Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bend n.²

a drunken spree.

1845		Satirist & Punch (Boston, MA) 1 Feb. 57/2: [title] saturday night; or Larks upon a Social Bend / On Saturday night, as all must know, / Larks often take a Bend; / A very nice spree.
1899		H. Lawson ‘The Stranger’s Friend’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 369: He came into town from the Lost Soul Run for his grim half-yearly ‘bend’.
1914		Eve. Star (Wash., DC) 11 Jan. 29/1: It happened every time Swanstrom started on a bend.
1920		‘Sapper’ Bulldog Drummond 117: ‘A very considerable bend, gentlemen,’ he remarked.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 71: I was with Bob Doran, he’s on one of his periodical bends, and what do you call him Bantam Lyons.
1933		J. Spenser Limey 159: She ‘made’ an old farmer that’d come all the way from Iowa for a ‘bend’ (razzle).

In phrases

on a bend (also having a bend, (up)on the bend)

on a drinking spree.

1851		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 4 Jan. n.p.: C— got on a ‘bend’ the other night, went into a boarding house [...] and delivered quite a moral lecture.
1879		Proceedings General Assembly Free Church Scotland 62: ‘Going on the spree’ or ‘having a bend’ [OED].
1887		F. Francis Jr Saddle and Mocassin 84: They do say as he was ’customed to go on a scoop – on a bend, occasionally, as it were.
1891		Kipling City of Dreadful Night 71: The gallant apprentice may be a wild youth with an earnest desire to go occasionally ‘upon the bend’.
1899		Kipling ‘A Little Prep’ in Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 181: He must have gone on a bend and been locked up under a false name.
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 220: on the bend, on a bender, on a spree, drunk.
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight 227: He has been on the skyte, bend, loose, soak.
1936		L.A.G. Strong Last Enemy i x 152: Been on the bend, ’aven’t you? [OED].