A review of Rolling Stone Magazine’s piece on David Foster Wallace–polydrug addict
Rolling Stone, which is mostly a pseudo-liberal mouthpiece (spoken by a practically life-long libertarian with no affinity for either so-called liberals or conservatives or their political parties), occasionally has an article that makes a subscription worthwhile for the addiction-aware. Its recent expose of Senator John McCain’s troubled past shed light on behavioral indications of alcoholism that couldn’t be found elsewhere in concise format (even if we still can’t be sure whether the behaviors are best explained by his own alcoholism or psychological, emotional and intellectual abandonment by his alcoholic father). Along similar lines, I’d read a number of obituaries on writer David Foster Wallace mentioning his struggle with depression, but never alluding to what turns out to have been long-standing addictive use of psychotropic drugs.
Wallace, author of “Infinite Jest,” other books and numerous magazine articles, committed suicide September 12. I didn’t write a timely obituary because I found nothing suggesting that drugs played a role and everything pointing to his well-publicized depression. However, the October 30 issue of Rolling Stone all but removes any doubt that Wallace was a psychotropic drug addict and, therefore, that his suicide might have been drug related.
He was, in my mind, “under watch,”where we place those with behavioral indications to which 80% odds of addiction can be ascribed, but in whom we lack definitive proof of addictive use. Misbehaviors relating to a cover story he wrote for The Atlantic about his two months of “shadowing”radio talk show host John Ziegler suggested alcoholism. First, the piece ran almost a year after his last contact with Ziegler, which made much of what was referenced quite dated. Addicts often are notoriously late in much of what they do. Second, according to Ziegler, numerous details in the story were either misleading or flat-out wrong, including several about the subject of the article in the first paragraph. Third, the article reads like a jigsaw, woefully disorganized. While in many cases this is deemed “stylistic,”bear in mind that writers”especially those who are adulated and rewarded with prizes, including five of eight American writers from the 20th century who won the Nobel Prize in writing”often are alcoholics. Such disorganization is frequently a clue to a mind that has been messed up by long-standing addiction. In addition, his refusal to come on the air with Ziegler after the article ran, considering Ziegler gave him access to two months of his time, is highly suggestive of a form of alcoholic betrayal.
Wallace’s behaviors changed markedly about the time he “started to smoke a lot of pot,” at age 15 or 16. David Lipsky in his Rolling Stone article mentions several bizarre episodes, including a desire to paint his bedroom black and a refusal to attend his sister’s birthday party after asking his parents, “Why would I want to celebrate her birthday?” Bizarre behaviors such as these, even in adolescence, are often explained by alcohol and other-drug addiction.
Wallace may have been misdiagnosed early on as clinically depressed. Alternatively, an accurate secondary diagnosis of depression was made while a primary diagnosis of alcoholism could have been missed. Alcoholics are frequently misdiagnosed with personality disorders. As evidence in “Drunks, Drugs & Debits: How to Recognize Addicts and Avoid Financial Abuse” shows, about 80% of those identified as having such disorders cannot so diagnosed after a few years of sobriety. Other times, alcoholism triggers a disorder, as it seems to have done in the case of Patti Duke, who was fed Bloody Marys by her obviously alcoholic business managers at age 13 or 14. She experienced her first bipolar episode at age 19. She admits later in her autobiography that she was stinking drunk for weeks at a time in her 20s.
Recovering alcoholics tell us they stopped growing emotionally the day they triggered alcoholism, usually about age 14. One of the great behavioral clues to addiction is, therefore, stunted emotional growth. Wallace’s editor, Gerry Howard, witnessed “David’s emotional life [lagging] far behind his mental life.” You just don’t say that about someone unless it’s a serious problem, and it’s usually not such a problem absent psychotropic drug addiction.
Wallace’s studies at Harvard were described as a “substance marathon: drinking, parties, drugs.” His friend, Mark Costello, watched him “hanging out with women who were pretty heavily into drugs” while he drank himself “blotto.” Such descriptions provide practically irrefutable evidence of addiction.
Lipsky claims that Wallace “wouldn’t drink for the rest of his life” after being prescribed Nardil for his depression, apparently sometime around 1989. However, even if true, he didn’t stop his other drug use. In the summer of 1993 he was on the “precipice of rehab” due to what Lipsky implies were numerous “stoner afternoons.”
The article continues to describe erratic behaviors typical of alcohol and other-drug addicts, including engagements, disengagements and announcements of impending marriage”which never occurred”in the late 1990s. His marriage to Karen Green seems to have put him on good behavior for most of the last six years of his life. B.D. Hyman describes such a period in the life of her mother, actress Bette Davis, in her biography “My Mother’s Keeper,” during which time life was so boring there was nothing to report except for the fact she was very involved in a romance. When courting, addicts can be incredibly well-controlled in their use and even, for a time, behaviors. Until they’re in recovery, they find other outlets for alcoholism-induced egomania, even if it’s only occasional. If Wallace never went through a 12-step or similar program”which appears to be the case”he may have become abstinent without deflating his inordinately large sense of self-importance. In that case, he might have continued to take opportunities to inflate his bruised ego whenever he felt it safe to do so, as he appears to have done with John Ziegler at his expense.
Towards the end, Wallace dropped 70 pounds, grew his hair long again and was described as having a “terrified, terribly sad” look in his eyes. He may have been messed up by tapering off the anti-depressants, but he may also have been hiding a re-ignited drug use. Rolling Stone is to be commended for publishing the truth about David Foster Wallace, even if the author seems to have failed to recognize the significance of Wallace’s continuing drug use after 1989.