In news that may leave you shaken and possibly stirred, The Medical Journal of Australia recently published a study concluding that James Bond has a serious alcohol problem. No, that problem isn’t the fact that he thinks you’re meant to shake a martini – which is the most arrogant thing I’ve heard since I overheard someone say “I’m too rich to do cocaine” earlier this morning.
Four medical experts and authors from Australia and New Zealand have studied James Bond’s drinking habits in all 24 movies released so far in the 007 franchise, and they reckon he’s an alcoholic. The study which was part of a fun christmas competition by the MJA found that across the 24 films bond had 109 “drinking events”.
In Quantum Of Solace – released in 2008, Bond drinks six Vespers. The Ian Fleming designed cocktail contains “three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, [and] half a measure of Kina Lillet,” according to the original novel. That’s 24 standard drinks and is enough to kill someone according to the study.
Related: Prepare your livers, Australia has a new monthly cocktail delivery service
The study also found that after drinking, Bond was more likely to get into fights/dangerous situations. Overall, the evidence is pretty damning, James Bond has a problem. If you read the entire study, you start to question how his abuse of alcohol hasn’t killed him yet, or at least made it easier for others to kill him.
In the end after comparing Bond’s actions to the DSM-5 criteria for alcohol use disorder, the study found that he satisfied six of the eleven criteria, with another four being recorded as “possibly”. Rough stuff.
The study concludes that Bond needs to stop drinking on the job, as well as with people who want to kill him or have sex with him then kill him. Very smart advice. They also recommend that Bond’s employer MI6 could be more responsible by “referring him to work-funded counselling or psychiatric support services for managing his alcohol use disorder.”
You can read the full study here. The most recent film in the 007 franchise was Spectre released back in 2015. Watch a video of James Bond drinking with a scorpion on his hand below!
Watch: James Bond play a drinking game with a scorpion
