From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishthe bottlethe bottleDFDMIalcoholic drink – used when talking about the problems drinking can cause Peter let the bottle ruin his life.hit the bottle (=regularly drink too much) She was under a lot of stress, and started hitting the bottle.be on the bottle British English (=be drinking a lot of alcohol regularly) → bottle
Examples from the Corpus
hit the bottle• My sister's been hitting the bottle a lot lately and her work is starting to suffer.• His 1954 marriage to Born Free star Virginia McKenna broke up and he hit the bottle.• When his wife died he hit the bottle again.• Instead he hit the bottle and blamed her for it.• After Sheila left him, Judd hit the bottle pretty hard. 