Q&A with TV’s Alcoholic

Nick Adams
Sep 1, 2018 · 5 min read

… and make it a double.

Oh, hi! I didn’t see you there. I was just drinking in this ridiculously quiet bar waiting for a ridiculously attractive person to approach me.

Of course you recognize me, I’ve been on no less than two dozen TV shows. I’m TV’s high-functioning alcoholic. In case you’re wondering, “high-functioning” is what every alcoholic thinks they are, but, in TV World, it means I can drink like my show-life depends on it and never really be drunk in any real-world recognizable way.

I don’t know how you drink that much in TV world. Last time, I got drunk I was hungover all day.

Ha! Hangovers! I’m a TV alcoholic, which means my hangovers are mildly annoying at worst and entirely forgotten by the the next plot point. Even better than that, I never feel shame for some reason. In fact, no TV alcoholic ever regrets something they did while drunk for more than a scene. All that time you spend late at night second-guessing yourself and wishing you could re-do some embarrassing moment in your life is just what separates you from my family of TV’s lovable drunks.

How can you afford all this? I live in a city where Budweiser routinely costs $8. And forget about well drinks! Drinking one house whiskey per hour costs more than hiring a minimum-wage manservant.

Weird, right? Since the days of using your older cousin’s ID to buy alcohol, you’ve routinely had to save money by dusting off comparative algebra methods. Do you get a 30-pack of Bud Light at 4.2% alcohol content for $17.99 or a 30-pack of Budweiser at 5% for $19.99? Do the math! Do it quicker! The pimple-faced liquor store cashier is looking at you!

Oh shit and I didn’t remember to factor in the CRV. That’s $1.50 applied to both!

See this is where real-world alcoholics really have their shit pulled together because they’ve figured out that wine coolers are the best bang for their buck — so long as they don’t mind stained lips, an awful taste, and the stigma of being a (how-is-this-possible?) registered voter who drinks wine coolers. But, I have that unimaginable TV wealth, which means I can run a bar tab into triple figures and never have a steady job, no sweat.

Speaking of sweat, I have to say, for an alcoholic, you seem like you’re in terrific shape.

Any connection between drinking whiskey before lunch and weight gain is completely absent in my world. Sure, I knock back enough drinks to put Alec Baldwin on his ass every other night, but my TV job is so physically demanding, and apparently requires so many crunches, that TSA’s metal detectors get set off by my abs of steel.

Most real-world drunks talk as much as you, but their ramblings about the got’damn gub’erment aren’t normally as articulate as your quasi-academic musings. How you maintain this barest of English language lucidity?

Even better than the lack of bodily toll, TV alcoholism routinely makes me look like the smartest person in the room. TV alcoholics not only have quips for every occasion, we are so bored by the mediocrity of our world that we need to be at least buzzed to maintain a shred of sanity. Or maybe we want to dull our senses and intellect, you know, just to keep it sporting for you mouth-breathers and your room temperature IQs. Just check out my know-it-all drinking buddies Jimmy McNulty, Don Draper, Tyrion Lannister, Hawkeye, Damon Salvatore, and more. That those are all also white guys between the ages of 18–49… well, I’m sure that’s just coincidence, as we all know America is a beacon of meritocracy ever since a bunch of slave owners agreed, “all men are created equal.”

The point is, if you want to look smart, be a TV alcoholic.

Pouring myself a stiff drink while I talk circles around my adversaries is fun, but I’m not always such a Good-Time Charlie. Sometimes I get sad. Do you ever get sad?

And how! Thankfully, alcoholism is one of several TV shorthands for “traumatic backstory.” Since I can’t make it through a Parent-Teacher conference, witness testimony, or open-heart surgery without a drink, you can bet your left arm that I lived through a childhood/adolescence/war that was worse than ten arena football championships. Don’t worry though, if you get enough drinks in me, by the second season I’ll spill my guts and tell you the horrors I’ve seen. And I’ll do it casually so that you know I’m really emotionally damaged. Thankfully, TV alcoholism is a way to both hide the pain and constantly shout about it through a megaphone.

Man, I should do that!

Oh god no! Being an alcoholic passes for characterization in my world, but in the real-world, being an self-anointed alcoholic is either a medical condition or a weak attempt to cast yourself as anything other than boring. Being an alcoholic makes me interesting; it doesn’t work that way for you.

Because of the real-world consequences? Because I can think of at least two examples where a TV show briefly addressed some realistic fallout to a lifetime of drinking.

I’ll grant you a couple “very special episodes.” But in response I lay at your feet my animated cohorts who have even less ability or reason to change than live-action actors. That’s right, I’m dragging in TV’s cartoon alcoholics! I’ve got Bender, BoJack Horseman, Sterling (and Malory) Archer, Rick Sanchez, and the newly-cemented club member Princess Bean from the critically-ehh series “Disenchantment.” There are truckloads of over-intelligent, world-weary, lonely, cynical, TV alcoholics and they have more in common with their live-action counterparts than they do with anybody in the real world.

Nobody has called me an alcoholic, but I live in constant fear of an accusation that can’t be discredited. This is in regards to TV alcoholism. Nothing else. No subtext here.

The key to being an impressive alcoholic is keeping around somebody who is worst.

Homer Simpson is the best example. Yeah, he drinks his Duff beer, but he balances that with impossibly fun/deadly eating issues. But most ingeniously, this 1990s icon was frequently paired with his best friend — a man who was fatter, dumber, and even more of an alcoholic named (as a throwback to Fred Flintstone’s best friend) Barney. Like every real world alcoholic, there’s no need to change or seek self-improvement when you can gesture toward somebody else and say, “Hey, at least I’m not THAT guy.”

Or woman!

A necessary note, of course.

I would like to now introduce Camille Preaker (of “Sharp Objects”) as the newest member of the TV alcoholics club. By no means the first lady (“Hey Karen Walker! Hey Lucille Bluth!”), she is notable for how well she fits in. I smell award nominations around the corner!

Oh, finally my drink is here. Thank God.

Cheers!

Nick Adams

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