Well one fall day when Uncle Bill was having a cocaine fit
He said Louise this coke's no good and I've made up my mind to quit
Now you take this key and I'll go upstairs and then you lock the door
And Lord I swear I'll stay up there, till I don't want dope no more.
He said Louise this coke's no good and I've made up my mind to quit
Now you take this key and I'll go upstairs and then you lock the door
And Lord I swear I'll stay up there, till I don't want dope no more.
— Johnny Cash, When Uncle Bill Quit Dope
Bob likes his booze. A lot. He may be a recreational alcoholic, or drinks to escape remembering his Dark and Troubled Past. Fate, being a cruel and fickle mistress, has other ideas. Alice drags Bob (usually shambling and slurring rather than kicking and screaming) somewhere without liquor of any kind. The reasons vary; Alice may be doing an intervention, she may be trying to save his life from people out for his blood, or Bob (all by his lonesome) stumbled onto a bus/ship/plane/rocket/"Far Side" Island to a place where the only spirits are of the figurative variety.
Effectively, Bob has been nailed to the wagon and will be forced to go sober against his wishes. He'll whine, complain and take every opportunity to get a drop of booze. (Oddly, he will seldom see Pink Elephants, although in Real Life, they are the consequences of withdrawal rather than drunkenness.) However, once he's over a rather epic hangover and finishes his physical withdrawal, he'll do the emotional equivalent of curling into a ball in a corner because now he can no longer avoid facing his life. If he can resolve whatever emotional hangups were leading him to drink the sadness away, he may decide that being sober is better, and it will stick. If he's fundamentally unchanged, he'll jump Off the Wagon into the nearest vat of beer.
While this kind of gesture is usually well-intentioned, in Real Life completely cutting a person off from physically addicting drugs can cause withdrawal symptoms so severe that they could actually die from the body's chemical imbalance. So for any readers hoping to help a loved one get off the juice, remember to do so gradually and preferably under a doctor's supervision.
Despite the use of beer in the description, this trope also applies to other forms of drugs. Notably caffeine.
A form of Kind Restraints. Compare Going Cold Turkey, when the sudden withdrawal is a voluntary decision on Bob's part. Also see No Matter How Much I Beg, where the character makes the decision to shut himself away from temptation, with friends enlisted to enforce that decision after the fact.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- El-Hazard: The Magnificent World: Mr. Fujisawa hates being sober, but he gains super-strength from it, so the other characters enter a conspiracy to keep him off the bottle. He doesn't take it well. And while El-Hazard does have native alcoholic beverages, in the OAV at least, Fujisawa is also a smoker and El-Hazard has no tobacco equivalent. Fujisawa runs out of smokes about halfway through the last episode and the nicotine cravings kick in just in time for the finale. Good thing it turns out that it boosts his sober level Super-Strength.
Comic Books
- Batman does this to himself when he gets hooked on Venom. He locks himself up in the Batcave and doesn't come out until he's totally free of the drug.
- Tintin:
- Red Rackham's Treasure has all his whisky onboard replaced with the pieces to Professor Calculus's submarine; he's none too pleased when he finds steel plates instead of his beloved whisky. Thankfully (for him) he doesn't have to wait too long after the discovery that his beloved alcohol has gone missing; once the wreck of the Unicorn is discovered, they find it's full of bottles of rum, which are (surprisingly) still drinkable with only the usual effects.
- Tintin and the Picaros has Captain Haddock getting slipped a drug by Professor Calculus that makes him extremely nauseated whenever he takes a sip of liquor. He's none too pleased when he finds out, but the drug becomes a Chekhov's Gun when it's later used to sober up the Picaros so they can launch their revolution (the dictatorship has been parachuting crates of booze to them so they'll be too drunk to shoot straight).
- In Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye, Trailcutter is the Cybertronian equivalent to an alcoholic, getting wasted on souped-up energon called "Engex" to deal with his past trauma. When he hears that Megatron has a "super fuel" that gives him extra strength, he breaks in to sample it. Unfortunately, Megatron is a Boxed Crook in this story, and his private fuel supply is actually designed to weaken him so he won't cause trouble. When he finds Trailcutter, he decides a fitting punishment is to lock his "Fuel Intake Moderation Chip" to be always active; Trailcutter can still physically drink as much as he likes, but now Never Gets Drunk.
Comic Strips
- Bloom County:
- Binkley once forced his father to quit cigarettes cold turkey by disposing of all of those in their house and hiding his wallet and his car keys so he couldn't go out and buy more.
- Opus hid Steve Dallas's cigarettes. This might not have been his best idea.
- "Even with nicotine IN his bloodstream, Steve is a maniac!"
- Steve: "WHERE'D YA HIDE 'EM?! ... POUND! POUND! POUND!"note
Fan Works
- Fallout: Equestria: Littlepip is tranquilized by Velvet Remedy and dragged to a rehab clinic when her addiction to Party-Time Mint-Alls gets out of control.
- Maria Campbell of the Astral Clocktower: Maria of Cainhurst, like many people in her world, was addicted to the power in everyone's blood. Even Maria, who started as a Wide-Eyed Idealist and became a Well-Intentioned Extremist, had a habit of losing control and drinking her maids dry on a regular basis. Then she gets reincarnated into the world of Fortune Lover as Maria Campbell, where she promptly discovers that no one's blood has any power whatsoever. She occasionally tries drinking it anyway, only to invariably be disappointed. She's basically an alcoholic in a world without alcohol.
Film — Live-Action
- In The Basketball Diaries, Jim's friend Reggie imprisons him in his (Reggie's) apartment and makes him go off heroin cold turkey. He fully detoxes, but eventually relapses. He later gets clean again while doing six months at Riker's, and this time he's able to stay that way.
- In Cornered!, the store owner forces his junkie nephew, who is craving for a fix, to stay in the apartment above the store every night until he's well.
- In Dogma, after two drunk angels tell God to Take This Job and Shove It, He decrees that the rest of them can no longer drink alcohol. The booze-loving Metatron resorts to sipping and then spitting out his drinks.
- In Evil Dead (2013), Mia's friends bring her to a remote cabin to detox her from her heroin addiction, with one of them being a nurse to monitor her. The fact that they're expecting her to act desperate to leave, unpredictable, out of character, and hostile means they first ignore her visions of the evil arising and then don't realize she's possessed.
- In Father Goose Walter is nailed to the wagon twice in the same movie:
- In the first instance his friend and employer Cmdr. Houghton hides his booze around the island that Walter is using as a coastwatching base, giving him the hiding places only when Walter radios in with Japanese troop movements. Houghton then has to give up all the booze locations as incentive to get Walter to go on a risky mission.
- Having got all the booze, the mission turns out to be the rescue of (initially) prudish school teacher Catherine and her students. Catherine then arranges for the children to steal all the booze and hide it again.
- To make sure he's sober before his hearing, Denzel Washington in Flight is confined to his hotel room with a security guard barring exit and entry, with a mini-bar stocked with nothing harder than Diet Coke. The unlocked adjacent room, however, has a fully stocked mini-bar.
- Ghost (1990): The "subway ghost" has learned how to manipulate objects (and teaches the protagonist), but not enough to light and smoke a cigarette (which apparently was his addiction when he was living). "I'd do anything for just one drag!"
- Nathan Algren in The Last Samurai. A chronic alcoholic for almost a decade after being forced to slaughter an innocent Indian village, he takes a job in Japan to train Imperial conscripts and is subsequently injured and captured during their first real battle. While he's on the mend, Taka gives him sake at first but then withholds it after seeing how desperately he needs it. Algren asks for sake, then screams for it, then screams period at the guilty memories he can't drown in booze anymore.
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail has a sexual variant when Sir Galahad the Chaste gets sidetracked to a castle full of sex-starved babes. He's about to give in when Sir Lancelot nails him back to the wagon in an Unwanted Rescue.
- In Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, when Elizabeth and Jack are dropped off on a remote island by Barbossa, Elizabeth is annoyed to discover that, rather than being as remote as Jack led people to believe, it was actually a hideaway for rumrunners. Jack plans to get piss-drunk and does so. After he passes out, Elizabeth takes the opportunity to use all the rest of the rum as fuel for a honking huge signal bonfire. It works, but Jack is more hung up on the fact that all the rum is now gone.
- In Resolution, our hero chains his friend to the wall to make him get straight. This turns out to be a very bad idea.
- Renton has his parents, in Trainspotting, lock him in his room to force himself through withdrawal. In his case, he does see Pink Elephants. Specifically, a baby crawling towards him on the roof. It gets worse, but it sticks eventually.
- Tropic Thunder: Jeff Portnoy is wrestling with a severe drug addiction during the actors' misadventures in the jungle. At one point he asks to be tied to a tree until he "gets it out of his system." He tells the others not to untie him, no matter how much he begs. As expected he quickly starts begging to be untied, going as far as to tell Alpa Chino "I will literally suck your dick right now" in exchange.
- A Year and Change: Owen finds some success with sobriety after breaking both of his arms and becoming unable to pick up alcoholic drinks on his own.
Jokes
- An alcoholic, a heroin addict, and a smoker die and go before the pearly gates. Saint Peter tells them that in order to access Heaven, they will be locked in a room with an infinite supply of their favorite drug for a year, and, should they use it even once, they'll go to Hell. One year later, Saint Peter finds the alcoholic laying in a pile of empty bottles and the heroin addict full of needles, but the smoker calmly sits in the middle of the room with not a single cigarette used. Saint Peter congratulates him and asks how he did it. The smoker calmly answers: "You forgot the lighter."
Literature
- Animorphs: Keeping Jake tied up for three days to starve a Yeerk out of his head looks a lot like this trope, with the Yeerk alternately pleading, cajoling and threatening to be let loose. Jake gets out of it with only relatively mild trauma, and a vision of the Cosmic Horror Crayak.
- Deadline at Durango: After a wagon runs over failed rancher and alcoholic Gerry Ashton, Dr. Ed prescribes six months of bed rest, which is excessive for the injury and meant to sober Gerry up and turn him into a respectable citizen after so long away from the saloons. Ed reflects the same thing happened to him when he was sent to jail for six months for robbing a liquor store.
- In The Drawing of the Three, Eddie gets nailed to the wagon when Roland kidnaps him into a heroin-less Mid-World through a magic door. Notably, the nailing is permanent.
- The Hunger Games:
- Catching Fire: Upon the announcement of the Quarter Quell, Peeta dumps all of Haymitch's liquor, much to the latter's dismay, and caps it off by going to District 12's liquor seller and threatening to turn her in to the Peacekeepers if she sells to him. This is in spite of the fact that Haymitch had previously had a rather terrifying withdrawal when he ran out of liquor, but the sobriety doesn't last long anyway.
- Mockingjay: Happens to Haymitch again when the survivors of District 12 move into the underground bunkers of District 13, where all alcoholic beverages are strictly forbidden and even the rubbing alcohol in the hospital is locked away. He's kept in seclusion until he recovers enough to be presentable.
- Monstrous Regiment: As apparent revenge against Maladict (a vampire who's managed to replace the blood thirst with something else), a soldier steals Maladict's coffee machine and beans, resulting in a vampire getting more and more insane and having side flashesnote and willing to revert to drinking blood as the book goes on. It turns out Strappi's just a bastard, and it helps that he hates Mal. Though attempted murder-by-proxy was maybe not the best way to show it.
- Long Joseph in Otherland, who was the father to one of the heroes, drank to avoid responsibility for his children and sadness over his wife's death. He's forced sober when they hole up in an abandoned government base to escape assassins.
- In Proven Guilty, Molly Carpenter inflicts this on a pair of addicts by using Black Magic to rewire their cravings into prohibitive revulsion for their drug of choice. Although it's effective and well-intentioned, it's also a form of Mind Rape for overriding their free will, and one of her victims winds up with serious psychological damage because she got careless.
- Professor Moriarty Series: In The Revenge of Moriarty, Moriarty tries to enforce a version of this trope that is not meant to help the addict by cutting off Sherlock Holmes's cocaine supply, hoping that the withdrawal will mentally destroy him. It turns out that Holmes secretly kicked his cocaine addiction some time ago, and he uses Moriarty's plan to lure the professor into a trap that he barely escapes.
- How Ryan Miller of Ripper (2014) got sober: he was entitled to accept help from a program from the Veterans Administration, but he was too proud or too macho for that. A like-minded neighbor had him strip naked and left him by himself in his apartment without any of his clothes, his phone or his computer for three days. He is absolutely miserable and even contemplates breaking out the window. But when she comes to get him, he is clean and manages to stay clean for years.
- Peter Benchley's novel Rummies has addicts sent to a rehab center that relies on this, forcing its patients to immediately quit and avoid whatever they're addicted to.
- This happens to Jack in The Shining, since all liquor was removed from the Overlook during the hotel's shutdown for the winter.
- Paula's parents force her to detox in Ugly Memories. This hurts more than it helps. In fact, the withdrawal-induced sleep deprivation indirectly leads to Paula getting kicked out of rehab at the story's climax.
- Wars of Light and Shadow:
- In Ships of Merior, Asandir makes sure that Dakar (a well-established drunk, glutton, and lech) keeps a hastily-given promise (which he fully intends to break) by cursing him so that the finest alcohol tastes like turpentine, the tastiest food tastes like shit, and the thought of getting with a woman gives him sharp pains in his groin until he gets off his stubborn duff and catches up with Arithon.
- Later, in Warhost of Vastmark, Arithon ensures that Dakar remain sober by pitching all the alcohol over the side of the ship while Dakar is passed out.
Live-Action TV
- In the Babylon 5 episode "Objects at Rest", Londo visits Sheridan and Delenn at their home on Minbar to give them a gift, where there is no alcohol on the premises (or likely easily obtainable on the planet), due to the Minbari having a huge neurological aversion to alcohol that gives them a psychotic reaction to it. This is actually an unfortunate thing for Londo and all involved, given that alcohol is the only thing that can temporarily disable the Keeper that controls Londo, and disabling it is the only way that Londo can warn the couple of the danger of the gift he brings them (the same Keeper likely also prevented Londo from packing booze for the trip, though he drank plenty on Centauri Prime, where the Drakh who controlled him through the Keeper could watch him directly as well).
- This happens to Hal in Season 4 of Being Human (UK) to get him off blood.
- One episode of Criminal Minds features an UnSub kidnapping drug-addicted young women and keeping them locked in his basement without access to their drugs of choice, forcing them to not only quit but also become healthier in general (he even provides a UV light to compensate for the lack of sun). One of his victims even asks if it's a hardcore rehab program. Of course, that's not his actual goal. Drug addicts are just easy to get hold of, and he needs the girls healthy so that they can bear his children. If they don't manage that (or worse, give him daughters), he kills them anyway.
- In Eureka, Doctor Grant (who is from the late 1940s and believes Smoking Is Cool) is injected with nanobots that hurt him when he smokes.
- One episode of Frasier has Frasier attempt to counsel his agent Bebe into quitting smoking. He ends up holing her up in his apartment for three days, but in the end, all the encouragement she needs is to be reminded that her "85 years old and on his third pacemaker" fiancé won't marry her unless she quits.
- Happens accidentally in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia when the Gang (notably hypochondriac Frank) believes they're all coming down with a deadly illness. They're sealed in one of the bar's bathrooms, where their worsening physical conditions lead them to believe they really are dying. Eventually, Charlie reveals he replaced all the cleaning solution with alcohol, and they decide to have one last drink. Several minutes later, they find that all their symptoms have suddenly vanished, and realize that they weren't sick in a traditional sense, but rather going through withdrawal symptoms due to all being severe alcoholics. They decide to save dealing with the latter revelation for a later date.
- Charlie from Lost is a heroin addict until he crashes on the island, where he has no access to drugs (or so he thinks).
- M*A*S*H:
- Hawkeye and Trapper are forced to remain sober after their beloved still is confiscated by Frank Burns. They are disturbed to discover just how dependent they have become on their rotgut gin.
- In another episode, one of BJ's patients turns out to have a morphine addiction. When BJ finds out, he turns to this trope, and after an agonizing (for the patient, at least) half an episode, the patient seemingly kicks the habit.
- One episode shows why this can backfire. One of Margaret's old drinking buddies join the nursing staff. When she shows up to the OR drunk, she gets Nailed to the Wagon, promising not to drink. A few days later, delirium tremens hits when she's in a crowded mess tent; Colonel Potter recognizes the symptoms, gets her to the recovery tent immediately for proper treatment, and admonishes Margaret for making her quit cold turkey.
- My Name Is Earl: In the second episode, Earl kidnaps the mother of one of his friends and tries to help her by forcing her to quit smoking while trying to kick the habit himself. Catalina called it the sweetest, most justified kidnapping she's ever seen.
- Odd Squad: In one episode, the squad is running into budget problems, and Ms. O is forced to cut back on her juice addiction. It doesn't go well for her, and she starts experiencing actual withdrawal symptoms. The money issues are cleared up by the end and Ms. O goes back to relentlessly drinking juice by the end, though.
- In Oz, O'Reilly gets himself thrown in the hole for a month, in part as a way to kick his heroin habit. What follows is a montage of O'Reilly screaming, crying, shaking, sweating and vomiting, after which he calmly walks out. "Piece of cake".
- Stargate Atlantis: In an episode where he was captured by Wraith and tortured into becoming a Wraith worshipper, Ronon is detoxed off the Wraith enzyme by locking him in an isolation room until he stops screaming. It's pretty much the only way to do it, since the enzyme makes users super-strong (and Ronon was plenty strong to start with), and the withdrawal symptoms are...not pleasant; they tried a more gentle approach with Lieutenant Ford back in season 1, and it did not go well.
- Stargate Universe: Dr. Rush. Involuntary caffeine and nicotine withdrawal (he was a heavy smoker and coffee drinker on Earth but they could only grab emergency supplies and they didn't include coffee or cigarettes) is amongst the reasons why he blacks out in the middle of a rant.
- Star Trek: Picard: In "Broken Pieces", Raffi decides that she needs a freaking drink.
Raffi: Burgundy. [replicator beeps, nothing happens] Red wine. [replicator beeps, nothing happens]
EHH: [materializing] What is the nature of your hospitality emergency?
Raffi: I need a glass of red wine.
EHH: You disabled alcohol services from your quarters two days ago.
Raffi: Reinstate it. Override.
EHH: You locked yourself out of override and... [consulting PADD] meta-override. - Supernatural: Dean and Bobby lock Sam up in the panic room to "detox" from demon's blood.
Magazines
- During The Gulf War, P.J. O'Rouke was sent by Rolling Stone to join the war correspondents in Saudi Arabia, and recounted that because the strictly Islamic nation was dry in more ways than one, some of them sobered for the first time in years (himself possibly included), and found that "what they thought was the pain of genius was actually a hangover".
Video Games
- In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, a Khajiit by the name of J'zhar signs both himself and his brother J'darr up for an expedition to a remote ruin in order to break J'Darr's Skooma addiction. It doesn't go well, and J'Darr eventually murders his brother with an ax.
- In Persona 5, following the fourth Palace, the gang spends a week rehabilitating resident hikikomori Futaba Sakura, who had spent two years shut away in her room at Sojiro's house due to the trauma of her mother's apparent suicide and the subsequent shunning she received from her family. Somewhat averted in that, while she takes numerous opportunities to hide behind someone or wear a mask, she clearly wants to improve and has little trouble adding to conversations or even holding them if the subject interests her.
- You can do this to colonists with addictions in RimWorld, by removing both their legs (by installing and removing peg legs) so they physically can't get to the drug stash (and replacing the legs with prostheses once they are no longer addicted). You can also just arrest them and lock them up until they get through withdrawal but that has the risk of them violently resisting arrest, or breaking out and heading back to the drug stash. If you want to avoid blatant Video Game Cruelty Potential you can simply burn all the drugs, but some are valuable trade goods, or useful in certain circumstances.
Visual Novels
- Henry declines any alcohol for the first half of Double Homework, as his doctor told him to avoid it from then on to avoid getting cirrhosis of the liver.
Web Animation
- One episode of Happy Tree Friends has Nutty land in the hospital when he consumes a literal truckload of candy. Sniffles decides to get Nutty to kick his sugar addiction by locking him in a padded cell for an indefinite amount of time.
Webcomics
- Tanked gets Nailed To The Wagon in Bear Nuts chapter 29: "Tanked Goes Dry", when one of Evil's pranks causes the zoo to lose its liquor license, cutting off Tanked's supply. None of the other bears are particularly happy about this since Tanked starts throwing tantrums all over the place. The following chapter (":The Origin Of Tanked") reveals that, thanks to a particular childhood experience, going sober might be legitimately bad for Tanked.
- This happens to Liriel, aka "Blueberry" in Drowtales, notable for her being a teenager by drow standards (but chronologically in her thirties). She's forced sober because Ariel takes her (she's Ariel's slave) to the overworld to look for a friend and her alcohol stash is destroyed in an attack. She grows increasingly loopy as time goes on and at one point attempts to eat some grass, taking Kyo'nne's earlier reference to there being "herbs" on the surface that can get you high
a bit too literally. Liriel's reason for alcoholism? She was trying to suppress the pain of Diva'ratrika's Aura Possession, and being forced off the wagon finally lets Diva break through fully.
- Phillip from Goats during the whole multiverse arc. He's kept prisoner in a "dry dimension" where there's no beer.
- Gamzee Makara from Homestuck gets nailed to the wagon when he runs out of sopor slime to make pies from. The slime is known to have degenerative effects on troll's brains. To say "shit hits the fan" is putting it lightly, considering that he murders Equius, Nepeta, and attempts to off Terezi.
- Rumisiel from Misfile is forced to stay sober while living with Ash and her dad. It's a work in progress for all of them.
Western Animation
- In the Family Guy episode "Prescription Heroine", Lois becomes addicted to painkillers. Eventually, Brian locks her in a dog carrier until she overcomes her addiction.
- In the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "Nightmare on Wilson Way", Bloo ties Mac to a bed in order to prevent him from eating any candy, setting off his maniacal Sweet Tooth.
- In the Kaeloo episode "Let's Play Trap-Trap", Kaeloo forces Quack Quack to go without yogurt for an hour. He then experiences withdrawal symptoms and finally goes insane and tries to cannibalize everyone after hallucinating them as yogurt containers.
- Life's a Zoo: Happens to the entire cast in "Self Helpless" when all the housemates are forcibly deprived of their addictive vices.
- Metalocalypse: Rikki Kixx's Start of Darkness resulted from him being forced into sobriety for a variety of legal and health reasons. He turns Straight Edge Evil as a result and decides if he can't have booze, no one can.
Real Life
- A smoker was on a long-distance Coach bus—that didn't allow smoking. When she just couldn't take it anymore, she got up and exited the bus while it was on the highway, dying in the process.
- Very much Truth in Television, as any medical professional working in a holiday destination can testify. A nice family vacation in some remote mountain village, and daddy cut off from all his usual secret sources of booze, makes for an exciting trip to your local hospital to treat withdrawal symptoms. Which can be life-threatening, so Don't Try This at Home.
- Also Truth in Television for people looking for rentals. In many places, even outdoor off-property smokers are refused or evicted, so the choice often comes down to quit smoking (or lie about it and hope to never be caught), pay far more for a less controlling roommate, or be homeless. Also extends to alcohol for some roommates/living situations - there are some that will evict people for as much as having a can of beer in their room.
- Many visitors to Muslim countries find that getting booze can be quite difficult, expensive, or both, resulting in severe cutbacks to consumption or even total sobriety. The reaction to this varies, but Central Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East are not considered great destinations for boozehounds. Then again, if you can prove you are a Christian and like your wine, North Africa isn't too bad...