Short woman eating large salmon, a heavy drinker (9)

I believe the answer is:

alcoholic

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'a heavy drinker' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'short woman eating large salmon' is the wordplay.
'short woman' becomes 'alic' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'eating' is an insertion indicator.
'large' becomes 'L' (eg in clothes sizes).
'salmon' becomes 'coho' (type of salmon).
'l'+'coho'='lcoho'
'alic' enclosing 'lcoho' is 'ALCOHOLIC'.

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(Other definitions for alcoholic that I've seen before include "Person addicted to liquor" , "Persistent drunkard" , "Over-tippling" , "Drunk" , "Spirituous" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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