Howard is disheartened, imbibing ale and getting drunk to make a point (8)
I believe the answer is:
headland
'a point' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'howard is disheartened imbibing ale and getting drunk' is the wordplay.
'is disheartened' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'imbibing' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'getting drunk' indicates an anagram.
'howard' with its centre taken out is 'hd'.
'ale'+'and'='aleand'
'aleand' anagrammed gives 'eadlan'.
'hd' going around 'eadlan' is 'HEADLAND'.
'to make' is the link.
(Other definitions for headland that I've seen before include "Bill" , "Narrow promontory" , "Cape" , "Ness" , "Promontory, area jutting out into the sea" .)