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. It's the lulls between writing that are dangerous, Stevens said.
Writers try to fill the gap with alcohol.
It begins as a pastime and then becomes alcoholism. Steven Levy, a New York psychologist who has worked with several writers, says that different kinds of writers react differently to alcohol. Authors do the cocktail party thing, but of course it's their personal life histories that determine how they'll handle it. To Goodwin, drinking is often an integral part of a writer's life. He points out that writers make their own hours, so it is easier for them to drink.