fa m o u s_l i t e r a ry_D ru n k s_&_A dd i c t s

Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867): Booze, Opium
"Always be drunk ... Get drunk militantly. Just get drunk."

Photo: Time Life Pictures./Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1900














Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849): Alcohol, Opiates
In this photo: Edgar Allan Poe
Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1849
















William S. Burroughs (1914 - 1997): Heroin
“Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, a means to increased enjoyment of life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life.” Burroughs stopped doing smack in the 1970s, after decades of near-constant use.
In this photo: William Burroughs, William S Burroughs
Photo: Evening Standard/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1965






Brendan Behan (1923 - 1964): Alcohol
The larger-than-life Irish dramatist, poet, and novelist once said, "I only take a drink on two occasions: when I'm thirsty and when I'm not."
In this photo: Brendan Behan
Photo: Daniel Farson/Getty Images
Aug 01, 1952













Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967): Alcohol
"One more drink and I'll be under the host." Pictured: Parker working at her typewriter while husband Alan Campbell reads the newspaper at their Bucks County, Penn., farmhouse.
In this photo: Alan Campbell, Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Parker
Photo: Pix Inc./Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1937











Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951): Alcohol
The Nobel Prize-winning author of more than a few American classics -- Main Street, Babbit, Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry, and more -- Lewis was a titanic and tragic drunk. "Through a miracle of physical stamina," wrote his fellow novelist Upton Sinclair, "[Sinclair] made it to the age of 66. More tragic than any shortage of years was the loss of productivity, the absence of joy."
In this photo: Sinclair Lewis
Photo: AFP/AFP/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1950









Hunter S. Thompson (1937 - 2005): Everything
"I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs, or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me."
In this photo: Hunter S. Thompson
Photo: Neale Haynes/Getty Images
Apr 14, 1996








Anne Sexton (1928 - 1974): Alcohol, Drugs
Winner of the 1967 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, Sexton was a popular and respected "confessional" poet (and former model) who battled depression and substance abuse for much of her life. She committed suicide at age 45 by carbon monoxide poisoning, locking herself in the garage with her car running.
Photo: AP Photo / Bill Chaplis
Oca 19, 2010










Dylan Thomas (1914 - 1953): Alcohol
"Do not go gentle into that good night, / Old age should burn and rave at close of day; / Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Oca 01, 1950














Louisa May Alcott (1832 - 1888): Opium
The author of Little Women began using morphine to ease the after-effects of typhoid fever contracted during service as a nurse during the Civil War.
Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1868














John Cheever (1912 - 1982): Alcohol, Various Drugs
The marvelous short story writer and novelist (Falconer, et al.) famously quit booze after a 28-day stint in rehab, and his life afterwards was immeasurably better than when he was drinking. "It wasn't just that he didn't drink anymore," his daughter Susan poignantly wrote in Home Before Dark. "It was like having my old father back, a man whose humor and tenderness I dimly remembered from my childhood. He was alert and friendly. He was interested in what we were doing and how we felt. In three years, he went from being an alcoholic with a drug problem who smoked two packs of Marlboros a day to being a man so abstemious that his principal drugs were the sugar in his desserts and the caffeine in the tea that he drank instead of whiskey."
In this photo: John Cheever
Photo: Paul Hosefros/Getty Images
Oct 06, 1979


Jean Cocteau (1889 - 1963): Opium
"To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving." The great French poet, novelist, dramatist, playwright, and filmmaker kicked his opium addiction in 1929.
In this photo: Jean Cocteau
Photo: Evening Standard/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1960











William Faulkner (1897 - 1962): Alcohol
In this photo: William Faulkner
Photo: Alfred Eriss/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1943
















Charles Bukowski (1920 - 1994): Alcohol
"Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now."
In this photo: Charles Bukowski
Photo: Joan Gannij/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1976









Ayn Rand (1905 - 1982): Amphetamines
In this photo: Ayn Rand
Photo: Alfred Eisenstaedt/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Mar 01, 1958
















Stephen King (1947 - present): Booze, Cocaine, Prescription Meds
In his 2000 memoir, On Writing, King revealed that he'd been so shattered by his alcohol and drug abuse in the 1980s that, even today, he cannot remember working on many of the books he wrote back then. There were times when he'd been doing so much blow that he wrote with cotton wads stuffed in his nostrils, to prevent blood dripping on his typewriter.
In this photo: Stephen King
Photo: Ted Thai/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Oca 01, 1986











Jack Kerouac (1922 - 1969): Alcohol
In this photo: Jack Kerouac
Photo: John Cohen/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1959










Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 - 1861): Opium
The poet (looking eerily like Patti Smith) with her son in Rome.
In this photo: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1860













Raymond Chandler (1888 - 1959): Booze
The novelist (center) and creator of the iconic private dick, Philip Marlowe, relaxes, sort of, at a party in London. "Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl's clothes off.”
In this photo: Raymond Chandler, Anthony Blond
Photo: Evening Standard/Getty Images
Jun 24, 1958











F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940): Alcohol
"First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you."
In this photo: F Scott Fitzgerald
Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1925













Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961): Booze
Notorious for making fun of his fellow writers who sought relief from their own alcoholism (when Fitzgerald admitted that alcohol had bested him, Hemingway urged him to toss his "balls into the sea -- if you have any balls left"), Papa himself was an increasingly messy drunk. George Plimpton once famously observed that by the end, Hemingway's ruined liver protruded from his belly "like a long fat leech."
Photo: Apic/Getty Images
janv. 01, 1950










John Berryman (1914 - 1972): Alcohol, Various Drugs
The great American poet John Berryman (center, with beard) chats with fellow drinkers at a bar. Are there literary drunkards and addicts we missed? Send us an email at whatdidwemiss@life.com and let us know.
In this photo: John Berryman
Photo: Terrence Spencer/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
янв. 01, 1967