Green’s Dictionary of Slang

drunkenness; thus as adj., rowdy, regularly drinking, drunk.

1904		C. DeL. Hine Letters from an Old Railway Official 103: You cannot treat all your men alike in all things. In a few things, collisions, stealing, booze-fighting, for example, you have to do so.
1909		W.M. Raine Brand Blotters (1912) 22: He was no booze-fighting grubliner.
1914		in New Outlook CVII 860/1: Social and business conditions have changed until booze and booze fighting have no place in the present-day scheme of things.
1918		Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior 73: An Indian, especially a booze-fighting Indian, never worries about the price.
1926		H. Kemp More Miles 152: At first his booze-fighting didn’t bother me so much . . . he was more gallant and romantic then, than when he was sober — at first!
1931		U. Sinclair Roman Holiday 32: If there is anything I cannot stand it is booze-fighting in women.
[1946		‘The Open Book’ in G. Logsdon Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) 116: This calf robbing lad and his sod busting dad / Spend most of their time fighting booze].
1947		W. Johnson William Allen White’s America? 76: He wanted a booze-fighting, hell-raising, he-man town with hair on its chest and cardamon seeds on its breath.
1959		T.W. Ducnan Big River, Big Man 25: Preachers talked about booze fighting; mainly, they disapproved of that; but when it came to treachery booze wasn’t in it with water.
1969		J. Cheever Bullet Park 5: The legions of wife-swapping, Jew-baiting, booze-fighting spiritual bankrupts.
1970		H. Borland Country Editor’s Boy 62: He’s just another booze-fighting tramp printer!