The common thread between writers, actors and con artists: an ability to connect, often rooted in alcoholism
Alcohol and the Writer
Why are a disproportionate number of writers, actors and con artists alcoholics?
Donald W. Goodwin, M.D. wondered why so many writers, way out of proportion to the overall population, have been alcoholics. In his little 1988 book, Alcohol and the Writer, Goodwin presents brief biographies of seven great alcoholic writers. Piecing their stories together (and, along the way, providing peripheral looks at numerous others), Goodwin concludes that alcohol can provide inspiration and facilitate creative thinking conducive to great writing. He also figures that since writers are “loners” and alcoholics are individualists, alcohol and writing inexorably go hand in hand. He posits that both can produce trancelike states, alcohol promotes fantastic thinking required for creative writing, and alcohol helps to create multiple personalities, which can advance writing from the standpoint of getting into the minds of various characters.
However, Goodwin believes that circumstances determine alcoholism, which results in confusing cause and effect. He gets closest to solving the riddle in citing F. Scott Fitzgerald’s comment to a friend, “Drink heightens feeling.” I explain how this is so in the article reprinted below, from my client newsletter Wealth Creation Strategies, where you may find a number of timely articles, including a series on the late great real estate bubble). I expand the scope of the question and ask why so many writers, musicians and con artists are alcoholics. This more general question allows us to arrive at a more fundamental reason for the seemingly inexplicable enigma. I hope you find the article provocative and stimulating.
How do Alcoholics Get Away with Financially Abusing Others?
A dozen years ago I stumbled upon the idea that alcohol and other-drug addicts (“alcoholics” or “addicts”) not only commit the vast majority of physical and psychological abuse, but also most financial atrocities. My first article on the subject (February-March 1996 edition of the precursor to this newsletter, Tax & Financial Trendletter), titled “The Sobering of America: Alcoholism, Other Addiction and Financial Disaster,” was seminal in helping clients forge the link between addicts in their lives and financial abuse. It also set me on a path that led to the publication of four books, numerous articles and, since August 2004, a web-based monthly newsletter, the Thorburn Addiction Report (www.AddictionReport.com).
I have answered the question “why” addicts abuse others throughout these works. They abuse because alcoholism causes egomania, which compels the addict to wield power. While this almost always takes form in psychological, verbal or emotional abuse, physical violence and financial abuse are also common threads to addiction-fueled egomania. Perversely, power can also be exerted through overachievement–after all, what better way to control family, friends, fans, constituents, customers and patients than through extraordinary competence and success. Those who doubt this might consider, as just one example of many, baseball, in which arguably the three greatest players ever–Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle–were all full-blown alcoholics during their entire careers.
The “why?” gives clues that can help us identify alcoholics, most of whom are otherwise well hidden. Because they can be potentially lethal to your physical, emotional and financial well-being, outing hidden addicts before becoming personally, professionally or financially entangled can be a supremely useful survival tool. While keeping in mind that 10% of us are practicing alcoholics, consider how many people you know that can be positively identified as such. Unless you were raised in a family filled with addicts, you may think you know at most several–and yet, if you are familiar with five hundred people, the odds are you know fifty. Who the heck are they?
One of my main contributions came about from asking a simple question: if addiction causes misbehaviors, how often were the behaviors clues to underlying alcoholism? When able to dig deep enough I found it about 80% of the time, vastly greater than the statistical odds of 10%. Even relatively innocuous instances of verbal abuse often turned out to be subtle indicators of alcoholism. I concluded that if abusive behaviors are evident, rather than figuring someone is just “having a bad day” or suffers from a Personality Disorder, we should first look for alcoholism.
But none of this explains “how.” Just how does the alcoholic get away with abusing others–often repeatedly, frequently for years? Part of the answer can be found in the fact that if a parent was an alcoholic, we experienced abuse (even if only psychological or intellectual abandonment), which either we feel comfortable with or “learned” that’s just how people are. And since the addict can be nothing if not charming and exciting in their reckless ways (who wouldn’t fall in love with an Elvis or a Marilyn?), we put up with the behaviors, taking the good with the bad.
This doesn’t account for the fact that we find ourselves abused by people we hardly know. Many find themselves abused by leaders, professionals (20% or so of doctors and lawyers are addicts) and con artists. How are addicts so convincing–to the point at which their lies are more believable than your truths? How could something recovering addicts admit to be all-too-true: when using, they can sell ice to Eskimos?
An additional piece of the puzzle lies in the addict’s need to win regardless of cost. After all, wielding power requires control over others. There is no more efficient way by which to control than to win and be better than everyone else. This may be the best theory accounting for the fact that 30% of Academy Award winning actors have been alcohol or other-drug addicts and a stunning five out of eight Nobel Prize winning authors from the United States during the 20th century were alcoholics. But it’s not the only reason; as so often proves true in alcoholism, the paths of explanations and observations intertwine in convoluted ways. In this case, it provides a more direct clue as to “how” they get away with abuse.
Consider the fact that almost every musician, ever, who has created revolutionary change in music, has been an alcoholic. We owe the music of Beethoven, Mozart, Elvis, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, three of four Beatles, Curt Cobain and James Brown to alcoholism. Part of this can be explained by the willingness on the part of those with an inflated sense of self, usually alcoholics, to take the inordinate risks required to create revolutionary change. However, all-too-many actors and writers have been addicts, working in fields that are perhaps not as amenable to radical change as music. This is not to say that greatness is impossible without addiction, the evidence for which can be found from Bach to Meryl Streep and Judi Dench. But addiction increases the odds of success in fields that reward excessive risk-taking and require one to connect on an emotional level with the audience.
And this provides the vital clue. Addicts suffer damage to the frontal lobes of the brain, the seat of reason and logic. The lower brain centers, responsible for survival, instinctual actions and reactions, emotions and herding, are undamaged. We might hypothesize that this allows the primitive brain to override the restraints of the logical brain, allowing alcoholics to better connect with others at an emotional level. This should be helpful to a con-man when attempting to tap the primal instincts, including greed, and bilk the mark.
Reflect on the emotions that great writers cause their readers to feel. Edgar Alan Poe, Stephen King, Ernest Hemmingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, James Thurber, Jack London, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and O. Henry–all alcoholics–can bring out extremes of fear, hatred, sorrow, passion and love you barely knew existed. Reflect on some of the greatest actors ever–Joan Crawford, Dorothy Dandridge, Robert Downey, Jr., Frances Farmer, Jamie Foxx, Judy Garland, Samuel L. Jackson, Vivien Leigh, David Niven, Jason Robards, George C. Scott, Peter O’Toole and Elizabeth Taylor, again, all alcoholics–with whom we can experience a deep emotional bond.
And so it is with the con artist tenant, contractor, debtor or financial salesman. I’ve deducted thousands of dollars of repairs to property vandalized by tenants who rented even from recovering addicts with the promise they’d be the best tenant ever. I’ve witnessed clients suffer tens of thousands of dollars of unexpected costs resulting from contractors who promised the world and left a concrete slab–with cracks. Debtors to bad debt deductions have mostly been addicts. And the financial con-man, while difficult to prove is an addict (and none of these are addicts every time), with enough information has proven more often than not to be one.
One of the premiere financial cons of all time was perpetrated by Charles Ponzi in 1920. He promised returns of 20% within months–and paid such returns by paying off early investors with funds provided by later investors. When his scheme collapsed, he was jailed for a time and then sent back to Italy, where he reportedly turned into an obvious drunk. But early in his drinking career, he connected. He made promises, and people believed him. It’s not because they were stupid; rather, it was because Ponzi connected his lower brain center, the limbic system, to theirs. He knew what others wanted to hear on an emotional level and satiated their psychological needs–survival and belonging, creating a herding effect that proved difficult to resist. (Politicians do this every day.)
Financial thuggery is perpetrated by people who are good at making sure your thinking is disconnected from economic or other reality. They get you to buy and do things you would never ordinarily consider. Since alcoholics have a far better ability to connect at the emotional level than others, addicts and con-artists are often one and the same.