That's exactly the self justification he's using for his drinking now, rather than admitting he's bored - He suffers from to much free time and nothing to fill it with, it started as part of his bad boy image back in the Wendy's era, then became a problem when it was all he had to fill the time with after he got fired, He doesn't have any interests, no real friends no desire to learn something so he sit's there doing fuck all and started drinking to make the time go faster now it's a problem where the time still goes slow but it's in a blur and that's good enough for him.
I'm with a number of other people in saying "I don't think he really likes alcohol, or at least the kind he drinks for his image" you know how he get's pissy that that he can't drink "Girly" drinks? Yea he wants the sweet sickly fruity stuff young women and teens go for because they haven't developed a taste (or tolerance) for alcohol so they choose things that masks the flavour of alcohol. He takes small sips of Vodka and JD and keeps them in his mouth trying to burn out his taste buds (and lately to kill the tooth pain) to be able to finish the bottle but if you look at his reaction to the flavour he balks at it so when he does a drink combo he makes it so the flavour is as masked as best he can.
Drinking the drinks he wants to drink, alcopops etc don't fit in with the image he wants to project, and it's harder to find stuff strong enough to scratch the itch any more especially when you consider the price point and what bang he gets for his buck.