Writers and Alcohol

  1. wlz
    wlz
    The two seem to go hand in hand for some writers when we read into their lives. Coleridge was a laudanumatic, alcoholic, snuff addict; Didn't Faulkner consider drink a benefit to his writing, Capote didn't abstain from cocaine and drink, Henry Miller enjoyed a pint, lol! The list is long. I guess Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson were also reputed heavy drinkers... well, I believe Thompson drank a bottle of burbon a day, I am not sure how true that is though. Drink is commonplace in the world of screenwriters. Ring Lardner wouldn't write until he finished a bottle of whiskey. Fitzgerald was a drinker also... as I say, I believe the list is long. I have always wanted to know whether there is some common factor between these two drives: what makes one want to write and what makes the same writer want to drink. Is there a point in mentioning that today writers seemed to have put the bottle away...? Were they drinking for escape? Were they drinking to escape the same problems expressed in the works they'd write? Is it hereditary? socio-economic?
    The older generation of men in Ireland were abusive drinkers. I mean very heavy drinkers. I don't believe for instance that we drink for reasons similar today that they would've back then. I know many of the older generation who drank, did so to escape their deeper frustrations because of domestic backgrounds, (in rural Ireland, e.g., cramped conditions, big families and little money and work), albeit, the poverty in which they grew up in - but by majority, we can hardly say the same today... we live somewhat more affluently and in smaller families. Regardless of economic recessions there is still more money to be had. [Oddly enough, an old joke here used to be placed on the old man sitting drinking his third pint and fourth whiskey whilst complaining about the price of butter!]
    I must think more on this topic. It is a good one.
  2. MANICHAEAN
    MANICHAEAN
    Wiz
    There are some things you can write when "rational" (clear thinking?). But never knock the drink for as you sink into its irrational warmth, it stimulates the imagination (especially champagne) & unlocks the mind to undertake freely, paths of speculation and of dreams. I never forget a good barman. One who knows his trade & I have been blessed by Divine Providence to have known a few of the best. There was one in Jamaica who when you said "Give me a special", responded "What mood are you in, and what mood do you want to be in?"
    By the way, you missed Hemingway who surely deserves a mention!
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