In the memoir portion of Stephen King’s On Writing, there’s a great line about…well, let’s just quote the man, shall we?
The idea that creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time.…Substance-abusing writers are just substance abusers—common garden-variety drunks and druggies, in other words.
But then he really gets going:
Hemingway and Fitzgerald didn’t drink because they were creative, alienated, or morally weak. They drank because it’s what alkies are wired up to do. Creative people probably do run a greater risk of alcoholism than those in some other jobs, but so what? We all look pretty much the same when we’re puking in the gutter.
by Susanna