Despite what you might have heard elsewhere, drinking can be key to success in the City, according to one ex-broker.

Fins: As a Japanese equity and equity warrants sales broker for Merrill Lynch in London, Mark Jeffries usually skipped the group drinking binges where co-workers would regularly booze themselves into incoherence.

“I didn’t like at the end of the day getting absolutely drunk. It just wasn’t my way,” said Jeffries.

When the bottom fell out of the Japanese market, his job vaporized in the mass layoffs that followed. Jeffries went on to a career in British television and now is a communications consultant in New York, giving keynote speeches around the world. His book, “The Art of Business Seduction,” is a how-to with tips on building emotional bonds with people for business and career success.

“I was definitely naive as a stock broker,” Jeffries said. “Getting drunk was the point. That was the emotional connection. I missed that. And so I missed creating a really strong emotional connection.”

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Drunk…really strong emotional connection. Don’t relationships that start out like that end in messy divorce and cirrosis of the liver?