Dissipated, like many a drunken sot (4)
I believe the answer is:
lost
'dissipated' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'many a drunken sot' is the wordplay.
'many' becomes 'l' ().
'a drunken' indicates anagramming the letters.
'sot' with letters rearranged gives 'ost'.
'l'+'ost'='LOST'
'like' is the link.
(Other definitions for lost that I've seen before include "Not having known where one is" , "Baffled" , "Suffered defeat" , "See 8" , "Unable to find the way forward" .)