It seems that on almost every page, multiple times a page, Brett and Jake and their cohorts are having drink after drink. The novelty of this kind of life-style wears off on the reader rather quickly. At first, it seems that these fairly well-to-do, artistic ex-patriots are simply living in the moment of indulgence and whimsy in the very accommodating city of post-war Paris. However, it becomes clear that their alcoholism is more destructive than anything else. It may also be a sort of coping mechanism for each of the characters to deal with, or, avoid dealing with a great sense of loss that resulted from WWI.

When we first meet Brett, Jake casually says, "Hello, Brett...Why aren't you tight?" (22). "Tight" here refers to drunk. Later, Brett drunkenly appears at Jake's hotel in the middle of the night. He recounts the episode, "Bret came up the stairs. I saw she was quite drunk. 'Silly thing to do,' she said. 'Make an awful row. I say, you weren't asleep, were you?'...This was Brett, that I had felt like crying about" (34). Jake also describes Brett to Cohn rather unfavorably: "She's a drunk" (38). We can see fairly early on in the novel that Jake makes it clear that Brett's drinking is more than simply part of her persona as a aristocratic socialite. He explains to Cohn that he and Brett met in a hospital during WWI where she lost her "own true love [who] had just kicked off with dysentery" (39). Brett's great sense of loss is the loss of her true love, her youth, and perhaps even her ability to emotionally connect with men on a deeper level than sex, fine dinners, and drinking parties. 

Jake is certainly an enabler of Brett as he is always quick to either offer her a drink or indulge in a drink with her. He struggles with his experience in war and his resulting wounds. It is implied that he is impotent after the war by his vague and darkly sarcastic description of his wound(s) when he looks at himself in the mirror. He says, "Undressing, I looked at myself in the mirror of the big armoire beside the bed....Of all the ways to be wounded. I suppose it was funny" (30). He also describes an Italian liaison colonel that came to visit him  while he was recovering from his wound during the war. He explains, "That was about the first funny thing. I was all bandaged up. But they had told him about it. Then he made that wonderful speech: 'You, a foreigner, an Englishman' (any foreigner was an Englishman) 'have given more than your life.' What a speech!....Probably I never would have had any trouble if I hadn't run into Brett when they shipped me to England. I suppose she only wanted what she couldn't have. Well, people were that way" (31). It seems that Jake drinks to deal with what he lost: ostensibly, his ability to have sex, and, in turn, his ability to give Brett the physicality that she desires as a result of her sense of loss. This is the double-bind that Jake and Brett find themselves in: Jake cannot give Brett the physical relationship she wants, Brett cannot give Jake the love he wants, and they both drown their inability and dissatisfactions in alcohol. Brett is left to continue her wandering, drinking, and meeting one man after another, and Jake is nearly powerless to simply resign to following in her wake, drinks at the ready. Alcoholism acts as only a thin veil over these deeply troubled characters and their emotional, psychological, and physical problems that result from WWI.

Brett and Jake are both part of the lost generation that grew up not knowing the freedom and folly of youth that many of us know today. They grew up with war, sacraficed normalcy, safety, traditions, values, family life, and their innocence for a greater cause. After the war, it is no surprise that these two characters have few guiding principles and real connections left in life other than a few drinking buddies with enough money to pick up the tab and call a cab to take them to the next bar.