“His host offered to eat again together the next year, not to slaughter
him again.”
Well obviously not. But one would think he would not have the same set up if the previous year had led to a near tragedy.
” Also, some interpret the wording to mean that Rav Zeira
was forced to drink too much wine (as opposed to having his throat slit).”
Yeah that ties into the understanding, and was brought in the sicha.
“As for doing teshuvah, serious intoxication was involved – perhaps
things done only due to such a state do not require teshuvah”
Why? If someone kills someone by accident he still has to go to an ir miklat for the rest of his life because he was careless enough to get to that mistake. Many Torah greats from the shtetl era would go into galus over minor infractions, and the Tannaim were even greater than then so kal vchomer there should have seemingly been Serious teshuva, and here….