# Is Penny an alcoholic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 13, 2016, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011 "2016-01-13T03:30:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/1 "2016-01-13T03:30:57Z")
I’m struggling to recall a scene in The Big Bang Theory where Penny isn’t drinking, getting ready to drink or making a crack about needing a drink (usually in order to make some interminable event go faster) Is there any evidence within the show, or from outside via the show’s creators/writers, to confirm or deny that Penny has an actual drinking problem? [![](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GQNUE.jpg) ](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GQNUE.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/2 "2016-01-13T03:39:45Z")
It is hinted at. She drinks a lot on the show, but she’s seen primarily in social situations where drinking would be appropriate. She has family members with substance abuse problems. She almost had sex with Raj while drunk. She has related stories about waking up in unusual circumstances. She turns to alcohol when she has problems in life. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/3 "2016-01-13T03:40:57Z")
No, she isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/4 "2016-01-13T03:42:53Z")
A couple of seasons ago I thought they were building up to a storyline about Penny’s problem drinking, but it never eventuated. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/5 "2016-01-13T03:53:23Z")
Talk about her drinking has almost vanished with her job and marriage. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/6 "2016-01-13T03:59:48Z")
I always wondered how she could afford so much alcohol while working at the Cheesecake Factory. I’d like to be an alkie too, but I just don’t have the money for it! ☹ ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/7 "2016-01-13T04:09:00Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I always wondered how she could afford so much alcohol while working at the Cheesecake Factory. I’d like to be an alkie too, but I just don’t have the money for it! ☹ She mostly drinks wine, I haven’t noticed it being the expensive type. When she goes out she may not be paying for many drinks. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/8 "2016-01-13T04:11:00Z")
Exactly. She was clearly being written as an alcoholic but the writers, wisely, realized that there was little humor to mine there, or at least mining it took more skill than they had. It was pretty soon after the not remembering whether or not she had had sex with Raj (not a decision a sober Penny would have made) that they began to pull back. S5 the girls playing Twister Penny drinking while playing (no one else drinking) and passing out. No BBT expert here but the last bit I can recall was Leonard in S7 saying that it wasn’t a good idea to take Penny to Napa, to where the wine comes from, and then backs down some, just joking, but you might have a problem. Since then? The character’s drinking is way toned down. The days are long past of an Otis drunk being “funny” and addressing a serious substance abuse problem can be dealt with with humor by a skilled writing team but they did better letting Penny become the more mature person in the crowd and backing away from that direction. IMHO. Actually I wonder if that has been a shift … from the original Leonard as the viewer’s identified saner person in the midst of eccentrics, to Penny as that identified character more so … ---
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/9 "2016-01-13T15:21:36Z")
To me, symptoms of alcohol addiction (as opposed to, say, being “someone who drinks more than they probably should”) include things like drinking even when you don’t really want to, drinking interfering with your ability to participate effectively in basic life functions such as going to work or socialize with others, going to excessive and peculiar lengths to hide your drinking, frequently drinking alone… I don’t see these as being traits Penny displays in spades. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/10 "2016-01-13T15:28:53Z")
She’s more of a party girl, which is a different thing in comedies. ---
**Author:** ![Orwell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/dfb087/32.png) [@Orwell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orwell)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/11 "2016-01-13T15:56:00Z")
> [@johnspartan](#): > > To me, symptoms of alcohol addiction (as opposed to, say, being “someone who drinks more than they probably should”) include things like drinking even when you don’t really want to, drinking interfering with your ability to participate effectively in basic life functions such as going to work or socialize with others, going to excessive and peculiar lengths to hide your drinking, frequently drinking alone… I don’t see these as being traits Penny displays in spades. Agree. It never occurred to me that Penny might have a drinking problem before reading this thread. And it certainly didn’t seem to me that she was being written as an alcoholic. Sure, there are jokes about her drinking wine, but that’s a very common joke about women… on TV and in real life. And she drinks wine a lot, but doesn’t appear inebriated all the time, holds down jobs, isn’t shown hiding her booze, etc. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/12 "2016-01-13T15:59:59Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > She’s more of a party girl, which is a different thing in comedies. Sure, it’s a sitcom, and nothing exists that doesn’t appear on the show (or some related production). In real life she’s following a typical pattern, she’s now 30, married, working a good regular job, and her party life will be over. But that’s a recent change for her. Alcoholics come from somewhere, some of them start out as party girls and never get over it. To call someone like Penny an alcoholic is difficult based solely on the show, but if it was a different kind of show she would have been lined up for a very special episode. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_John\_Marcej](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_John_Marcej)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/13 "2016-01-13T16:10:22Z")
Not sure if Penny is supposed to be an alcoholic or not, but I guess if sit-com viewers want to watch a show about a female alcoholic, they could just continue watching CBS for another hour they could see plenty on **“Mom”**. ---
**Author:** ![MilTan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@MilTan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MilTan)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/14 "2016-01-13T16:23:16Z")
> [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](#): > > Not sure if Penny is supposed to be an alcoholic or not, but I guess if sit-com viewers want to watch a show about a female alcoholic, they could just continue watching CBS for another hour they could see plenty on **“Mom”**. Some times it’s hard to believe that _Mom_ and _BBT_ are both Chuck Lorre sitcoms. ---
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/15 "2016-01-13T19:35:56Z")
The closest she ever got, I’d say, is there was one point where she was “mixing rum with eggnog”… and when Leonard declined to join because he’s lactose intolerant she said something like “That’s okay, it actually stopped being eggnog a long time ago, now it’s mostly just rum”. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/16 "2016-01-13T19:51:28Z")
Didn’t she propose to Leonard while drunk? He turned her down, pointing out she’d been drinking. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/18 "2016-01-13T19:57:37Z")
A writer does not write a character being the only person drinking in a group and then drinking to the point of passing out, show the character drinking alone and using whatever container they have to drink out of, not remembering what happened while drunk, virtually never have the character not drinking when not at work and frequently talking about how she needs a drink, does not have her significant other telling her that she may have drinking problem, in order to establish her as a party girl. That is well beyond that trope. They changed direction and that was good. Let’s toast to it! ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/19 "2016-01-13T19:58:43Z")
> [@JonRhys](#): > > I thought she actually slept with Raj… So did she. Raj, apparently, was so excited, he fired Little Raj prematurely. There was no penetration. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/20 "2016-01-13T20:08:40Z")
By the way many of those alcoholic-dependent (alcohol use disorder) are rarely actually visibly drunk (they have high tolerance), don’t hide their booze, and rarely miss work. Not saying she was shown as definitively meeting the criteria but there are high functioning alcoholics out there. ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011/21 "2016-01-14T10:51:24Z")
Sounds to me the original poster has more of a drinking problem, if they need to ask the question… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-penny-an-alcoholic/743011.md?page=2)