wuxian's situation: a good man who had everything wrong going for them because of things outside their control — all of which were pinned on him anyway.
• The Walking Dead (2010) has the Season 4 episode "Still". Beth Greene decides that she needs a freaking drink. She's lost everyone, except Daryl, her father was killed in front of her, and she was driven from her home and into the undead filled wilderness. Again. The episode revolves around Beth's search for booze.
• WandaVision: In the second episode, as Wanda's at the planning meeting for the town's upcoming talent show ("for the children"), which is run by the tyrannical Dottie, her next-door neighbor Agnes quietly mutters how anyone can get through the meeting sober, while holding a drink.
• In The West Wing, when C.J. tells Abbey Bartlet that the swing vote on her medical review board is recusing himself:
  Abbey: Claudia Jean? Let's go get drunk.
• In Wolf Hall, Cromwell's attempt to reconcile Ambassador Chapuys with Henry ends in disaster. After Henry nearly punches Chapuys to the ground he turns on Cromwell and, in front of the court, accuses Cromwell of trying to turn him into a Puppet King. Cromwell manages to withdraw intact by making a blacksmith's gesture that confuses the king, but the next scene has him sitting in a quiet room with a goblet of wine in his shaking hand.
• The X-Files:
  • "Syzygy": A planetary alignment causes everybody to behave strangely. Agent Mulder drinks a very decadent screw-driver made of half-frozen orange juice put in a small bottle of vodka. A moment later, Detective White comes over to his motel room and takes a swig from his bottle as well. Agent Scully is messed up, too, but she prefers a Cigarette of Anxiety.
  • "Tempus Fugit": Agent Scully takes a soldier who is an important witness to the bar to meet a federal marshal. He has had a tough day, and Scully is very understanding.
    Scully: You want a drink? You need a drink.
  • "War of Coprophages": Mulder and Dr. Ivanov each have a glass of scotch after Dr. Ivanov was shown the alien robot cockroach. Dr. Ivanov particularly looks like he really needs it.
• In one episode of Yes, Minister, Jim Hacker comes home and states 'I want a triple scotch'. Bernard comes in and is asked by Annie if he wants a scotch. He says, 'Yes, could I have a large one please' to which Annie replies 'so, another triple'.
• Young Sheldon: In "A Tornado, a 10-Hour Flight and a Darn Fine Ring", after witnessing Sheldon's usual behavior, the stewardess offers Mary a gin and tonic and she takes it.

Music

• "Seven Days" by Sting is about the singer trying to beat a dumb but strong guy for a girl. The second verse ends like this:
  My rival is Neanderthal, it makes me think
  Perhaps I need a drink
  IQ is no problem here
  We won't be playing scrabble for her hand I fear
  I need that beer
• "Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota" by "Weird Al" Yankovic
  I was just so overwhelmed by its sheer immensity
  I had to pop myself a beer
• "Beer in the Bar" by Basshunter is about needing to drink in order to keep posting music online.
• Very many Country Music songs about Drowning My Sorrows, far too many to count, will also have the narrator explaining this in some way.
• "Teenage Daughters" by Martina McBride, however, is a non-Drowning My Sorrows example (it's, obviously, about the highs and lows of raising teenage daughters). The first and last stanza of the song is:
  I ain't complaining, but I'm tired, so I'm just saying what I think
  And if we're being honest, then honestly, I think I need a drink
• Also, there's Terri Clark's "The World Needs a Drink", where she fantasizes about gathering all the world powers together for a drink at the bar to forget their troubles.
• The Drive By Truckers song "Daddy Needs a Drink".
• "Smoke Break" by Carrie Underwood is about people who feel stressed out by everyday lives and express this phrase:
  She said, I don't drink
  But sometimes I need a stiff drink
  Sipping from a high, full glass
  Let the world fade away
  She said, I don't smoke
  But sometimes I need a long drag
  Yeah, I know it might sound bad
  But sometimes I need a smoke break
• The Halestorm song "Here's To Us."
  Here's to you, fill the glass,
  'Cause the last few days have kicked my ass.
• The Joan Jett song Too Bad On Your Birthday is about consoling someone whose boyfriend just left her on her birthday and has a line that goes "if you need a drink babe, I'm buying."
• The video for Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweat's song S.O.B. begins with Rateliff hiding in a building surrounded by police, causing him to rub his face and declare "Goddamn, I need a drink." This is said a few times in the song itself, as the song is about a person trying to quit booze and going through a particularly harrowing detox.

Puppet Shows

• The Muppet Show: In one episode set in a train station because the theater is being fumigated, Miss Piggy opens a Veterinarian's Hospital sketch by attempting to extract a bottle of wine from a nearby box.

Pro Wrestling

• After he and Tommy Dreamer lost to The Dudley Boys in the main event of (the first)ECW One Night Stand, The Sandman called for a beer.
• At World-1's August 2005 Return Show, Sumie Sakai wandered to the bar, took a seat, and grabbed an unattended drink after being knocked out of the ring by Alere Little Feather.
• In the main event of ROH FIFTH YEAR FESTIVAL: FINALE, which was thought to be Samoa Joe's final ROH match at the time, he wound up walking away after being thrown from the ring by Homicide and getting a beer.
• While running from Christina Von Eerie during their non-tournament match at Beyond Tournament for Tomorrow II, November 17, 2013, Allysin Kay shouted, "I need a drink!". She got the drink, but then Christina chopped her, causing her to spit it out.
• In the Blooper Reel Easter Egg on WWE's WWE Divas South of the Border DVD (2004), one of the clips is Torrie Wilson saying, "I think I need a drink."

Radio

• Bleak Expectations: After a harrowing encounter with his archnemesis possessing someone at a séance, Pip Bin returns home to have a stiff drink, only to find his wife and sister have joined the temperance movement out of boredom and spite, and set about destroying every glass in the house. He and his brother in-law are forced to take to the streets of London to find a pub, to similarly poor luck. Later on, the Big Bad abducts Pip's wife and sister, and Pippa states that they are unharmed but "notwithstanding our recent stance on the issue, I could really do with a drink."
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978), when it's established that (due to the effects of the Infinite Improbability Drive) Ford and Trillian are the only two members of the core cast who haven't coincidentally met before:
  Zaphod: Oh, god. [rapidly] Ford, this is Trillian, Hi. Trillian, this is my semi-cousin Ford who shares three of the same mothers as me. Hi. [...] Zaphod Beeblebrox, this is a very large drink. Hi.
  • Earlier in the story, Ford pulls Arthur away from his sit down against a bulldozer and takes him to the Red Lion Pub to explain that (a) he's really an alien and (b) the Earth is going to be destroyed.
  Arthur: But can we trust them?
  Ford: Myself, I'd trust them to the end of the Earth.
  Arthur: Yes but how far is that?
  Ford: About twenty minutes away. Come on, I need a drink.
• In The Men from the Ministry, after finding out that they've not only accidentally destroyed Sir Gregory's new house, but also put a Victorian Era convenience in its place, what's Lennox-Brown's reaction?
  Lennox-Brown: Get the brandy from the first aid cabinet.

Theatre

• Near the end of 1776, John Hancock reverses his position on rum in the Congressional chamber after Rutledge and the South walk out over the anti-slavery clause. Not as funny as it sounds, as it's basically the Darkest Hour in the debate.
• In The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) Romeo is about the drink the poison, kiss Juliet and die. As both characters are played by men, the actor playing Romeo takes another swig of the "poison" before kissing the man lying before him, as if hoping that the stuff will deaden his senses.
• Hamilton:
  • After the infamous duel, Burr sings:
    I strike him right between his ribs
    I walk towards him, but I am ushered away
    They row him back across the Hudson
    I get a drink
  • In the "Laurens Interlude" number, Lafayette and Mulligan react mutely to the news of Laurens' death. Lafayette falls to his knees and weeps. Mulligan takes a pull from a hip flask.
• Several productions of Les Misérables (including the 2012 film) have Fantine take a swig of something just before she makes her decision to be a prostitute.
• The Moon is Blue:
  Patty: [suddenly] I'd like a drink.
  David: [promptly] Good idea.
  Don: I thought you considered it high school to drink unless you actually craved it.
  Patty: [defiantly] Well, I crave it now.
• On yet another Shakesperian note, in Macbeth Lady Macbeth gets Duncan's guards drunk so that her husband can murder him. She needs a swig of wine afterwards to cope with what she's done.
• On another Shakespearian note, in Romeo and Juliet, when the Nurse believes Juliet to be dead, she cries out for "aqua vitae" an archaic term for distilled spirits.
• In Spamalot, the Lady of the Lake sings this in "Diva's Lament":
  I'm with a bunch of British Knights
  Prancing 'round in wooly tights
  I might as well go to the pub
• A Very Potter Musical:
  "Uggh. I need a butterbeer."

Video Games

• In Ar tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel, returning character Cocona is often seen mentioning her need for a drink whenever you end up building some of the more reality-breaking items in the game, such as a floating tablet... out of spare parts.
• Assassin's Creed Syndicate: Shaun Hastings, who runs the in-game database, is implied to have a moment like this, as relayed by Rebecca Crane. One of the characters who receives a bio is Mary-Anne Disraeli's pet corgy, Desmond. Desmond also happens to be the modern-day progaonist of I through III, who was Shaun's best friend and died in a Heroic Sacrifice. Shaun doesn't take it well.
  Shaun: Not funny, universe. Not funny at all.
  Rebecca: Jeez, what'd you find in there? Shaun's locked himself in his room, I can't find the whiskey, and I think I hear crying.
• Implied in Bastion, which features a distillery where various types of alcohol can be equipped like normal equipment to provide passive bonuses. The further along the game goes, the more the Kid levels up and the more booze he can equip at once, which also coincides with the increasing level of terrible crap the Kid experiences in a post-apocalyptic hellhole.
• In Blood, "I sure could use a drink." is one of the lines that is uttered by Calib. After all he's been through, like being turned into a zombie and having his god desert him, you can't blame him.
• In Bully, Galloway says "I need a drink!" if you annoy him by repeatedly writing gibberish in English class.
• In Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly, Hyde enters the café to see Lua and Baileys either exchanging sweet compliments or arguing over Lua "seeing everything as conflict". Either way, Hyde needs a spicy drink to wash it all down.
• One of the disgruntled Motor World pedestrians in Crash Tag Team Racing exasperatedly shouts "I need a drink! That's an understatement."
• Drinking at the Bar in the Inn is one of the many ways that heroes can relieve their Stress at the Hamlet in Darkest Dungeon.
• The player dwarves of Deep Rock Galactic need no encouragement to drink—they are only too happy to drink before a mission, after a mission, or even vaguely contemplating a mission. On the other hand, Mission Control is the Straight Man and Only Sane Employee trying to keep a lid on the idiotic antics of the players, and the achievements strongly imply that the vagaries of player stupidity regularly drives them to the bottle.
  Achievement unlocked: Foreign Objects In The Launch Bay. You kicked every barrel into the launch bay. You are why Mission Control drinks.
• James proposes this to his colleagues at the end of the bonus chapter of Detectives United III: Timeless Voyage. They're all extremely shaken by everything that's just happened to them, so he suggests that they "go have a glass of wine at the closest pub." The game's closing scene shows the three of them doing just that, collected around a table and enjoying drinks and each other's company.
• Dragon Age:
  • In Dragon Age: Origins, if you discuss Alistair becoming king and marrying Queen Anora with him and Arl Eamon at Arl Eamon's estate, Alistair will say, in a shaky voice, "I think I need a drink. Or ten."
    • Once Arl Howe explains that he hired the Antivan Crows to assassinate the surviving Wardens, Loghain turns away and drains his goblet.
    • In the Warden's Keep DLC, Levi will react this way after the encounter with the demon-possessed Sophia Dryden.
    Levi Dryden: I can't believe my great-great-grandmother was still alive! Well, sort of alive. Sort of... dead. I need a drink.
  • In Dragon Age II, Hawke can invite Varric to share a drink at the Hanged Man after dealing with Bartrand being warped by the lyrium idol in Act II of the game.
  • In Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dorian says this after a nasty confrontation with his father.
    Dorian: Now it's time to drink myself into a stupor. It's been that sort of day.
  • According to The World of Thedas, Vol. 2, King Cailan and Queen Anora — back when he was Ferelden's crown prince and she was his betrothed — went on a quest to deal with a giant which was plaguing part of the countryside. They were successful, but according to a companion who was with them for part of the quest, Anora summed up the experience by saying that "We're going to go have a drink. A lot of drinks. Maybe all the drinks." Neither of them was ever willing to discuss the details with anyone.
• Overheard in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, in a conversation between Captain Lonely-Gale in Windhelm and a server in the local tavern. He lists a few things which are plaguing him, the last being an Abhorrent Admirer who "won't leave me alone." The server asks if he would like a drink, and the good captain replies, "Oh, very much so."
• Fallen London has an entire side quest started by and devoted to one of these moments, though mostly caused by the fact the usual beer offered just isn't stiff enough. Plus, one of the ways to deal with your Nightmares is to invoke this with Laudanum instead of anything alcoholic or to go to the Carnival and start guzzling hot wine, never mind the fact your reputation'll be stained by being caught that drunk. Thus, many player characters live by this trope, witnessing awful stuff and reacting by drinking like maniacs.
  • Mr Wines 'is' this trope. Fairs fair, it does have a lot it wants to forget.
• In Half-Life 2, the phrase "Huugh... I need a drink, who's with me?" is said by a Rebel Base Commander after surviving a raid by a Combine Hunter-Chopper.
• One Gerudo woman in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild named Deltan can be found at the Noble Canteen drunkenly hunched over a table sobbing over all the men who have rejected her.
• In Mass Effect, a Renegade Shepard can destroy businessman Lorik Qui'in's career for being reluctant to testify against a corrupt Administrator. When he finds out, the poor guy's reaction is, "Excuse me, please. I feel the need to order more drinks while I can still afford them."
  • In Mass Effect 3: Citadel, this will be Jack's response to the suggestion that her and Miranda's mutual antagonism is actually Belligerent Sexual Tension and they should Get a Room!. Miranda concurs.
  • Also in Citadel, when infiltrating the social gathering at the casino, Shepard can run into a Spoiled Brat socialite. Then, up the stairs, is her father, who's busy getting drunk after dealing with her "self-indulgent phase" all day. When Shepard says that they've met the daughter, the father asks if they need a ryncol.
  • In Lair of the Shadow Broker, it turns out that Admiral/Councillor Anderson a) watches a lot of material that obviously annoys him (such as a documentary aimed at exonerating the bad guy of the first game) and b) buys a lot of expensive alcohol, usually immediately after watching said material. The inference is obvious, especially given that most of the time where that isn't happening, his work involves Ambassador Udina and/or the Citadel council, which would drive anyone to drink.
• In Metal Gear Solid 3, one of Snake's radio support members Para-Medic, who has the job of telling him how to maintain his health and what animals and plants are okay for him to eat, informs him of a certain type of mushroom he has procured that should never be combined with alcohol. Para-Medic, being the good physician she is, explains that the mushroom inhibits the body's natural ability to absorb and break down alcohol so if you were to go drinking after eating it you would get a hangover from hell. Snake finds this fascinating but he takes Para-Medic's words as an insult, asking if she honestly thinks he would risk compromising the mission at hand by drinking alcohol, Para-Medic responds by saying that she is popping back a shot right now as they speak and says that Snake should join her and loosen up. Snake is flabbergasted by Para-Medic and grunts in disgust, who then says that she was only joking, which in frustration causes Snake to mutter under his breath, "Uh... I need a drink.", before ending the conversation.
• In The Punisher video game, after you complete the Stark Enterprises level, a cutscene with Iron Man appears where he looks at the mess you made and, visibly shocked, says "I need a drink."
• Resident Evil Village: After watching her phone call to Mother Miranda play out, you can enter the room Lady Dimitrescu just vacated and read a diary entry she left laying nearby. At the very end of the entry (which notes her frustration at being treated as if she's not superior to the other Mutant Lords despite seemingly being Miranda's favorite) she says the trope name almost verbatim.
• Streets of Rogue: Beat the game as a bartender, he'll make a grand speech about his new cushy job as Mayor, when suddenly he's interrupted by the crowd demanding drinks just because he's rambling behind a podium that uses the same materials as a bar. Then he says, "I need a freaking drink."
• More or less implied in a few Tales Series games. One case that leaps to mind is from Tales of the Abyss when the party briefly disbands in Grand Chokmah. You have to relocate a few of your party members. Jade Curtiss is in the bar.
• During Episodes 3, 4, and 5 of The Walking Dead (Telltale), Kenny has this reaction to most events (after Duck and Katja have died, Kenny will be unable to refuse any bottles of Whiskey he finds) . Crista also falls prey to this despite being pregnant and Lee has the option to drink with Kenny and Chuck on several occasions.
  • Played With in a humourous way in Season 2 Episode 1, when Clementine has a juice box with her when she has to fix a wound on her arm. The player can invoke the trope by having her sip from the juice box before each step in the process.
• Malvolio Portius requires a glass of Something Expensive before talking about WildStar's Chua.
• In The Witcher, the phrase is uttered by Shani if you are on the Neutral path during chapter 5. As a doctor, she sets up a field hospital in the middle of a battlefield between the Order and the Scoia'tael and is treating both sides indiscriminately. Scoia'tael members barge in her hospital and, after seeing that she is treating humans, try to kill them and her. After Geralt disposes of them, members of the Order enter the hospital. Shani tells them that they are late and that their help is no longer needed, only for them to start attacking her and her non-human patients when they realize she is helping non-humans. Once again, Geralt deals with them, leaving behind a bloody mess in the middle of the hospital. At this point, a very shaken and distraught Shani says she needs a drink.
• In a World of Warcraft cinematic trailer, two warriors locked in a life-or-death struggle were soundly defeated by a Pandaren. A later cinematic showed the two of them getting drunk while trying to come to terms with being beaten by a "bear".

Web Animation

• Vegeta in Ducktalez 5, as a result of watching Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties with Scrooge in Ducktalez 4.
• RWBY: Qrow's default response when things don't go his way is to resort to drinking. He's introduced getting drunk because he's preparing for a confrontation over General Ironwood's behaviour towards Professor Ozpin. When he has a tense meeting with his estranged sister, he asks the barmaid for another round. When his meeting with Professor Lionheart isn't as helpful as he hoped, he ditches the kids to find a bar. However, when he finally learns the truth that Professor Ozpin has been hiding, he's so devastated that he moves from this trope to Drowning My Sorrows by spending the whole of Volume 6 in a drunken stupor, leaving the kids to try and figure things out alone.
• Zero Punctuation has Yahtzee doing this in the DayZ review.
  Yahtzee: So I started my first game, spawned on the shores of a mysterious land, made for the nearest visible building, and was immediately beaten to death by six squawking working-class zombies in flat caps. Then I paused to have a little drinkie^note Yahtzee's avatar is pouring himself a large glass of wine and going "'S gonna be a long afternoon".
  • His avatar does this pretty frequently whenever he refers to having to psyche himself up for playing a game he's fairly certain he's going to hate.
• Helluva Boss: Stolas in "The Circus" falls into this trope so he can deal with Stella's constant remarks about their Awful Wedded Life in her not-divorced anniversary party. It becomes readily apparent when he demands absinthe in place of wine.

Webcomics

• In The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, the titular Doctor goes out to a bar after arguing with his parents. He orders a bottle of Jose Cuervo tequila and downs the entire bottle in the time it takes the bartender to turn around and get him a shot glass.
  Dr. McNinja: It disappeared! Oh my God! Jose Cuervo must have been a ninja too! HAHAHAHA! *thud*
• Awful Hospital: After all she's been through, Fern is only too happy to follow Balmer, Methanyll, and Hyde when she finds out they have booze.
• In what is likely an homage to Airplane!, at one point in Bob and George, Zero mentions "I picked the wrong week to stop snorting Energon cubes.
• Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures:
  • Abel of all people becomes victim to this trope here.
  • In this comic, Nitemyste responds to a sarcastic question from Wildy.
    Nitemyste: (pouring a flask into his coffee) Anyways, with this conversation I now know it's time to upgrade my drink to something stiffer.
• Dead Winter:
  • Black Monday blues states that he'll be fine after surviving a close-range shotgun blast thanks to a Bulletproof Vest, just give him a bottle of Jack. He makes good on that promise by picking up a bottle of Jack while grabbing his new outfit.
  • Ironically we also see his former employer Domingos Santos, having himself some whisky, thanks to the Zombie Apocalypse giving him some complications. Not to mention that Monday has chosen to wage a one man war against him thanks to recognizing that he was being given the old You Have Outlived Your Usefulness schtick. Also funnily enough the first drink that he needed was tea.
• Dork Tower:
  • Ken responds to a badly mangled takeoff of O. Henry's Gifts of the Magi:
    Ken: If anyone needs me, I'll be seeking the Spirit of Christmas Spirits. 98 proof.
  • Bill also gets in on the act.
    Carson: Isn't it premature for Bill to be hitting the celebratory champagne? Oh, never mind, that's vodka.
• In El Goonish Shive, Diane's realization that she wants more than a superficial relationship shocks her to the point that she decides to try obtaining alcohol despite being underage in order to forget her epiphany.
  Diane: Screw the rules. I'm drinking tonight.
• In one of the Erf World summer updates, Parson gets into a discussion with Jack and Maggie about the nature of time in Erfworld. At some point, he realizes that he is either too drunk or not drunk enough to participate in the conversation. Having no way to sober up, he gambles on the latter, and downs a wineskin.
• Errant Story: Jon needs lots of freaking drinks after he, Sarine and Meji get away from the Giant Magic Potato. Of course, the next Oh, Crap! moment, just minutes later, leaves him Suddenly Sober. (Predictably, Sarine is stone sober throughout.)
• Freefall: Winston Thurmad suspects he'll need one due to an upcoming discussion with Dvorak and Qwerty.
• Friendship is Dragons: Three times so far:
  • Twilight Sparkle in the Nightmare Moon story arc at Pinkie's surprise party:
    Twilight: Well, yes, but... Why...? Ugh, I need a drink!
    DM: In-character or out-of-character?
    Twilight: BOTH!
  • The Dungeon Master in the "Dragonshy" story arc when a major plot hole is pointed out by the players.
  • Both Applejack and Twilight Sparkle when confronted by Pinkie Sense in the "Feeling Pinkie Keen" story arc.
• Get Medieval: here◊
  Sir Gerard: Now, I just need a bath and a drink. A long bath, and a big drink.
  Eleanor: How long and how big?
  Sir Gerard: Could we just fill the tub with Ale?
• Girl Genius:
  • Considering the week/months in comic time that the cast of has been having by this point, it's amazing that Wooster is the first to invoke this trope and that it took so long for him to feel the need to imbibe a little.
  • After seeing their rather unflattering portrayal in an act based on Agatha's adventures thus far Gil and Tarvek declare in unison that they need a drink, and then go together to drink and commiserate.
  • When Bang, ah, assumes command of an airship in a rather bad situation, she calls for a meeting of the ship's senior crew once they're out of immediate danger, and adds that "somebody had better have rum!"
• In Hark! A Vagrant, this is how Jane Austen reacts to Sense and Sensibility and Mister Darcy and Sharks in Space Riding Motorcycles Plus There Is a Time Machine.
• Homestuck:
  • Roxy does this at the end of one conversation.
  • Early in Hivebent, Eridan does this while pondering his relationship with Feferi. Simultaneously, Feferi does the same thing for the same reason.
    Another emotionally exhausting conversation. Too many FEELINGS AND PROBLEMS. It couldn't be any clearer to you. You and this sea princess have splashed down hard into the moirail zone, and now you don't know which way's upward. Perhaps tonight you will reveal your true feelings toward her, and end these exaggerated emotional theatrics once and for all, one way or another.
    You need a stiff drink.
• JL8 uses a child's version: "Root beer float. Make it a double."
• JoJopolis has an example of I Need a Freaking Toke. After their encounter with Wolfman Jack, Jordan takes a puff of marijuana to unwind. Although Sonny calls him out for smoking right in front of him, a police officer, he shortly after asks him to pass the joint.
• Lackadaisy: After an encounter with a ghostly duck, Wick is seen pouring himself a shot of whiskey with a helpless expression on his face.
• Leaving the Cradle: After Mark helps bring the unconscious alien to their house, the very next thing he does right after that is take out a bottle of alcohol from the cabinet and start drinking.
• Nodwick: After Piffany essentially out-lawyers a pair of devils, one of them proclaims,
  Devil: I do so need a three-martini lunch right now.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • Variation in On the Origin of PCs; when Elan insists you have to recruit adventurers in a tavern, Roy asks "Why? I need adventurers, not a drink. ...Well, not JUST a drink."
  • Played straight with the Cliffport Police Chief in "C.P.P.D. Blues".
    Da Chief: Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing pixie dust.
  • Upon being "out-logicked" by Elan regarding General Tarquin's trustworthiness, an already-drunk Haley reaches out for Durkon's tankard.
    Durkon: Lass! Dinnae ye think ye've drank enough?
    Haley: Depends. Am I drunk enough yet that later, I won't remember getting out-logicked by Elan?
    Durkon: Och! Na. Ye'll need at least two more pints fer tha.
  • Durkon combines it with Brain Bleach in "The Comics Must Flow".
    Durkon: Och, it's times like this, I wish I had a 500-foot-tall bottle o' tequila!
    Roy: I don't think that would work to drown the worm.
    Durkon: Who said anythin' aboot tha worm? I jus' wanna get too blitzed ta remmemb'r this!
  • In the prequel story How the Paladin Got His Scar, after O-Chul and Hinjo (who is underage) are told the secret lore of the Sapphire Guard, we next see them at a bar.
    O-Chul: [pouring a shot] Here.
    Hinjo: I'm too—
    O-Chul: The day you learn you will be responsible for containing a god-eating horror that lives under our feet is the day you come of age. Drink.
• Out There: Miriam always needs a freaking drink. Sherry, Araceli, Rebecca, et. al. sometimes need a freaking drink. Clayton never needs one, but he'll have one anyway, thank you.
• Questionable Content:
  • Variation in #513:
    Marten: Jesus CHRIST do I need a drink right now. To throw in my EYES.
  • Shortly after Marten vents his bitterness over his latest argument with Dora, Faye decides it's time for the emergency bourbon.
  • Marten comes in intending to get drunk to take his mind off Dora; when he sees what Pintsize has done to help him with that, it requires immediate application of liquor.
  • After reflexively telling Angus she loves him too, Faye — who is still recovering from the trust issues from her father's suicide — needs a coping mechanism.
    Wil: I don't believe I know that drink.
    Faye: It's easy. You put two ice cubes in a glass, then dump 'em out and fill it with bourbon.
• Schlock Mercenary:
  • Kevyn orders multiple strong drinks, with carbonation so it hits his bloodstream fast enough to overpower his Super Soldier boosts, after seeing General Xinchub's clone naked, and taking three amnesia pills.
  • The complications of sergeant Schlock's trial for assaulting a police officer lead Massey to declare he's having an olives-and-ethanol lunch.
• Team Fortress 2: Miss Pauling and the crew track down Sniper's parents, who turn out to be parodies of Jor-El and Lara. On learning that they used pretty much all the Australium left in the world to paint a bunch of space rockets that exploded, Miss Pauling gets handed a full wineglass and drains it.
  • Lar-Nah, in particular, dove into this trope to cope with her husband's sheer incompetence.
    Lar-Nah: ...and thanks to your father, everyone in New Zealand drowned, and we've been stuck in this sealed lab ever since.
    Bill-Bel: Where your mother has been trying to drown herself, one bottle of wine at a time.
• Unsounded: As the monsterous living First Silver "weapon" and the inak revolutionaries converge on the city leaving a bloodbath in their wake Liro is seen hiding out under a table drinking, and reaching up to grab another drink as other characters discuss the carnage scratching at their sheild.
• John Kossler of The Word Weary goes from The Teetotaler to this after a particularly bad day.

Web Original

• The Angry Video Game Nerd does this quite a lot in response to always having to play such unforgivable games. His favorite seems to be Rolling Rock, and he apparently believes that the only thing better than Super Mario Bros. 3 is having a leprechaun bring him beer.
  • The trope loses some of its impact due to the sheer amount of Rolling Rock he drinks. Sometimes, though, he'll break out some hard whiskey for when beer, alone, isn't enough for the occasion, such as when he revisited Dr. Jekell & Mr. Hyde.
• Atop the Fourth Wall: Linkara has also done this by tossing back a bottle in a paper bag on occasion. On top of that, every Atop The Fourth Wall episode reviewing an issue of Marville opens with a drunk Linkara. Even when it's a holographic version of him! The very first review ends with this:
  Linkara: I'm not gonna review issue two next week. Why? Because if I'm gonna continue with Marville I'M GONNA NEED A LOT OF ALCOHOL!
• The Autarch of Flame says this occasionally at the end of his countdowns. It becomes a Madness Mantra near the end of his "Top Ten Scariest Twin Peaks Moments"
• Bad Movie Beatdown: In his review of Seven Pounds, Film Brain signs off with "...and I need a stiff drink."
• GM Dave of Bannable Offenses is quite the heavy drinker, mostly due to the fact that he spends 8 hours a day (plus whatever he plays at home) often dealing with the dumbest members of Final Fantasy XI in existence, and will occasionally (read, very, very often) use this phrase or a variation thereof. Unsurprisingly, his most vicious (and therefore funniest) punishments come on the rare occasion when he runs out of Jack Daniels. Lord help you if you anger him then...
• Subverted in The Battery's Down: Molly's cousin tells Dani that he's Irish which means he needs he "needs another fucking drink".
• Bennett the Sage needed some strong stuff to get through reviewing Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie. He starts wondering why the hell it's not working before it kicks in and needs a stomach pump commercial break.
• The Book Was Better: Krimson Rogue's reaction to the Adaptation Decay of the Percy Jackson movie is to get hammered. He ends the review by puking his guts out.
• Bronies React: D.Notive's reaction to receiving the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls trailer is to go make himself a drink — before even watching a second of it.
• Computerphile: The Problem with Time & Timezones. Tom Scott is describing a hypothetical programmer, who created a simple tool that takes two times, in two time zones, and calculates how far apart they are in seconds... and all the exceptions and rule-patches needed to make sure it's accurate. When someone in the Southern hemisphere calls up to tell this hypothetical programmer that they do Daylight Saving Time backwards compared to the Northern hemisphere, the programmer starts "looking longingly at their intoxicant of choice and wondering whether they should have a quick drink before keeping going". This happens at minute 3 of a 10-minute video.
• When the sporker of Conjugal Felicity decided to tackle the Maradonia Saga, he decides to ignore pointing out the countless spelling and grammar errors in favor of simply taking a drink for each one. When sporking the third book, upon reading a clumsily-written part in which a character is raped, he tells his readers that "I am now drinking heavily to get that thought out of my head. I apologize if the rest of this sporking does not make any sense."
• The Cracked column "7 Celebrity Animals: Where Are They Now? (A Drunk Column)" was supposed to just be a fun self-imposed drinking game for Soren, but ends with Soren doing this when he finds out that all his favorite and not so favorite Celebrity Animals are dead.
  Drink Count: Hard to say. I've been pouring out a lot of it and reevaluating some things.
• The Cry of Mann: Implied: After everything starts to go wrong at Jouglat's funeral, Berry gives up on trying to keep everything in line, and just sits on the couch with a drink.
• Matt in The Cult of Scratchwood's Christmas Special, after he realizes Santa Claus is Real After All.
• The sporkers of Das Sporking often get involved with this, taking advantage of the fact that most can summon drinks of their choice through various magical means. Mervin often makes use of this, with one memorable instance involving her drinking vodka in orange juice, getting increasingly exasperated with the work she was sporking (Twilight/New Moon) and as a result adding less and less orange juice to the vodka. By the end, she's drinking vodka with the orange juice added in with an eyedropper.
• It's not alcoholic, but the version of Kyle Rayner in DC Nation frequently "needs a sketchpad" in the aftermath of shit hitting fan.
• In one of the more gentler examples from Demo Reel, Nice Guy Uncle Yo immediately asks for some Guinness on tab when a drunken depressed Donnie hits on him with the Pocky tagline.
• Dicebreaker, in a livestream of Johnny, Wheels and Lolies playing three-sided chess, ran into a situation where they couldn't, for the life of them, tell which direction a bishop was supposed to go when it ran into the middle part of the baffling hexagonal chessboard.
  Wheels: This piece here (indicates Lolies's bishop) could go like this (points through one of his own pawns), or it could go like this (points at Johnny's knight)
  Johnny: ...I'm getting a beer.
• Dr. Shelton says something like this when he starts hearing a voice in his head.
• The FanFiction Critic, during her review of legolas by laura: "It's five o'clock somewhere, right?" *swig*
• Folding Ideas' episode on "The Art of Editing and Suicide Squad" starts off with Dan downing a bottle of cough syrup (a later comment response video revealing it was actually water^{"OR WAS IT?"} "It was water."). He would discuss this a year later in "The Art of Storytelling and The Book of Henry":
  "So last year, for the first time in the history of my channel, when I did my episode on the editing in Suicide Squad, I indulged in the well-worn trope where a reviewer plays up needing drugs or alcohol to get through the process. Now, in the script, it was supposed to be cooking oil as a total subversion of the trope, but at the last minute, I decided to just use an old cough syrup bottle instead, so I wound up inadvertently just recreating the trope in its entirety in an attempt at being witty. Anyway, let's talk about the art of storytelling and The Book of Henry! (huffs a balloon full of nitrous oxide)
  • Surprisingly, he doesn't do this for his three-part deep-dive into the Fifty Shades series, but he does mention in the second video that he's figured out exactly when Dakota Johnson started drinking to get through the sex scenes (she admitted to this in an interview), and it was apparently during the shower sex scene in the boathouse because "she just sounds drunk"^note Immediately followed by the clip of said scene where she does, indeed, sound three sheets to the wind.
• Game Theory: Discussed in "No Cowboy is Safe! Red Dead's Biggest THREAT!", when Austin Hourigan (of The SCIENCE!) points out a tidbit about drinking beer in the late 1800s in Red Dead Redemption II:
  "Arthur [Morgan] also drinks quite a bit, with an entire mission, easily the best part of the game, being dedicated to getting blackout drunk. This isn't an anomaly, and it in fact would be much more surprising if Arthur Morgan wasn't a bon vivant. In the 1800s, the average man [caption says, "Hi Jim!"] consumed seven gallons of ethanol (pure ethanol amounts, mind you!) per year, which translates into over four-and-a-half beers per day, or over 1,659 bottles of beer per year: over 155 gallons of beer per year! And you wonder why prohibition has existed!"
• In The Warp Zone's "Harry Potter: Hogwarts in 2020", Snape's chosen means of coping with his lecture going online during the pandemic is to bring a Tequila Sunrise to its first session. Not only that, but his immediate response to Voldemort Zoom-bombing the class is to reach for his drink.

• Lindsay Ellis did a video essay on the technical reasons for why The Phantom of the Opera (2004) sucked. She starts the video polishing off a bottle of wine (and is already tipsy at this point) and cycles between wine, whiskey, and beer for the rest of the video, accumulating at least a half dozen bottles.
  • She does it again during the second part of her "autopsy" on the notorious Game of Thrones Season 8 and series finale. Notably, she did the first part sober, and while we don't see her with a drink in hand until roughly 14 minutes into the second (hour and ten minutes long) video, there are a worryingly large amount of empty Corona bottles and Bloody Mary cans behind her. She brings out the Bacardi half-way through tearing into the Lannisters, by the time she gets to Cersei she's about as tipsy as she was at the start of the Phantom of the Opera video^note With a fresh bottle of Corona and has another bottle of Corona for Daenerys.
• The Nostalgia Chick is a full-blown Lady Drunk, and went straight for the bottle after watching The Christmas Shoes.
• The Nostalgia Critic does this fairly often:
  • In the review for Titanic: The Animated Movie, he pulls out progressively larger bottles of Jägermeister until he has one the size of himself. And when it's discovered there's another animated Titanic movie that's even worse, he shoves that off the desk and calls in one so large it has to be airlifted by three helicopters. And when he reviewed the even worse sequel to the second animated Titanic movie, he summons a bottle that's the size of a planet.
  • He delivers the line "Booze. I must have booze," in a traumatized monotone during Baby Geniuses, while staggering shell-shocked through a convention, before fishing out a silver flask....
  • Then there is Howard the Duck.
    Critic: Uh... how many more puns are there going to be in this movie where you simply insert the word "duck" into common, everyday phrases?...
    Caption: [1,358 more]
    Critic: Okay, I'm just gonna have (pulls out bottle) this on standby, I hope you don't mind.
    (later)
    Critic: Just to check, this, ah, idiotic waif isn't going to play any major part in this movie, is she?
    Caption: [LOVE INTEREST]
    Critic: Okay, bottoms up. (takes a shot)
    (slightly afterwards, he is seen chugging it straight from the bottle)
• Not Always Right has a story where the narrator asks, after finally closing the store nearly half an hour past the stated closing time, "Who's buying the first round?"
  • You know it's been a bad day when the teetotaler is demanding Scotch.
• In Pay Me, Bug!, Grif Vindh says this over, and over, and over.
• Protectors of the Plot Continuum go through Bleeproducts like water, after most missions.
  • Even before Bleeproducts are discovered: Intelligence Agent Architeuthis, while investigating a failed attempt at a humor fic, sees the self-insert and four hobbits going into the Prancing Pony:
    I follow them in and order some good strong mead, as I've a feeling I'm going to need it before this job is through.
    • Of course, another (highly energetic) self-insert pops in, bounces off of Barliman, and glomps Frodo. In the scuffle, Architeuthis' drink is spilled.
• ProtonJon, during the Four-Player Battletoads race with Super Jeenius, NintendoCapriSun, and Pcull, says this after one particularly hard section of Rat Race. The achievement quotes the trope name.
  Jon: I'm just going to put down the controller at this point, and I'm going to drink something.
• SF Debris:
  • The review of Star Trek: Generations opens with what might be a fitting metaphor for the film: A bottle of booze!
    "Like the viewers' hopes, the bottle's dashed within the first few minutes."
  • One does not simply walk into VOY without rum. *sound of clinking ice*
  • In the re-release of "The 37's", Chuck says that whenever someone says "ancient" in Trek, he takes a drink. Not as a drinking game, but as a coping mechanism.
• Some More News: At the end of the episode "Joe Biden, Primary Donald Trump As A Republican", Cody the News Dude once again states that Joe Biden is closer to Republicans than to Democrats, and one of his evidence is "all these women and girls [Biden] touched inappropriately" — then he promptly apologizes for it being a cheap shot, but says we all could probably use one right now. So he grabs a shot of whisky and downs it, Visual Metaphor-style.
• The Spoony Experiment: Spoony did this once. After seeing Breaking Dawn, part 1. For real. (For added points, he's not much of a drinker but he does keep a small stock in case of company, so he was dancing from rum to vodka to whisky, and also nursed a can of Diet Coke.) And since he didn't want to drink alone, he had a conference call with Linkara and JewWario while he expounded upon the outright terribleness of the movie. For an hour and a half.
• Todd in the Shadows says "I need a stiff drink" in Suburban Knights when he finds out that Malachite's Hand is hidden in the field where they started. The rest of the team doesn't sound any better.
• Played straight on the online Test Cricket radio station Test Match Sofa, frequently admits to being run on booze; so much so that a running jingle says "Won't Someone, anyone, fix me a drink""
• The end of the trivia section on Transformers Wiki article for the G1 episode B.O.T. (widely considered to be the worst episode from any Transformers series):
  "Good God, I need a stiff drink."
• True Capitalist: Ghost often invokes this trope by name after a particularly effective set of trolls.
• Warning! Readers Advisory!: Derek the Bard often finds himself in need of one, and often reaches for a crystal skull full of vodka.
• The Webcomic Relief, a caustic webcomic critic, reacted this way after having to review Sonichu. But then again, can you really blame him?
• In Welcome to Night Vale, this is encouraged by the Sheriff's Secret Police.
  "Remember, if you see something, say nothing, and drink to forget."

Western Animation

• Adventure Time:
  • In another children's cartoon example, Jake when he attends a really boring meeting disguised as Princess Bubblegum.
    Jake: Ugh. (turns to a prince) Buy a lady a drink?
  • In "Another Five Short Graybles", Jake Jr. pours herself some more "juice" in response to Finn and Jake being annoying.
  • "Bad Timing" has Princess Bubblegum pour herself what looks like whiskey after watching LSP cry.
• American Dad!:
  • In the episode "Oedipal Panties", Roger has been trying to keep himself off of alcohol, only to go back to drinking when he sees Stan giving his mother a scrubbing in the bathtub.
  • In the episode "1600 Candles", Stan and Francine have been altering Steve's age with a serum to avoid dealing with the same puberty-induced violent mood swings they suffered through with Hayley's puberty. After Francine accidentally turns him five in a bid to keep him 14, Stan tries to instead age him to 21, happily musing about his plan to Francine after he gives Steve the serum. When Steve appears, aged all the way to 80-years-old, Fran simply groans "Oh my God" in disgusted resignation and downs both shots of whiskey that Stan had poured for him and Steve to share.
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Crisis 23300 miles above the Earth!", has Martian Manhunter say he needs a cookie once Aquaman starts singing whale songs at the party the Justice League is hosting for the Justice Society. He was earlier shown eating a boxful out of nerves, and even pours the rest of another box into his mouth before joining the massive brawl breaking out between the two teams. So while it's more kid-friendly, the effect is the same. In the comics, it's explained that due to his physiology that Oreos are literally as addictive as drugs to him. So for him, it is a "drink".
• Castlevania: Upon hearing that Dracula's Horde has been spotted near town, a man named Peter runs into the local pub demanding an ale. He downs his drink in one breath before telling the other patrons the news.
• The Dover Boys at Pimento University; or, The Rivals of Roquefort Hall:
  Dan Backslide: Confound those Dover Boys! Oh, how I hate them! I hate Tom! I hate Dick! And I hate Larry! They drive me to drink!
  (blurs running over to the bar to pound down drinks at ludicrous speed, with the bartender taking a single drink in the middle; blurs back to original position)
  Dan Backslide: Confound them! HIC!
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: In "World Wide Wabbit", after finding out that he's become an Internet celebrity thanks to a viral video, an angry Mr. Herriman announces he's going out for "a stall, stiff glass of carrot juice".
• In the Hey Arnold! episode "Helga On The Couch," upon learning her daughter will be attending therapy, Miriam Pataki loudly announces, "I need a smoothie." If you watch enough of the show (and you're old enough) you know she really means something stronger.
• King of the Hill:
  • After Hank gets into a fight with Peggy in a hotel room, he heads to the minibar, sighing and proclaiming, "I need me one of those eight-dollar beers..."
  • In the "Returning Japanese" two-parter, Hank and his Japanese half-brother Junichiro are wandering around a subway station looking for Cotton, who plans on spitting in the face of the emperor. They pause, and Hank sees a neon billboard advertising beer. He says he could go for a beer that size. Junichiro without hesitation goes to the nearest vending machine and buys both of them a beer.
    "Yep." "Hai."
  • During "Edu-macating Lucky" when Luanne announces she's pregnant with Lucky's child Peggy rather calmly sits down, and tell Bobby to get her "A cold towel, and a glass of bourbon."
• Comes up in The Legend of Korra, where Korra, Asami, and a group of Earth Nation soldiers escape from the desert (and the giant burrowing land shark that tried to eat them) and find themselves at a town. One of them notices a... unique mount tied up outside the city.
  Soldier: Captain, have we been out in the desert too long, or is that a dragon over there?
  Captain: Ugh, come on. Let's go get a drink...
• In Metalocalypse, an episode has the band awakening a lake troll. In the ensuing chaos, Nathan states he needs exactly one hundred beers. Cut to the Nathan and the band in a bar, asking for one hundred beers. Earlier, when Offdensen said that the troll was affecting their sales, Pickles also declared he needed a drink. A different drink, not the one currently in his hand.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fan works are full of these moments, but even the show itself has a few.
  • In the first episode, main character Twilight Sparkle pours herself a glass of what looks like booze while Pinkie Pie talks her ear off. It's actually hot sauce, much to Twilight's dismay. The scene has become a minor meme in the fandom in conjunction with the quote from The Dover Boys seen above.
  • Rarity takes a turn in "Sweet and Elite"; during an upper-crust garden party that her friends have just gatecrashed, she drains a glass of (what appears to be) punch in one shot.
  • Berry Punch is usually the one to do this in all fan works, especially so after her scene where she took a taste of the punch straight from the bowl. (Lauren Faust's name for her during the development process was Pinot Noir, for the drink that helped her get through the stress of coordinating a very spread-out team.)
• At the end of the Popeye cartoon "College Of Hard Knocks," Olive hands Popeye what he thinks is a diploma. It turns out to be a marriage license.
  Popeye: YEOWWW!! (to us, wearily) I needs me spinach!
• The Simpsons:
  • "Lisa's Sax" has this from a parody of Michigan J. Frog:
    "We're proud to present on the WB, another bad show that no-one will see-ee-eee! Ugh, I need a drink."
  • In "Marge Gets a Job", Groundskeeper Willie wrestles a wolf that escaped from a shooting of Krusty's show and attacked Bart at school. When they are finished, Willie shares a flask of Scotch with the whipped wolf.
    Willie: Ah, don't feel bad for losing. I was wrestling wolves back when you were at your mother's teat.
  • "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" starts at a swap meet. Before opening it, Mayor Quimby quietly voices his disgust at the event. He then cheerfully opens the event before walking off:
    Quimby: I need a drink and a shower.
  • "A Fish Called Selma": When Troy tries to have sex with Selma to conceive a child (and scotch those pernicious rumours about his fish fetish), he just keeps making suggestive growling noises at the door of their bedroom. Selma wants to break the ice and offers him some wine. He quickly runs to the bed, empties both glasses, and returns to the door to continue growling.
  • In "Todd, Todd, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?", Ned Flanders goes to Moe's Tavern to drown his sorrows after his son Todd renounces his faith in God. Mind you, this is a guy who spent 4,000 days at Alcoholics Anonymous over ONE blueberry schnapps.

Real Life

• Several air forces (US and UK come to mind) would hand their pilots a shot of whiskey after returning from a mission during World War II and other wars.
• Lost Moon, a memoir by Jim Lovell (the commander of spaceflight Apollo 13) recounted an incident from his military days, in which he had to land on a darkened aircraft carrier at night as part of a training exercise. First, his tracking beacon locked onto the wrong signal, putting him miles off course. Then, as he tried to find the carrier again, he accidentally shorted out the lights in his plane, leaving him unable to see his instruments. Ironically, this lights failure allowed Jim to see the glowing algae in the wake of the carrier, and so he found his ship, but his plane's lights were still out, meaning he was aiming at an unlit runway in the dark with only a penlight to view his instruments. His landing, as a consequence, was rougher than the norm. Upon exiting the cockpit, the ship's doctor offered him brandy, saying "Have a little medicine, on me." He downed most of it in one gulp.
  • Other airforces (USSR and Japan) pass around the liquor before the mission.
• Schutzstaffel (SS) troopers working in 1941-2 to execute "undesirables" in Soviet Russia in WW2 (generally Jewish civilians) by shooting them at close range were provided with alcohol in the evenings. They partook heavily.
• Truth in Television for a lot of people. Reasons for falling into this trope are usually from very high-stress environments, including but not limited to: academic pressure, corporate/work projects, dangerous jobs, struggles in one's personal life, or the birth of a newborn child.
• Nobody is allowed to eat or drink anything — except perhaps water — in the British House of Commons chamber. There is one exception: the Chancellor of the Exchequer is allowed to have an alcoholic beverage while delivering the Budget speech. Considering how long (George Osborne's 2010 Budget speech lasted 55 minutes, and that's short; William Gladstone's 1853 Budget ran nearly five straight hours) and important the speech tends to be — to say nothing of all-too-likely Opposition heckling — the Chancellor are strongly encouraged to take advantage of that exception. Past chancellors have opted for:
  • Water (the pansies): George Osborne (David Cameron's Chancellor), Alastair Darling (Gordon Brown's), Gordon Brown (Tony Blair)
  • Whiskey: Kenneth Clarke (John Major)
  • Spritzer: Nigel Lawson^note Yes, her dad (Margaret Thatcher)
  • Gin and tonic: Geoffrey Howe (Thatcher again)
  • Brandy and water: Benjamin Disraeli (himself)
  • Whisky: Winston Churchill (Stanley Baldwin, 1925)
  • Sherry and beaten egg: The aforementioned Gladstone (several PMs, including himself. The aforementioned longest speech ever was under The Earl of Aberdeen; he only drank one glass for that one, so... kudos.)
• While smoking and eating may be banned, the House of Commons does offer its members free snuff, a powdered form of tobacco that is inhaled. This is due to the smoking ban being implemented in 1693 when tobacco use was far more common.
• After the historical Battle of Rorke's Drift the real Henry Hook — a teetotaler — stunned his companions by getting in line for the grog ration. "After all that," he explained, "I feel I need a little something."
• When a person has low blood pressure (or other problems which have similar symptoms), one of the things that might help them temporarily is a bit of alcohol. Coffee and few other things have similar results, but alcohol is also calming on their nerves. And it's faster to take a quick shot than sit with hot coffee.
• Pi mnemonic: "How I need a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics." Count the letters. 3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9...
• In 1995, orthopedic surgeon Angus Wallace had to treat a woman with tension pneumothorax — on an in-flight airplane. He first used cognac to sterilize his improvised surgical equipment (for example, a coat-hanger for a trocar) and, after the surgery was successful, the rest of it to calm his nerves.
• The Royal Navy abolished the rum ration in 1970, but temporarily reauthorized it in 1982 because of the Falklands War.
• A quote from a drug and alcohol counselor: "Do you know why people turn to alcohol? Because it works. People wouldn't drink if it didn't."
• Bill Simmons' friend Daniel needed one when the two were watching the infamous "Game 162," in which the 2011 Red Sox blew a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the 9th against the Baltimore Orioles and minutes later watch the Tampa Bay Rays come back from a 7-0 deficit and beat the New York Yankees 8-7 in extra innings, capping off the largest September collapse in baseball history (the Red Sox had a 9-game lead for the AL Wild Card on September 3rd). The line itself comes in at 8:45 PM PDT on Simmons' live blog of the games.
• Mike Duncan, creator of The History of Rome and Revolutions, has noted that after finishing recording an episode of both of these series (a grueling process, involving insane amounts of reading, writing, editing, and then finally several takes recording the script), he has a large, stiff drink (usually a beer).
• During World War I, the Italian army used to distribute extra rations of grappa before launching an attack.
• As the pilots of United Flight 232 were trying to land a plane with no hydraulic systems, and therefore no control, one of the pilots in the cockpit told the captain they'd have a beer when this was all over. The captain responded, "Well, I don't drink, but I'll sure as shit have one."
• Not always booze; the British National Grid's biggest ever power surge came after the national team lost a FIFA World Cup semi-final against Germany. The surge was caused by half the country needing a bloody cuppa and simultaneously turning on their kettles.
• Jonny Wilkinson was known to be a teetotaler before he broke the habit following England's loss to South Africa in the 2007 Rugby World Cup final.
• Legendary England footballer Sir Stanley Matthews, who played his last premiership game at the age of 50, was famously a teetotaller, having only knowingly drunk alcohol once... champagne out of the FA Cup in 1953.
• People who investigate child molestation or child pornography often report knowing when the bars open, which is understandable given what they see on a regular basis.
• Recalling the Troubled Production of The Wall, Gerald Scarfe stated that "I would find myself about 9 o'clock in the morning driving in my car with a bottle of Jack Daniels on the passenger seat. I'm not a heavy drinker, but I had to have a slug before I went in in the morning, because I knew what was coming up, and I knew I had to fortify myself in some way."
• John Leguizamo revealed in his memoir that he and Bob Hoskins had such a miserable time making Super Mario Bros. (1993) that they both had to get drunk just to make it through a day's filming.
• During the COVID-19 Pandemic-induced lockdowns of 2020, people starting posting pictures of their "quarantinis" and other alcoholic beverages on social media from home quite early in the day in places like the US where it's considered vaguely taboo to drink during daylight hours. It's not surprising that alcohol sales went up during this period.
• Defied during the 2018 Hungarian GP, between Scuderia Ferrari's paddock crew and their driver Kimi Raikkonen, though this was Justified due to problems regarding the water pump on his car:
  Raikkonen: You forgot to connect the drink through.
  Ferrari Radio: Yes, confirmed.
  Raikkonen: Is the drink, is it on now? Okay, I have no idea.
  Ferrari Radio: We forgot to connect, Kimi. You will not have the drink, sorry.
  Raikkonen: Is it on or not? The drink? Let me know.
  Ferrari Radio: No, Kimi. You will not have the-
  Raikkonen: No, no, no... Is the switch on or not?
  Ferrari Radio: You mean the slow button?
  Raikkonen: No, no... Is my Drinking... Is it emptying the bottle or not?
  Ferrari Radio:No. No, Kimi, no! You will not have the drink!
• Charles Joughin, the Chief Baker aboard the RMS Titanic is another famous example of this. After giving up his assigned seat in a lifeboat, he spent the rest of the night helping people evacuate, throwing deck chairs overboard for people to use as flotation devices, and drinking. Bizarrely, he survived, despite apparently spending several hours in freezing cold water clinging to the overturned collapsible B. He turns up in Titanic, as the guy dressed in all white, drinking from a flask as the ship begins it's final plunge.

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