another thing, I think it was in the episode “the shepherd” (could be wrong) where you see Rumplestilskin drinking from a flask (something tells me it wasn’t pumpkin juice) and acting kinda weird (even by rumplestilskin standards) I always thought this was not long after Belle left and was still kinda bummed out about it.
Drinking to help with the pain – Belle tried doing that too, in ‘Dreamy’.