The Role of Marlowe’s Excessive Drinking Throughout the book “The Big Sleep” the character Marlowe is a detective working in Criminal Justice. This job seems to bring about a lot of stress to Marlowe, and in order to cope; he turns to drinking which relaxes him. Although he is an alcoholic he still is able to function and get his investigations done. He is a functional alcoholic who abuses alcohol constantly and has a great desire for it for various reasons. Some of the reasons that may be directly linked to Marlowe’s abuse of alcohol boredom, psychological and or physical dependence and sometimes he drinks casually and socially.