Habitual drunkenness could be grounds for divorce or loss of custody if the pattern created danger or neglect.
The label is controversial because it was often applied broadly and carried **stigma**. Modern law and medicine increasingly avoid the term, replacing it with neutral, clinical habitual drunk language like Severe Alcohol Use Disorder. However, some statutes and immigration codes still contain the phrase. In U.S. immigration law, for instance, “habitual drunkard” remained in statute as a disqualifying moral-character factor until courts criticized it as unconstitutionally vague and discriminatory in application.
In modern understanding, the term is seen as **outdated and imprecise** because it collapses medical, moral, and legal questions into a single pejorative category. Contemporary frameworks favor analyzing either (a) clinical substance-use severity or (b) specific observable behaviors (neglect, endangerment, disorderly conduct) rather than assigning a status label such as “habitual drunk.”
We serve clients throughout Mississippi, including, but not limited to, those in the following localities: DeSoto County including Horn Lake, Olive Branch, and Southaven; Forrest County including Hattiesburg; Harrison County including Gulfport; Hinds County including Clinton and Jackson;
Jackson County including Pascagoula; Lafayette County including Oxford; Lee County including Tupelo; Lincoln County including Brookhaven; Madison County including Madison and Ridgeland;