Stephen King Alcoholism Analysis

Throughout the years, and throughout various forms of media, some of the greatest creative minds have been the victims of the most unfortunate circumstances. For many, their major problem is that of addiction, and one could say that it affects their work, for better or worse. For example, a writer’s prose usually is affected at least partly by the author’s inner dialogue, and thus, the author’s problems get mixed in with their writings. Therefore, the author’s addictions become a part of the work itself.

It is a fact of life that Alcoholism will distort the victim’s view of reality. With authors, they put parts of their personality and symptoms of their condition into their characters sometimes, flawed distortions included, with varying degrees

Even though this counter-argument is technically true, there are a few fallacies to the argument. According to the journalist David Leafe from Dailymail.co.uk, “...it took many false starts and broken promises for him to go clean and, when he finally did, his greatest fear came true: he could no longer write.” This proves that, for the longest time, King had relied on the drugs to fuel his writings. In Andy Greene’s interview with King for the Rolling Stones, when asked about writing on coke, King himself said, “Oh, yeah, I had to. I mean, coke was different from booze. Booze, I could wait, and I didn't drink or anything. But I used coke all the time.” This just solidifies that he had to write on cocaine, since he confirmed that notion himself. Along with this, his writing style completely changed once he got over his writer’s block. He stopped writing horror novels, and started writing books such as “The Green Mile”, which had more of an uplifting tone. King’s writings were fueled by a combination of his many fears, his drug addiction, and his past traumatic experiences, and all of his experience and talent seemed to melt away for the longest time once his addiction was