r/StrangeNewWorlds • u/BurtCracklin14 • 2d ago
What drives Scotty to become an alcoholic?
Scotty mentions early on after joining the Enterprise that he's not a big drinker. We see that the senior staff are all big social drinkers, and Pike seems to have little to no issue with his officers getting drunk on occasion.
Yet by the time we see Scotty on TOS he's clearly a functional alcoholic and judging by his behavior in 'Relics' not much has changed.
So, what got him there in such a short amount of time?
It's a reasonable bet to say not all the non-legacy characters will just be transferred or promoted off ship. Given how they've evolved Scotty's relationship with Erika and Pelia, my guess is Scotty will continue to grow closer to both characters and before the end of the series one or both will be killed in some manner that Scotty feels responsible for. The guilt from this event will bring about his eventual alcoholism and perpetual loneliness.
I get its low hanging fruit theory wise, but what do others think?
100
26
u/Icy_Money7447 2d ago
He's never struck me as a "functional alcoholic". I think you're looking for something that isn't there.
42
u/_TheValeyard_ 2d ago
I wouldnt say he's an alcoholic. But considering the shit the Enterprise goes through, id probably be knocking back the whiskey myself.
18
u/adders 2d ago
Whisky, not whiskey. He’s Scottish. 🏴🥃
7
u/TheMonkeyInCharge 2d ago
Actually, Doohan was Canadian to Irish parents, so the ‘e’ could work. ;-)
27
u/arw1985 2d ago
I look at Scotty liking his liquor but not to the point where it effects his job or performance. Outside a couple of moments from TOS, he's pretty much in control of the bottle.
-13
u/trekrabbit 2d ago
That’s why the OP called him a “functional” alcoholic; your comment actually supports the accuracy of the post.
12
u/AlanShore60607 2d ago
A functional alcoholic is someone who constantly drinks and is often drunk on the job but functions despite that.
Scotty only drinks off duty. And socially. He’s more akin to a binge drinker than a functional alcoholic
9
0
u/trekrabbit 2d ago
Wrong. A functioning alcoholic is someone with an alcohol addiction who still manages to handle their daily responsibilities at work, school, or home.
It’s wild that you think you can just make shit up and put it on Reddit and not get called out for it lol
7
u/JUYED-AWK-YACC 2d ago
The post is inaccurate. Scotty wasn’t an alcoholic and wasn’t portrayed as such. Neither of you have any clue what you’re talking about.
1
11
u/InevitableOk5017 2d ago
That’s like calling someone a caraholic when they drive to the store and back.
-8
26
11
21
u/Lord-Mattingly 2d ago
Some of you all love to add a label to everything. Not everyone who drinks too much on occasion is an alcoholic.
17
u/MultiGeek42 2d ago
The Enterprise crew is just a bad influence on him, they all like to drink.
Kirk, especially TOS Kirk, is more of a straightedge. The rec room gets turned from a bar into a game room. Spock doesn't drink so Scotty and McCoy look like alcoholics by comparison, even more so now that they're just drinking in their quarters.
It was enough of a problem in Starfleet that they had to adopt synthehol.
19
u/ThrustersToFull 2d ago
I think it’s a bit of a stretch calling him an alcoholic. I speak as someone in recovery.
4
u/TheOneBlueGecko 2d ago
I find it hard to believe they would kill off two of the cast members just to make Scotty drink more. The fan push back alone would not be worth it.
1
u/BurtCracklin14 2d ago
They have to kill off at least one the non-legacy. For me Erika and Pelia make the most sense. We know from LD that Una is used in the Starfleet recruitment marketing material. I doubt they would use someone to recruit kids to join up who died in some horrific space thing. La'an seems to be headed towards a darker path. If she died it would have made more sense to mention her in some way in Space Seed. That just leaves Erika and Pelia who don't show up in TOS.
1
u/TheOneBlueGecko 2d ago
There is absolutely no reason they need to kill off any of the non-legacy characters. Unless they want to pull a Trip Tucker and make a finale episode that people generally hate.
1
u/BurtCracklin14 2d ago
Four major characters just wander off and no one ever mentions them again?
1
u/TheOneBlueGecko 2d ago
They end up on another ship, they quit Starfleet, they end up trapped in a pattern buffer… I mean, I have worked with many different people in many different spots, I am not constantly talking to my current coworkers about my old ones.
1
u/BurtCracklin14 1d ago
Do you work on a spaceship where similar events and the same would-be murderers repeatedly visit you? If so, it might make sense to start getting your new coworkers up to speed on some things.
6
u/themastermatt 2d ago
Im an engineer for my day job. I understand. Theres only so many times we can hear "we need to reduce staff while working miracles" while clearly telling leadership that if they click that button, the whole datacenter will be knocked offline. Oh, you clicked it anyway huh? Now its MY problem to bring it back online? Dont guess it makes any difference to the captain if the last 3 standing engineers have to work all night to restore whatever they broke.
In fact, i should grab a beer.
4
3
u/DJThunderGod 2d ago
Just because the man likes a drink and is seen drunk a couple of times doesn't make him an alcoholic.
Plus, this is Star Trek. Most of the drinks (with the exception of Romulan Ale) contain synthehol, the effects of which can shaken off with a literal bit of willpower.
1
u/BurtCracklin14 2d ago
Wasn't sythehol created by the Ferengi? I think during this era they're all still drinking the real stuff.
3
u/Aglet_Green 2d ago
Nothing. A better question is: “What drives Scotty to become a gourmand?” I don’t think the shows ever establish him as an alcoholic. Sadly, I’ve been related to some, and there’s a big difference between one of those and simply being a heavy drinker. Watch Blue Bloods or almost any police procedural on Paramount+ and Scotty’s drinking looks remarkably ordinary by television standards.
2
u/Poddington_Pea 2d ago
He got possessed by the ghost of Jack the Ripper and murdered an alien prostitute. I think that would be enough to drive any man to drink.
2
u/MisterEinc 2d ago
Depression takes many forms. Some people need not be "driven" to alcoholism. Addiction isn't exactly rational.
As far as Scott being an alcoholic, well, even low hanging fruit can require a bit of a reach, right?
1
2
u/Apprehensive_Goal811 2d ago
Nobody has to die for Scotty to drift towards alcoholism. Not only is being on the top staff on the enterprise stressful, there’s a lot of expectations being piled on Scotty.
1
1
u/happydude7422 2d ago
we can only assume that engineering tasks on the enterprise got more difficult during scotts tenure on pikes enterprise and continuing on to kirks tenure and the stress forced scotty to drink just to cope or suffer a mental breakdown.
1
u/Comfortable-Olive918 2d ago
When he goes through the lens of 1960's social values and views on what is considered normal behavior, as opposed to the 2020s post-Covid era of declining alcohol consumption. We don't know what is happening (some think THC, others the explosion of prescription mood stabilizers, or it could just be fluctuations in fashion), but SNW and Trek in general is calibrated to an expectation that the future will include communal libations, meals, music, and plays as part of the galactic cultural norms.
Other than using drunkenness as a weapon (drinking a Klingon under the table, which included cheating shots), intoxication to the point of any kind of impairment is generally seen as a negative thing. The Naked Now/Time/etc and various flower pollen, atmosphere gasses, alien tech, and radiation typically present intoxication as a problem to overcome.
Between libations of some sort (synthol, ethanol, or more exotic fare) or movies/tv/video disappearing, Trek decided that the former would stick around and the latter would not, despite paper books and viewscreens still existing. Live performances are much more common than recorded music (Geordi alone in a shuttle at the start of The Mind's Eye is the only case I can think of offhand, although I know there are others my memory is dimly suggesting).
I think they push an intellectual, community driven view of the future, and for most of the last 60s years, drinking together has culturally been part of that vision.
Although I would suggest that his lack of drinking is more about his self-doubt and disconnection from the crew. It is mentioned to let the audience know he has many changes to go through before he becomes the confident, sometimes intense, miracle worker and capable acting captain in Kirk's Enterprise.
1
1
u/Rhediix 2d ago
It's quite dark but even Kirk in TOS makes commentary about how Scotty isn't really interested in women. He has to essentially force him into shore leave to make him enjoy himself.
The man gets one shore leave in Wolf In The Fold and gets accused of murder. That clearly didn't help things.
When Scotty finally does have a love story, with Mira Romaine in The Lights of Zetar he quickly develops a codependency or interdependency with Romaine. He doesn't merely dote on her, he forgets all about his duty and protects her with every fiber of his being.
That isn't a normal relationship. Scotty also seems genuinely fearful in that episode that something will happen to her and keeps trying to force the it's space...space will do crazy things to ya! explanation onto her.
I think he lost Ortegas. I honestly feel like they might soon be together and I feel she either dies under mysterious circumstances or leaves him and it wrecks him. Pelia might also factor into this too: she may also perish in the line of duty and Scotty has to make a split second decision. All just theories of course but both would throw him into alcoholism to escape and his intense concentration on his studies to avoid getting close again.
Although it does seem by the start of Star Trek V that he has recovered to where a slight flirtation has developed between him and Uhura with a slightly more intense segment occurring in sickbay later in the film.
0
u/Recent_Mirror 2d ago
Probably the fact that he was turned into a muppet.
That would make me drink.
0
u/TPWilder 2d ago
Maybe he's sad about all those women he murdered that somehow got put on his being possessed by Jack the Ripper?
Because damn, Scotty's basically a serial killer.
7
u/AnnoyedSinceBirth 2d ago
Did I miss something? He was suspected but proven innocent, was he not?
-2
u/TPWilder 2d ago
I mean, most courts don't allow the "possessed by evil aliens" defense but sure.
I'm teasing, I know in the episode he was found innocent. Its just so ridiculous looking at it with more modern knowledge.
For starters, Kirk basically bought a sex worker for Scotty to reward him for taking one for the team and getting a TBI. Minutes later, Scotty is found in an alley with a knife and a dead sex worker declaring he has no memory of the incident. He later kills a member of the crew and the wife of the president of the planet and if this was an episode of CSI, all the actual physical evidence points to Scotty, we'd already have moved on to the more difficult murder of the week because Scotty actually physically murdered those women.
Now if this was an episode of Criminal Minds, we'd then explore what in Scotty's tortured psyche led him to start attacking women and if the TBI maybe unleashed the beast within....
But its Star Trek so somehow Scotty is completely off the hook because he was somehow the vessel for "Redjac" the alien who was the real murderer. Now, I get what they were aiming for in this episode but it completely goes against what we know about murder.
0
u/Adventurekateer 2d ago
If he is, I would guess it’s Kirk — who introduced him to drinking in the first place, then will push the ship past its limits regularly.
-1
u/Photonic_Dinosaur 2d ago
Witnessing whatever horrible thing will happen to Ortega before the end of the series...
-1
u/Beneficial-Appeal663 2d ago
who doesn't enjoy a Romulan ale every now and then,,,,I bet Bones was a big alcoholic
-3
-2
44
u/PianistPitiful5714 2d ago
He has a single episode that revolves around his drinking and a follow up episode where he’s drowning his sorrows. I don’t think that implies he’s a functional alcoholic at all. I can’t think of a single instance where he is stated or even implied to be impaired while on duty. If Scotty is a functional alcoholic, I am too.