Churchill, Alcohol, and the Burden of Leadership Decision-Making

Irina Tsukerman is a human rights and national security attorney based in New York and Connecticut. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in National and Intercultural Studies and Middle East Studies from Fordham University in 2006, followed by a Juris Doctor from Fordham University School of Law in 2009. She operates a boutique national security law practice. She serves as President of Scarab Rising, Inc., a media and security strategic advisory firm. Additionally, she is the Editor-in-Chief of The Washington Outsider, which focuses on foreign policy, geopolitics, security, and human rights. She is actively involved in several professional organizations, including the American Bar Association’s Energy, Environment, and Science and Technology Sections, where she serves as Program Vice Chair in the Oil and Gas Committee. She is also a member of the New York City Bar Association. She serves on the Middle East and North Africa Affairs Committee and affiliates with the Foreign and Comparative Law Committee.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Tsukerman examine the tension between leadership, stress, and alcohol through the case of Winston Churchill. Jacobsen contextualizes Churchill’s heavy but often diluted drinking within the absence of modern medical standards, raising questions about decision-making under pressure. Tsukerman emphasizes functional tolerance while questioning whether subtle cognitive impairment influenced judgment. Both distinguish myth from evidence, noting Churchill’s productivity despite high consumption. The discussion broadens to historical norms of leadership drinking, access to alcohol, and evolving clinical language—from “alcoholic” to “alcohol misuse.” Ultimately, they explore whether impaired decision-making is preferable to paralysis in high-stakes statecraft.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: This was a commentary on strategic foresight in decision-making by a statesman—here, Winston Churchill. I was speaking with a friend about Churchill’s drinking habits. He faced extraordinarily difficult decisions under immense pressure, and he also drank regularly. My father drank heavily as well, so I recognize how such personalities can behave. Stress can reduce inhibition, and alcohol can reduce it further, sometimes increasing aggression. That raises a historical question: to what extent, if at all, did Churchill’s drinking affect his judgment?

Churchill appears to have maintained a regular and indulgent drinking routine, but many accounts note that his morning “Papa cocktails” were weak drinks—just a small amount of whisky diluted heavily with water. In broad outline, he often began the morning with these diluted whisky drinks while working. At lunch, he was known to drink champagne, sometimes with cognac. Later in the afternoon and evening, he might continue with whisky, champagne, and brandy or port. However, the common popular image of Churchill as continuously drunk is misleading. Historical specialists argue that he usually drank slowly, often in diluted form, and remained highly functional.

There is a North American saying: if you drink a mixer, you have never been sicker. What are your thoughts on the strain of leadership? We revere such figures, but historians also recognize the very human habits of a person under tremendous pressure.

Irina Tsukerman: It is remarkable that he functioned at all with that level of alcohol consumption. He must have developed significant tolerance. Did he derive pleasure from it, or was it more of a psychological or physical crutch? It is also striking that he seems to have mixed different kinds of alcohol so regularly.

Did he view it as a problem? Probably not. Was it unhealthy? Almost certainly. But the more historically careful question is not simply whether he drank a great deal; it is whether his judgment was materially impaired by it. That is harder to prove. If his drinking had been different, would some of his decisions have been different as well?

Jacobsen: Yes.

Tsukerman: What decisions might he have made had he not been drinking so heavily?

Jacobsen: There were not really formal health guidelines historically. Today, national health institutes provide recommendations, but medicine was far less effective 100 years ago and earlier. Much of practice developed without systematic methodologies such as modern epidemiology. People made decisions and lived their lives without the frameworks we now take for granted.

In hindsight, we understand that heavy alcohol consumption affects individuals, regardless of who they are. Some people develop higher tolerance or metabolize ethanol more efficiently, largely due to liver function and body composition. On average, men tend to tolerate slightly higher amounts than women when controlling for body mass, though variation is substantial.

Even so, it is difficult to imagine someone consuming very large amounts of alcohol daily and remaining fully functional. Under extreme pressure, a broader question emerges: is it better to make a decision while impaired or to make no decision at all? That seems central to the realities of statecraft. What do you think?

Tsukerman: If he was able to function effectively and avoid significant cognitive impairment, then making a decision may still have been preferable to indecision. If he had a much higher tolerance than the average person—who might be incapacitated or severely impaired—then perhaps he should be evaluated according to his ability to function under those conditions.

However, an important question remains: was there a meaningful difference in how he evaluated information when sober compared to when he had been drinking? Even if he appeared functional, subtle impairments in judgment or perception could still have influenced outcomes.

Jacobsen: Do you think there were other leaders in history who faced comparable or greater pressure and remained sober?

Tsukerman: Perhaps in societies where alcohol was unavailable or prohibited. I am not sure that complete sobriety was ever a consistent historical standard. Most leaders outside strictly Muslim societies were likely social drinkers.

Leaders—particularly kings and military figures—likely consumed more alcohol on average than ordinary people, who often lacked the financial means. Where alcohol was consumed widely, sometimes due to unsafe water, tolerance levels may have been broadly similar across populations. However, leaders had greater access to higher-quality alcohol, a wider variety, and larger quantities.

They likely drank not only on special occasions but also during regular social interactions. Even if not daily in all cases, alcohol consumption was probably frequent and normalized in leadership circles.

Jacobsen: Churchill’s routine illustrates the pattern clearly: a range of drinks—from champagne to cognac to whisky—consumed across the day, from around 7:30 a.m. into the early hours of the next morning. By contemporary standards, that would likely qualify as problematic drinking, with both high quantity and variety. Those are my main observations. Any final thoughts?

Tsukerman: I wonder whether anyone could realistically replicate Churchill’s drinking schedule.

Jacobsen: Christopher Hitchens is often mentioned in that context—though perhaps somewhat understated. He drank heavily. It is also worth noting that terms like “alcoholic,” as used in programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous, are not strictly clinical classifications. Contemporary medical terminology tends to use “alcohol misuse” or “alcohol use disorder.”

By modern clinical standards, Churchill’s routine would likely fall under alcohol misuse. Hitchens also appeared to exhibit multiple addictive behaviors, one of which was alcohol.

Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Irina.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a blogger on Vocal with over 130 posts on the platform. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978–1–0692343; 978–1–0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369–6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018–7399; Online: ISSN, 2163–3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719–6337), A Further Inquiry (SubStack), Vocal, Medium, The Good Men Project, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bank at In-Sight Publishing comprised of more than 10,000 articles, interviews, and republications, in more than 200 outlets. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20–0708028), and others.