He or she must keep at it day after day alone in a room with a keyboard, writer's block and fears of failure to even get published. Then there is the horror of hostile criticism. Virginia Woolf suffered from depression of psychotic intensity after unfavorable criticism. Although she did not turn to alcohol as self-treatment for depression, many writers do. Journalists are not so apt to write alone, but they face other hazards in the midst of the old newspaper culture, where hard drinking is glamorous and macho.
Journalists are often away from home and family for long periods in strange places.
Hard drinking with colleagues provides some relief from the tedium. Dr. Anita Stevens, a psychiatrist in New York who is the author of Your Mind Can Cure, treats a number of people in the creative professions. Anybody can become addicted, but writing seems to lend itself to addiction. Writers' enthusiasm will carry them away into the bottle. Then instead of getting more ideas from alcohol, they find their ambition dulled.