Word: alcoholism
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...sometimes accompaniedby fantasies of going blind, disturbs the late hours. The resultant anxiety may lead to masturbation, or a sudden motorcycle ride through the night... They go to bed at dawn, wake about three in the afternoon, and then begin a routine of aimless wandering. Sleep, drugs, television, and alcohol provide escape from a monotonous, painful reality...
...autopsy surgeon found evidence of a small amount of alcohol in her blood, but none of any barbiturates. There was no evidence of injury or violence...
Perhaps he had something there. Explains Goodwin: "Writing is a form of exhibitionism; alcohol lowers inhibitions and brings out exhibitionism. Writing requires an interest in people; alcohol increases sociability. Writing involves fantasy; alcohol promotes fantasy. Writing requires self-confidence; alcohol bolsters confidence...
Then, too, alcohol can ease the pain of the writer's lot. To write is to be lonely, Goodwin says, but alcohol assuages loneliness. To write demands intense concentration, but drink relaxes, emancipating the writer from "the tyranny of mind and memory...
...Goodwin, nonetheless, alcohol is not just a harmless stimulus to creativity. He points to the obvious fact that a man may use it self-destructively, as did Fitzgerald. In such cases, as Baudelaire said about Edgar Allan Poe, alcohol becomes a weapon "to kill something inside himself, a worm that would...