Alcohol and the Writer by Donald W. Goodwin, MD
Book Review
Alcohol and the Writer by Donald W. Goodwin, MD
Published in 1988 by Andrews and McMeel
The myth of the alcoholic writer has been in the minds of the American public for well over a century, from Sinclair Lewis to William Faulkner and Scott Fitzgerald to Ernest Hemingway. Why were so many of the greatest American writers alcoholics? Was it because of the alcohol culture of the 1920s and 1930s? How much did their personal family history and environment in which they grew up play a role? Is there a strong link between alcoholism and writing as a profession? These are the questions that Dr. Donald Goodwin attempts to answer in Alcohol and the Writer.
Dr. Donald Goodwin was (a Google search unfortunately revealed that he passed away in 1999) the professor and chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Kansas Medical Center and an authority on alcoholism (his other books include Is Alcoholism Hereditary? and Anxiety
Nevertheless, Goodwin does describe some details of the strong connection between clinical depression and alcoholism on a macro level. It was also interesting to note that it is not necessarily the frequency and even the quantity of drinks consumed that defines an alcoholic, but rather his or her ability to control it:
"One is a definition proposed by the National Council on Alcoholism: 'The person with alcoholism cannot consistently predict on any drinking occasion the duration of the episode or the quantity that will be consumed.'"
With respect to the six writers, Goodwin notes that they all had insomnia (and tried to cure it with alcohol and pills), all were hypochondriacs, most became paranoid after they drank (Hemingway became delusional after he stopped drinking), they were anxious people and socially phobic, and all except Hemingway were smokers (Goodwin describes them as having "oral" personalities--that is the need to have something in their mouths).
What makes this book interesting is the biographical story of each of the writers. There are some very amusing stories of Hemingway in New York, the Steinbeck restraint at the Noble Prize ceremony, and the O'Neill cure, among others.
One of the most interesting one is the alcoholism ingrained throughout the Faulkner family and the habits and escapades of William himself:
"But his most reckless behavior was his drinking. he drank from early adolescence to the day before his death. he liked Old Crow, jack Daniels, anything with corn in it ('There is a lot nourishment in an acre of corn,' he said), but he would drink anything (absinthe in Paris, ouzo in Greece, moonshine in Oxford). As mentioned, his grandfather and father regularly took the Keeley Cure for alcoholism and abstained for various periods. His wife and brother Jack joined Alcoholics Anonymous, with success. But, except for the brief periods of voluntary abstinence ('so it won't become a habit') and the many times he went to a hospital to dry out, Faulkner drank daily and, frequently, ferociously.
His policy towards drinking was as follows:
1. Have whiskey available at all times (he was rarely without a pocket flask).
2. As a rule, don't drink until sunset--and then have only a few (consistent with getting up early the next day to write masterpieces).
3. Sometimes have more than a few--what the hell, life is short; the writer has a cold or a toothache or pain from falling off a horse; or a story is rejected; or his latest love loves him not back; or it's a gray day; or it's New York and everybody gets drunk in New York. Faulkner always had reasons for getting potted. His recuperative powers were legendary; after a few days in a hospital or tapering off at home with beer and Seconal, he was back at his writer's desk.
Superimposed on Faulkner's pattern of daily social drinking and tying one on, now and then, were long benders called "collapses." They were sometimes predictable. Everyone knew, after a book, he would have a collapse. He would have a distant look and be very quiet. Then he would recite poetry. Then he would disappear. Eventually his friends would find him and get him into a hospital. After a few days of rest and paraldehyde, he would be discharged, the picture of health."
...
"Starting in his thirties, Faulkner's symptoms of alcoholism increased in frequency and severity. He began having withdrawal seizures and delirium tremens. He sometimes vomited blood. He had accidents while drinking, once severely burning his back. Rather late in his drinking career he began having day-long blackouts. He sometimes combined alcohol with drugs, such as Miltown. There is no record though that he abused any substance except alcohol (and of course nicotine). He disliked other alcoholics, calling them disgusting, and was intolerant of his wife's drinking. Personally, he said he liked to drink and never intended to stop. He did stop once for a year in his midthirties, while writing one of his best books, Light in August, but it happened only once. He drank, he said, because he liked to drink, because it made him feel good, and taller and stronger, and he liked the taste. He accepted the bruises and fractured vertebrae and other injuries from drinking with stoicism. The symptom he disliked most apparently was the hiccups, which he sometimes had for days after sobering up.
Like Fitzgerald and many other drinkers, Faulkner underwent a marked personality change when he drank, changing from a quiet, reserved, shy man to an exhibitionist. While drinking he would do such things as offer a drink to a passing policeman. The bottle, for Faulkner, was almost a trademark. He posed for MGM publicity stills with a drink in hand. He often wrote with a glass or bottle by his typewriter."
No comments:
Post a Comment