When we first meet Haymitch, we're unsure what to think of him. He's the only surviving victor from District 12, but he seems to have a raging drink problem; is he really a suitable coach for this year's tributes? Actually, he is. He soon cleans up his act and teaches them everything they'll need to know when they reach the arena. It's a surprising turnaround for the Hunger Games veteran: we don't see him slip back into his depression for the rest of the first movie. So was his drunkenness a plot device used only for a scene? Well, Haymitch's troubles run deeper than the film explains. He first turned to booze when he won the Games; his whole family was murdered after Snow considered him to have cheated in the final showdown. He isolated himself away from the rest of the district and started sleeping with a knife. It's only when Katniss, in the early moments of meeting him, throws a knife at him that he thinks he's got some tributes worth fighting for. For so long, he was disheartened by tributes who showed no fight within them, and now he's actually got something to work with. At the start of Catching Fire, he relapses. He's not totally over his alcoholism just because he believes Katniss can win the Hunger Games, but it's not one of the more explored undertones of the series.
