This is a lifestyle thing. It's not just alcohol, but yeh, out partying and drinking leads to 2am takeaway, hangover foods and the calories in and of itself in alcohol are bad.
Like everything, you will find people who tell you "the best way to lose weight is X" ... employ a multi-faceted approach and you'll get the best results. There is no silver bullet. Some people will not stop snacking, some people will not stop eating greasy takeaways and some people will not stop driving 3 blocks instead of just walking. Try "Being healthy" and if you find it difficult to do everything at once, take baby steps. Eat healthy food on Tuesdays and Thursdays only, building up one day at a time every two weeks. Sometimes it can take a while to get used to not being full of MSG-ridden salty foods and stuff like removing caffeine from your diet can be difficut. Getting used to the taste of wholegrain this and low fat that takes a while. It's better introduced slowly... you'll find it more difficult to keep to some sort of strict that requires that you eat stuff that you don't like 3 times a day.
It is important to do as much as you can to increase your metabolism. This means not being sedentary! Get out, go for walks, exercise, go for a jog. Whatever. Measure, rinse, repeat.
Take a sensible approach to changing your lifestyle and it can definitely come about. Fad diets, exercise machines, stomach crunchers etc. are useless without you recognising that you want to be healthy. It's not just about losing weight and remember that! There are people of average weight living extremely unhealthy lifestyles who will die younger too.
"Losing weight" is a lifestyle thing... people with healthy lifestyles aren't fat, no matter what. I believe this is one of those rules to which there aren't any exceptions.
You didn't say what you were drinking. You can get a lot of the benefit by switching from beer to Gin and Tonic / Vodka and tonic / Whiskey / Bourbon / any alcohol without the added carbs.
You might be surprised how much alcohol (not just the calories) is contributing to your fat ass.