What Drives Writers to Drink? | Hacker News Reader

What Drives Writers to Drink?

theatlantic.com

15 pointsprismatic29 comments

Not sure where this article was really intending to go... both writers mentioned were living in an era where heavy drinking would have been more the norm in society than today. Would be more interesting to pick a group of modern writers and see if this stereotype persists.

More generally, one could assume several things:

1) The stereotype of the tortured artist who falls back on whatever vice because they are misunderstood or don't fit in socially.

2) The economic challenges of a creative career leading to depression, with alcohol as a soothing balm.

3) The actual stress of the creative process, where the alcohol might act as a kind of catalyst akin to the "Balmer Peak" for programmers.

For me, it's number three, and I can tell you, it takes a lot longer to relax and get into the flow when trying to write now that I'm dry (one year and counting).

That's anecdata, of course.

#1 and #2 are excuses for self-medication. Classical music is more effective and far healthier.

I never found classical music soothing. It was not even meant to be soothing and it requires quite a loud of effort to find what you enjoy.

It isn't about it being soothing. From what I understand it's about classical music engaging your brain in specific ways that counter the depressive spiral. There are studies and data on this. It isn't about liking it, though study helps. (If you understand why Bach is remarkable you have an easier time liking his music. I'll warn you about Mozart, though, his compositions are hypersensitive to correct performance. If the performance isn't nearly perfect, it falls apart... anyway...)

Video games can do this as well, if used properly. Set a goal, meet it, set another goal, meet it. Being active is the opposite of "ennui" or "malaise" (earlier poetic descriptions of depression). Regular doses of goal achievement can also reprogram the brain away from a depressive spiral.

It doesn’t have words. This alone is a tremendous help. Ragas and (some) jazz are in the same category for me by virtue of being sound without words. If it has words in a language I understand it’s too distracting.

Why do drinkers write?

Heh was going to post this but you beat me to it! Maybe we have the cause and effect backwards or maybe there is a third confounding variable.

To pay the bar tab.

When you spend that much time alone with your thoughts you start to see all of the negative parts of your life. Some can’t handle it. Then there’s Hunter S. Thompson’s routine for writing: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/33487/hunter-s-thompsons...

From the AP article referenced in your link:

"Hunter Thompson’s daily routine is...apocryphal."[1]

[1] https://apnews.com/article/e78eb7ca4f76989af19f64732cc81038

Kinda dropped the part where it says: if not apocryphal. Meaning: hard to believe. Not saying they KNOW it’s not true.

Karl Hyde of the band Underworld had a process based around getting drunk in public with a notebook and later revisiting his writing. It was neither romantic nor necessary; he stopped drinking and continued to write just as well.

Sure, becoming dedicated to a craft is an act of (not necessarily negative) self-destruction and often fueled by pressing on our own wounds. But that’s not exclusive to a single pursuit nor a single vice.

Herodotus says of the Persians (http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2707/pg2707.txt)

To wine-drinking they are very much given, and it is not permitted for a man to vomit or to make water in presence of another. Thus do they provide against these things; and they are wont to deliberate when drinking hard about the most important of their affairs, and whatsoever conclusion has pleased them in their deliberation, this on the next day, when they are sober, the master of the house in which they happen to be when they deliberate lays before them for discussion: and if it pleases them when they are sober also, they adopt it, but if it does not please them, they let it go: and that on which they have had the first deliberation when they are sober, they consider again when they are drinking.

So drunk self and sober self form a quorum by referee? That's going to be exploitable and slow.

It makes sense if you think about it. If you feel the same way about a thing when your emotions are at their worst/most uninhibited, at their best/most shrewd, and when they’re most vulnerable/scrutinized, it’s a pretty good sign they’re sincere.

Sure its pretty balanced and conservative but you forfeit any potential for rapid action, privacy and self-determination. I don't think the best writers write by quorum and referee.

The quote referred to this process for “the most important of their affairs”. For writing, surely that would mean sleeping on and vetting big new ideas, rather than the entire process?

Writing, probably...

Editors.

Alcohol and nicotine help with writing and creativity... until they don’t.

The same things that drive them to smoke cannabis, drop acid, snort cocaine, and shoot heroin. Writers are not unique in their use of drugs to deal with life.

I hate this stereotype.

Most of the writers I know are perfectly normal and stable people. Even me. Despite being bipolar, I'm not destroying my life for the sake of the art.

The stereotype doesn't come completely out of nowhere though - Cormac McCarthy: "If there is an occupational hazard to writing, it's drinking."[1]. Of course, he did some of his best work after quitting drinking, so it's definitely not true that you need to be a drinker to be a great writer.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/19/magazine/cormac-mccarthy-...

I write (as a hobby, but I do have a few published short stories). I rarely drink alcohol, and never for the purpose of writing easier.

What does work for me is putting myself in an environment where there's nothing much else to do but write, or conducive to writing, or around others doing the same thing (like for National Novel Writing Month).

Also in my local writing group of 40-ish people I'm not aware of anyone that drinks to write. Even when we have social events with alcohol I haven't noticed anyone drinking a whole lot.

Ugh, does anyone else find writers writing about writers or writing insufferable?

Please don't post unsubstantive comments here. If you find an article insufferable, there are many others to read. If you run out of interesting things on the front page, the 'past' link in the top bar will take you to many that you missed at the time.

Good observation. Writing lore romanticizes dysfunctional writers,fashioning them into martyrs of the craft. But among famous writers, plenty were well adjusted people. A book called "how writers journey to comfort and fluency" is a great treatment of the subject.

The same goes for software development where dysfunctional behavior is romanticized. Or gaming where the more dysfunctional you are the cooler you are.

It is just something about our culture that romanticize dysfunction when from afar.

Insufferable ones really stand out. There's plenty of programmers writing about programmers or programming that are just as insufferable.

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