When Meg Ryan first hits the booze in the opening scenes, she does so in San Francisco's famous Buena Vista Café in Fisherman's Wharf. It was here that America's first Irish Coffee was first created in 1952.
It is a myth that vodka is not detectable on the breath. If Alice were indeed drinking a quart a day her husband, and everyone near her, would have smelled it.
Alice Green: It's horrifying how much you can hate yourself for being low and weak and he couldn't save me from that. So I turned it on him; I tried to empty it onto him. But there was always more, you know. When he tried to help I told him that he made me feel small and worthless. But nobody makes us feel that, we do that for ourselves. I shut him out because I knew if he ever really saw who I was inside, that he wouldn't love me. And we're separated now, he's moved away, and it was so hard not to beg him to stay. And I don't know if I'm going to get a second chance but I have to believe. That I deserve one. Because we all do.
Michael Green: Come on, let's be real. You're clean. You stay hopeless and confused. Keep polishing those skills. And I'll take the heat. 'Cause I got some needs of my own. When I touch my wife, I like it better if her skin doesn't crawl.