Potted, Plotzed, and Corned: An Overdrinker's Thesaurus

This weekend we say goodbye not just to summer (a largely meaningless gesture in San Diego), but also to our good friends Dr. Fidel, Mama Charlie, Awesome Rob, and Mrs. Awesome. They’d been renting a nice little house for the last week in Pacific Beach, an oceanside community where the surfers, college kids, and stoners get along (mostly) while sun-bleached baby Lebowksis are just as likely to call you bra as bro, or—increasingly and annoyingly at my age—sir.

Last night we showed up with beers to feed the cooler just before the sun went down while preparations for a seafood feast got underway. I popped open a can, applied a Texas Dent, and strolled out to the patio.

And that’s when I saw him. The neighbor. Spread eagle on the ground, face up, and flat as a slab of turf, keys in one hand, cash and ID in the other. A quick check proved he was breathing and there was no blood—our friends confirmed he had been swerving drunk as he wound his way up the footpath. There was talk of rolling him over to avoid his aspirating dinner if he hurled, but, since he continued to breathe, we just kept a wary eye on him from our side of the footpath.

In the end, his roommate emerged, took a swig from his beer can, poured a long stream of beer on his prone buddy’s face from about six feet up, and went back inside. Sleeping Beauty spazzed, sputtered, arose, and started throwing down rhymes to anyone who would listen. Us? Our arms-length supervision was over. We turned to Dungeness crab, shellfish, and corn on the cob.

In the course of writing Moonshine, I chronicled so many terms for being drunk that I compiled them into what I like to call the Overdrinker’s Thesaurus, an ever-growing list, part of which made it in the book. From the merely tipsy to the flat-out annihilated, I offer the following alternatives for describing what condition your condition is in.

Please do drop a comment if your favorites are not here….

An Overdrinker's Thesaurus

Annihilated
Befuddled
Bent
Besotted
Blind drunk
Blitzed
Blitzkrieged
Blotto
Bombed
Booze-blind
Borracho
Bottle fever, to have or be afflicted with
Brined
Cocked and loaded
Cockeyed
Corned
Crippled
Demolished
Dizzy
Drenched
Drunk
Drunked up
Faced
Faded
Flat-faced
Floored or floor-hammered
FUBAR (fucked up beyond all recognition)
Fucked
Fucked up
Gathered a talking load
Getting your drink on
Getting your swerve on
Glazed
Greased
Guttered
Hammered
In your cups
Inebriated
Intoxicated
Jiggered
Jimjams
Jugged, in the jug
Knee-walking drunk
Leathered
Liquored up
Lit
Lit up
Loaded
Loopy or looped
Loose
Mangled
Mashed
Maudlin
Mellow
Numb
Obliterated
On a bender
On autopilot
Ossified
Pickled
Pie-eyed
Piqued
Pissed
Plastered
Plotzed
Plowed
Potted
Pottzed
Pot-valiant
Pounded
Put a load on
Rat-assed
Reeling
Relaxed
Retarded
Riotous
Sauced
Senseless
Shattered
Shellacked
Shitbombed
Shit-faced
Skewered
Skunked
Slagged
Slammed
Slaughtered
Slopped
Sloshed
Smashed
Soaked
Soused
Spins, to have the
Staggers, to have the
Staying afloat
Stewed
Stinking drunk
Stupid
Tangle-footed
Tanked
Tanked up
Tied one on
Tight
Tipsy
Torn up
Tossed
Trashed
Trousered
Trucked
Tub-thumped
Twatted
Tweaked
Under the influence
Wasted
Well-oiled
Wheelchaired
Whacked
Wiggity whacked
Wiggity wiggity whacked [NB the progression]
Zoned