It turns out that Tony Stark’s battle with alcoholism – the “Demon in a Bottle” story – won’t be one of the storylines in Iron Man 2.  From MTV:

When asked if the film was based on this famous story arc, Downey told MTV News, “Not really.”

“As a matter of fact, I think that’s probably best saved,” said Downey, “ because it’s such its own storyline.”

This matches Jon Favreau’s thoughts last year that, while “Demon in a Bottle” may come one day, it doesn’t need to be in “Iron Man 2”. Hopefully, Downey has quite a few “Iron Man” films ahead of him.

This is probably for the best, and Downey’s right – Stark’s substance abuse problem is best left to be the focus, not a side story concurrent with Stark fighting new supervillains.  If Iron Man 3 – you know it’s inevtiable – is the “Demon in the Bottle” story, Downey is the perfect actor; it’s not like he hasn’t had abuse problems of his own.