In German this is the word for drinking, but used only when the act is done by animals, however, it has developed into a slang word for drinking large amounts of alcohol. This invokes vivid imagery. The past tense of the word, besoffen (pronunciation: bizoffen), when used as an adjective, means piss drunk as in:

"Hey, alta, du bist ja voll besoffen!"

meaning...

"Dude, you're really fuckin' drunk!

You add the word scheisse (shit) to this to make it even more extreme, in which case it becomes scheissbesoffen.
For more interesting and useful German slang, check out: Scheisse! The Real German You Were Never Taught in School by Gertrude Besserwisser