Flutiebear: Rambling My Way Through Thedas

First off, thanks for the flattery! It’ll get you everywhere.

Yes, I do think Dean classifies as an alcoholic — maybe not always, but certainly now. His drinking was always fairly heavy (not surprising given the life he leads, and the culture he surrounds himself in) but throughout Season 7, we see him display several classic behaviors of alcohol dependence, including:

• Drinking alone (judging by all the empty bottles scattered around)
• Drinking himself to sleep (after dreaming of Cas in “Shut Up, Dr. Phil”, he holds up an empty bottle of beer by the bedstand)
• Drinking before and while driving (too many instances to count)
• Drinking while on the job (most memorably in “Defending Your Life”), even though back in Season 2 he said that was a big no-no
• Becoming hostile whenever Sam questions his drinking
• Needing more and more alcohol in order to feel “drunk” (“Party On Garth”)

If the classic test of alcoholism is, “can I get through the day without needing a drink?”, then Dean fails miserably. It makes sense too that Dean would choose alcohol as a coping mechanism, given how his surrogate father is as much of a drunk as his father was before him. 

We haven’t seen Dean drink very much since Cas’s return to consciousness in “Reading Is Fundamental”, suggesting that his alcoholism was in fact a coping mechanism for Cas’s apparent death; perhaps that shiny new leather coat Dean’s sporting is intended to imply that now our boy’s trying to kick the habit.

Still I really hope this isn’t a storyline the writers drop without meaningful on-screen conclusion. As someone from a family of drunks, Dean’s growing alcoholism has been one of the most heartbreaking—and powerful—parts of the season for me, and I’d really like to see some sort of explicit, cathartic resolution about it.