I am sorry to see that this thread on drunk nomenclature is closed.

From the NY Times irregulars (emphasis added):

"As far as I'm aware, English has the richest vocabulary of any language when it comes to describing the effects of alcohol upon human behavior. I think that that's because the British have been constant and heavy drinkers for most of their history. From the Anglo-Saxon invasions to the Industrial Revolution, they've been getting beodrunken, foxed, tipsy, pie-eyed and woozey. Indeed the English have developed an entire lexicon to express different nuances of the same condition.

The habit has traveled with the language: in America, in particular, English speakers have sought to expand the range of euphemisms for inebriation. In January 1736, Benjamin Franklin published "a new Piece, lately communicated to me, entitled the DRINKERS DICTIONARY" in the Philadelphia Gazette, which offered 228 "distant round-about phrases," culled from the taverns of the town, which were understood "to signify plainly that A MAN IS DRUNK." My favorites include the following:

"He sees the Bears"

"He's got his Top Gallant Sails out"

"He's kiss'd black Betty"

"He's Eat a Toad & half for Breakfast"

"Been too free with Sir Richard"

"Nimptopsical"

"Trammel'd"

The Drinkers' Dictionary evokes the age and the place in which it was collated. Probably half of its entries are seamen's slang — and reflect the importance of maritime commerce to Philadelphia at the time. A good many others are rustic and feature such colonial exotica as Indians, bears, and kibb'ed heels. The influence of the Bible is also evident — even drunks knew their way around the Good Book in those days.

Just under two centuries later, the Dictionary was revisited by Edmund Wilson in his "Lexicon of Prohibition." It too is something of a time capsule, with a number of terms and phrases which sing of the Jazz Age, including:

"Zozzled"

"to have the whoops and jingles"

"to burn with a low blue flame"

However, the Lexicon listed a mere 105 expressions for drunkenness — fewer than half of the terms that appear in its 18th century equivalent. Wilson attributed the decline to changes in drinking patterns brought on by prohibition: "It is interesting to note that one hears nowadays less often of people going on sprees, toots, tears, jags, bats, brannigans or benders. All these terms suggest, not merely drunkenness, but also an exceptional occurrence, a breaking away by the drinker from the conditions of his normal life. It is possible that their partial disappearance is mainly to be accounted for by the fact that this kind of fierce and protracted drinking has now become universal, an accepted feature of social life instead of a disreputable escapade." He did, however, believe that terms used to describe social drinking had become more nuanced during the Noble Experiment.

I wonder how long the list of words and phrases for being under the influence would be today? Some of the old terms, such as "stoned," coined in Jacobean England to denote lustful drunkenness, are now applied to the discombobulation brought on by different drugs than alcohol. Others vanished with the days of sail. I ran through a good two dozen in my head at Espasante when I was searching for a word that went into Spanish easily. Merry? Caned? Loaded? Stocious? ..."

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If we have actuallty lost hundreds of perfectly good descriptive terms for inebriation, a serious erosion is underway which must be arrested forthwith.

Your contributions are invited.

besotted
bit by the creature
bladdered
blind      
Blitzed
bloatered
Blootered
blue blind bleezin drunk
blue blind paralytic drunk
bombed
bombed
boozed
boozy
boshed
bug-eyed
cockeyed
crapulent
crapulous
crawled in a bottle for the night
crocked
delivering street pizza
dipsy
drunk as a judge
drunk as a lord
drunk as a sailor
Drunk as a skunk
drunken
drunker than Cooter Brown (whoever he was)
excited
face walking
floor-crawling
fucked
full as a puppy
Gutter crawling
guttered
half-seas over
hammered
He took the two sides of the road
high
high as a kite
hog-whimpering drunksloshed
hooped
in one's cups
in the final stages
inebriate
inebriated
intoxicated
knackered
langers
like a sheep
lit (up)
loaded
loaded like howitzers
looped
muddled
Mulled
Newted
One beyond the eight
pallatic
paralized
paralytic
pavement kissing
pickled
Pissed
Pissed as a newt
pissing-down-your-own-leg drunk
pixilated
plastered
plastered
polluted
pot-hugging
potted
pre-hungover
puggled
refreshed as a newt
riding the beer wagon
rotten
rumbled
Schnockered
shitfaced
sloshed
sloshed
slurry
Smashed
smashed
sodden
soused
soused
soused as a pigs face
stewed
stewed
stewed
stinking stinko
stocious
stoned
stortin (which applies to when you are walking along the pavement bouncing off the wall in a series semi-circular loops)
Stupefied
talking on the big white telephone
talking to god
talking to the porcelain microphone
talking to your shoes
the pure blind staggers
Three parts Olivered
three sheets to the wind
throwing chunks
tight
tight
tipsy
toasted
toddy stricken
tongue-twisted
trashed
wall-bouncing
wasted
whirly
wrecked
yawning at the sidewalk
yawning in technicolour
zonked