Will "hit the bottle" be understood by any native English speaker?

Question

I could think of better ways to deal with it than hitting the bottle.

1. Would the phrase "hit the bottle" be understood by any native English speaker?

2. Could you think of another phrase with the same meaning that would be more common in this context? What about "turning to the bottle"?

Answer 1

"Hit the bottle" is an idiom, meaning "start to drink alcohol heavily".

It's informal, so it may or may not suit your context. But the meaning is well understood.

There are lots of drinking idioms! " "Turn to drink" means use alcohol to avoid problems. "Fall off the wagon" means start drinking again after a period of abstinence. "Get plastered" mean get very drunk on one occasion. "Self medicate" (ironic) etc etc.

Answer 2

Yes. Context will help your reader and will help us make more fitting suggestions.

Use of could weakens the assertion. Be sure that is your intent, or strengthen the language.

Other similar wordings:

• Bottle or “the bottle” as a synecdoche for alcohol:
  • I can think of better ways to deal with it than the bottle.
  • There are better ways of dealing with it than the bottle.
  • You won’t find the answer at the bottom of a bottle.
• Drinking as a euphemism for consuming alcohol:
  • Don’t let it drive you to drinking (meaning habitual consumption or even alcoholism).
  • Drinking won’t solve it.
  • Using drink as a noun to refer to consuming alcohol has a British English feel:
    • Don’t turn to drink.
    • Don’t let it turn you to drink.
• American English idioms:
  • Don’t go drowning your sorrows.
  • Don’t try to drown your sorrows.
  • Got a tear in your beer (as in so distraught as to weep into an open glass)?
  • Bottoms up
  • Hit the bar or bars, bar crawl
  • Belly up or belly up to the bar
  • Beer goggles, for when one rates another’s attractiveness higher than he would otherwise while sober
• Labels for alcohol:
  • Booze
  • Liquor
  • Sauce or the sauce — and hitting the sauce does refer to alcohol
  • Spirits
  • Brown water, a euphemism for dark spirits
  • Fire water (be careful with this one as the right character needs to say it to be authentic)
  • Liquid cheer, when someone wants a mood lift or to escape sadness
  • Liquid courage, for getting up the nerve to approach someone attractive or fight

Answer 3

I would say there is some nuance in what “hit the bottle” means, in your example sentence, absent other context, I would assume that they they became a habitual drunkard, as IMO it has the implication of long term behavior.

Reading that sentence, it sounds like the speaker is either chastising someone that has become a drunkard or claiming to be better than the drunkard.

That doesn’t have to be the case, “let’s go hit the bottle” would be understood to mean to go drinking, without the implication of becoming a drunkard.

Answer 4

I doubt many people would use such a phrase but they would certainly understand the meaning. It seems to imply a wish to get completely bladdered/wasted. If all you intended was a few drinks down at your local I can't imagine this being used and in that case "fancy a pint" is pretty universally recognised.

If you do plan to get legless, arseholed, pissed as a newt, blotto or drink yourself under the table the list of widely recognised phrases will take too much valuable drinking time to mention here.

Answer 5

"Falling off the wagon" (archaic) is in reference to "I'm on the water wagon" meaning "I am drinking only water (soda, etc.) and not any alcohol".

"He fell off the wagon" is an idiom that means "he began drinking again", after a time of strictly avoiding alcohol, so it is implied that heavy and frequent/daily alcohol consumption has resumed.

I found a stronger reference about men/man in the early 1900s climbing onto a mule-drawn water wagon (used to spray down dusty roads) to announce that they had quit drinking. I would guess this phrase became popular because it was acted out in a play or song lyrics or an early motion picture (movie) silent film.