Almost sick after ninth drink, essentially - is that natural? (9)
I believe the answer is:
intrinsic
'that natural?' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'almost sick after ninth drink essentially' is the wordplay.
'almost' means to remove the last letter (almost the whole word is kept).
'after' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'ninth' becomes 'int' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'essentially' says to take the centre.
The middle of 'drink' is 'rin'.
'sick' with its last letter removed is 'sic'.
'int'+'rin'='intrin'
'sic' after 'intrin' is 'INTRINSIC'.
'is' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for intrinsic that I've seen before include "Of the essential nature of something" , "Belonging by its very nature" , "Naturally belonging" , "Natural" , "Genuine" .)