Also, drive someone mad or bananas or bonkers or nuts or up the wall ; drive someone to drink. Greatly exasperate someone, annoy to distraction. For example, His habitual lateness drives me crazy, or Apologizing over and over drives me bananas, or These slovenly workmen drive me up the wall, or Your nagging is driving me to drink. All of these hyperbolic expressions describe a person's extreme frustration, supposedly to the point of insanity ( crazy, mad, nuts, bonkers, and bananas all mean "insane"); up the wall alludes to climbing the walls to escape and to drink to imbibing alcohol to induce oblivion.