Right now I am reading a fascinating book on a dark time in American history called Last Call: the Rise and Fall of Prohibition. It has really led me to wonder about the great American authors, indeed authors worldwide, who were rampant alcoholics. How did they survive? Did it somehow help their art? I can only venture that the answer is yes. Being an alcoholic of at best amateur status (I routinely go days without drinking – for shame), I can only guess at their levels of functionality. But these literary greats have gone to dark places of which mere mortals can merely dream. For example, I recently read a hilarious collection of shorts by Augusten Burroughs called You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas. In it, he recounts many harrowing tales of drunken holidays, first as the child observer of his addled parents, then as a twenty-something New Yorker. In one particularly cringe-worthy account, he details how he woke up in bed with a much older, disgusting French Santa in a hotel room:
So, was this some appalling repressed fetish? Something, God help me, unleashed after I had a few drinks in me? Had that ubiquitous holiday image somehow woven its way through childhood and into my psycho-sexual development, only to be expressed in early adulthood, under conditions made ideal by the consumption of too much alcohol? Somehow, that did not seem fixable. If one was sexually attracted to Santa, one had departed from mainstream reality. This was no different than turning down dates and staying home weekends because you were saving yourself for Cap’n Crunch. Outlook not so good.
His shameless ability to recount his horror and degradation gives him power, and had me rolling with laughter. Yet later in the collection, he tells a tale that resonates less, not because it is less funny or because there is less shame involved (though both are true), but because it rings less true.
Perhaps the out-of-my-mind-other-state urgency that authors lend to their works about addiction is shadenfreude on the part of the reader, or even sympathy. I know that when I went to Vegas I wanted to do it “Hunter S. Thompson gonzo style,” not because what he went through sounded particularly fun, but because everyone longs for that crazy of a story to tell – provided you remember any of it. (Sadly, we were flying, so the whole trunk full o’ drugs thing didn’t pan out for our Vegas vacation. Maybe I’ll tell you what DID happen someday.)
I guess my point is that writers should perhaps embrace whatever vices they feel a natural tendency toward if they aim to honestly depict them. No, I’m not saying that you should pick up a bottle or a needle and forsake your family or your career – that would just be stupid. But let yourself live a little! I have had my wild nights, my bad decisions, my drunken mistakes, and my fair share of troubles. I wouldn’t trade them for anything.