Treatment

Question:  I am a student majoring in American literature. During my research I have found that many of the great writers suffered from alcoholism. Why?

Answer:  Donald W. Goodwin, MD, professor of psychiatry, noted in an article he wrote for the American Journal of Psychotherapy (Vol. XLVI, No. 3, July 1992) that there was a “veritable epidemic of alcoholism among American writers” in the first half of the 20^th century. He said that over 70 percent of the American writers who have won the Nobel Prize in Literature were alcoholics, including Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O’Neill, William Faulkner and John Steinbeck.

 Upton Sinclair’s “15 Leading Heavy Drinkers of the 20^th Century” (The Book of Lists, Wallechinsky, Wallace, et.al, Wm Morrow and Co., Inc. New York, 1977) includes Edna St. Vincent Millay, poet; Ambrose Bierce, journalist; Maxwell Bodenheim, writer; and Sherwood Anderson, writer.

 “The Peoples Almanac” (Doubleday and Company, Inc., New York, 1975; Wallechinsky and Wallace) lists even more literary greats who were alcoholics, including Edgar Allen Poe, Jack London, O.Henry and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

 Why this seeming preference of the disease for these kinds of gifted people is an ongoing study. However, besides alcoholism, these famous writers also had high prevalence for affective conditions (depression) and were loners.

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