Warning! Spoilers for Action Comics #1030 below.
Wolverine is a big fan of drinking a cold, alcoholic beverage in Marvel Comics, but the explanation behind how the longtime Canadian mutant can get drunk has changed over the years. Now, a new Midnighter-starring story from DC Comics might have offered a reasonable explanation regarding Wolverine's ever-changing abilities to process alcohol: it could all just be the placebo effect making Logan believe he's drunk.
Marvel has offered multiple explanations behind Wolverine's ability to get drunk over the years. In Wolverine #900, Logan revealed his healing factor processes alcohol nearly as quickly as he can drink it, with a bottle of whisky only getting him tipsy for seconds. It seems Wolverine is capable of getting drunk, but only for an extremely short amount of time (unless he has a constant supply of alcohol.) Despite this, other stories have suggested Wolverine is capable of getting drunk for varying amounts of time on comparatively little alcohol. A new story starring Midnighter (another hero with a healing factor) in last week's Action Comics #1030 offers an explanation for why Logan's experience of alcohol seems to vary from story to story.
In "The Passengers" in Action Comics #1030 - by Becky Cloonan, Michael W. Conrad, Michael Avon Deming, Taki Soma, and Dave Sharpe - Midnighter is watching a Tred Talks from Andrej Trojan, when he's comforted by Apollo, who notes his partner had been doing some serious drinking. Midnighter replies that he's incapable of getting drunk, as his own healing factor prevents him from doing so, but he still drinks beer as a placebo.
The panel might not play a huge part in this Midnighter story, besides providing an emotional moment between him and Apollo, but it could explain why Wolverine's reaction to alcohol has varied from comic to comic, even as his healing factor has remained a constant - or, if anything, grown more powerful. Perhaps, like Midnighter, when Wolverine gets drunk, he just experiences the placebo effect - which tricks him into believing he's drunk despite his body processing the alcohol. It's possible this is the only way he truly experiences drunkenness, or that the couple of seconds of actual sensation kicks off a placebo effect that lasts varying amounts of time.
If Wolverine has the same experience drinking due to his healing factor as Midnighter, his drunkenness (without the power of a mutant dampener) could be due to the placebo effect. That doesn't mean Wolverine is faking being drunk, but that he's inadvertently tricked his body into believing he's capable of staying drunk - even if it's only for a small amount of time. His body's reaction to the 'poison' he puts into it may make it impossible for Wolverine to get drunk for more than a few seconds, but it seems he's found an alternative way better than stocking up on grain alcohol.