Y'know, I've been thinking a lot about Disco Elysium and its portrayal of alcoholism. Over the years, I've often joked that alcoholic blackouts turn you into a detective of your own life, both victim and perpetrator.
Here's an example: let's say you're investigating THE CASE OF YOUR MISSING WALLET. You return to the scene of the crime (no joy at the club's lost and found); search for clues (your card's most recent transactions are all for double vodka lemonades, which you vaguely remember ordering but, honestly, everything's a bit of a blur after drink #11); interrogate any witnesses ("well, you kind of disappeared for a bit, so we left and found you virtually passed out on the sidewalk" [...] "yeah, then so-and-so took you home in an Uber to make sure you got back safe and didn't, like, die in your sleep or anything"); and, finally, weigh up all available evidence (you likely dropped your wallet or had it stolen while you were lying unconscious in the street -- either way, it's probably gone for good now. nice one, dickhead.) Case solved! Now it's time to do damage control (laugh it off, laugh it off, laugh it off), downplay the whole thing and make your apologies ("I'm so, so sorry you had to deal with that, it won't happen again, I swear!*") *it will, you're not fooling anybody these days
At its surface, Disco Elysium is a murder mystery RPG. However, the murder investigation quickly becomes secondary to the *real* mystery of Harry du Bois (that's you, the player character). In the game's opening scene, you emerge hungover from a three-day bender to find, not only are you an actual goddamn detective in charge of a murder investigation, this is no ordinary drunken blackout you're dealing with but total retrograde amnesia. So, who is Harry, why is he like this, and what exactly precipitated his epic meltdown?
Early on, you're tasked with tracking down your badge and your gun, which involves speaking to potential witnesses and retracing (what can be inferred of) your steps the previous weekend. Even if you focus all your efforts on police work, per Kim's single-minded professionalism, most leads end up revealing far more about Harry and his past than the murdered man or any potential suspects. And although Harry had nothing to do with the murder he's been called on to investigate, you (as Harry) can speculate about your alibi and even accuse yourself of the crime.
The way the game forces you to work backwards and piece together the few precious shards of memory you can salvage from wreckage of your life really struck a chord with me as a (newly recovering) alcoholic. During my first play-through (at which time I was categorically Not in recovery), I didn't disclose the full extent of Harry's memory loss to Kim until Day 5. I guess by then it was such a familiar routine -- the drinking, forgetting, making panicked attempts to save face (hey, look, Harry can deflect with humour as well!) -- that I slipped all too easily into my old M.O. Honestly, it's kind of darkly funny to reflect that a lot of actions and dialogue choices in Disco Elysium were written because it's the Alcoholism Game™, created by a bunch of self-professed alcoholics, and not because they're the real life default for most players.
