Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Idioms 262.
The idiom today is to 'fall off the wagon."
Okay . Let's take a look at the note here.
If someone falls off the wagon, he or she returns to drinking again after a period of
trying to quit or abstain.
And of course , we are talking about drinking alcohol here.
All right.
We have a second meaning here too.
They say by extension , this phrase could also be used with other harmful addictions,
such as smoking, taking drugs, overeating , etc.
So if you had those addictions and you tried to get over them for a period of time.
You know, you were trying to abstain from them.
And then you returned to them , we can say you fell off the wagon too for those. Even
though to be honest with you I still think it is used more for an alcohol problem than
any other one.
All right.
Let's continue.
The origin goes back to the late 1800's and early 1900's when there used to be water wagons
that were used to water down dusty unpaved roads during the summers.
You can probably imagine this.
Think of the old cowboy days.
Maybe it was really hot.
People would be walking they would be kicking up the dust.
It would provably blow up . You might breath it in.
You probably want to avoid that.
So that actually really had water wagons going by.
They would throw water on it.
You know , to keep the dust down.
That's what they did.
So we really did have water wagons at one time.
That's why sometimes when you look at this phrase fall off the wagon.
You are probably thinking wagon ? What wagon ? Where is the wagon ? So here is where the
wagon probably comes in to the picture.
Okay . Around the same time another expression used to be heard.
That was to be on the wagon.
This was used by people who wanted to abstain from drinking alcohol.
You know.
stay away from alcohol completely.
Meaning that they would prefer to drink water than to drink alcohol.
All right . Instead of alcohol.
Eventually the idiom to fall off the wagon was used to mean someone who returned to drinking
alcohol again.
So that's how we got it . That's how it came about.
All right.
Let's continue . We just have a couple of examples here.
Example number one.
Her uncle went to AA meetings.
Remember AA stood for Alcoholics Anonymous.
For those people who have serious drinking problems.
They might go to these meetings to help them to try to quit.
Okay and try to stay sober.
Sober. Of course, that really just means not drunk.
But he eventually fell off the wagon again.
That's the way we would say it . Somebody fell off the wagon again.
Maybe they were trying to make a real effort to stop , but maybe they just couldn't do
it.
They got too tempted and they fell off the wagon again.
All right. And the second one here could be an example where we use fall off the wagon
for something other than alcohol.
That movie star has been in rehab for drugs several times.
Every time he used the rehabilitation program, he eventually falls off the wagon again.
We hear about this all the time.
This happens to a lot of celebrities.
Anyway, I hope it is clear.
I hope you got it.
I hope it is informative.
Thank you for your time . Bye-bye.