Leaving drunk after bender with sinister controller (8)
I believe the answer is:
svengali
'sinister controller' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'leaving drunk after bender' is the wordplay.
'drunk' is an anagram indicator.
'after' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'bender' becomes 's' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'leaving' is an anagram of 'vengali'.
'vengali' after 's' is 'SVENGALI'.
'with' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for svengali that I've seen before include "(controlling person)" , "man of influence" , "Person exerting sinister control over another" , "dominating influence" , "Trilby's mesmerist" .)