Purging method adopted by guy with symptom of drunkenness (9)
I believe the answer is:
cathartic
'purging' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'method adopted by guy with symptom of drunkenness' is the wordplay.
'method' becomes 'art'.
'adopted by' is an insertion indicator (I've seen this in other clues).
'guy' becomes 'cat' (American slang for man, esp in Jazz).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'symptom of drunkenness' becomes 'hic' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'cat'+'hic'='cathic'
'art' put inside 'cathic' is 'CATHARTIC'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cathartic that I've seen before include "providing a release" , "releasing emotion" , "Cleansing - arctic hat (anag)" , "Type of drug" , "Releasing pent-up emotions" .)