Basic Trope: A character imbibes alcohol to steel themselves for something difficult.
- Straight: Bob is nervous about some upcoming event, so he drinks a shot of whiskey.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob chugs a bottle of wine in anticipation of an upcoming difficulty.
- Bob does a shot of whiskey any time he faces anything remotely difficult, even something as simple as deciding what to watch on TV.
- Downplayed: Bob adds a little bit of whiskey to his coffee before he has to do something difficult.
- Justified: Bob is The Alcoholic.
- Inverted:
- Bob drinks a shot of whiskey after doing something challenging.
- Bob, normally The Alcoholic, abstains from drinking before undergoing a challenge.
- Drowning My Sorrows: after a hard day, Bob resorts to getting drunk.
- Subverted: Bob mentions he needs some "liquid courage" before going and getting...coffee.
- Double Subverted:
- Bob proceeds to add whiskey to his coffee.
- Owing to Bob's alien biology, coffee gets him drunk.
- Parodied: The thing Bob is nervous over is his upcoming AA meeting, but nobody bats an eye on him draining a bottle of liquor to deal with the pre-meeting jitters.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob drinks coffee, which gets him drunk as he's an alien. But his alien race gets more clear-headed when drunk.
- Averted: Bob finds some other way to deal with anxiety.
- Enforced: The show is sponsored chiefly by a brand of liquor...gotta work that Product Placement in somehow.
- Lampshaded: "Well, Bob's nervous...better put a lock on my liquor cabinet".
- Invoked: Alice mentions how she recently underwent what Bob's about to undertake, and how nervous it made her.
- Exploited: Alice knows Bob is a secret alcoholic, so by goading him into undertaking challenges that he'll need to self-medicate to handle, he's that much more likely to have to reveal this to others.
- Defied: Bob mentions he's nervous. Alice hands him a beer. He flatly refuses.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: Bob is shown to be nervous for some upcoming event; later, he's shown to be much calmer with a noticeable Alcohol Hic.
- Played for Laughs: Bob is nervous about his interview, so he gets good and loaded…only to learn upon walking into his interview that the interviewer was so nervous that he also decided to have several drinks.
- Played for Drama: Bob gets too drunk to function and blows his interview.
- Deconstructed: Bob becomes too reliant on alcohol as a stress reliever. After going through rehab he becomes a nervous wreck at all times because he lost his coping mechanism.
- Reconstructed: Bob starts to use alcohol as a barometer for how stressed he is; after several days in a row where he gets drunk he decides to see a therapist for better coping mechanism.
Slug back that shot of rum and head over to Liquid Courage.
