Mrs. Winik and Her Vicious Circle
by Marion Winik
It is not uncommon for alcoholics to display an avid curiosity about the
drinking habits of their friends. Hemingway exhibited a fascination for
Fitzgerald’s drinking and the effect it had on his work. When Fitzgerald died,
Hemingway switched his attention to the alcoholic behavior of Faulkner.
Fitzgerald’s target of inquiry in this area was Ring Lardner… Hemingway’s
intense interest in the subject and his understanding of the situation display
a combination of shrewdness accompanied by a behavior common among alcoholics.
They often imagine a hierarchy in which one drinker fixates on another who
appears to be in far worse shape. `You see how badly so-and-so’s writing is
going? Thank God I don’t have that problem!'”
— Tom Dardis, The Thirsty Muse
My ongoing dis-
cussion with myself about whether my drinking is getting a little out of hand
took a new turn the day I read a surprising passage in the sports column of a
certain local weekly paper. Apropos of not much, the columnist reported that he
had run into me in a bar over Christmas, slurring luridly and trying to peddle
my own mother’s body. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he went on to describe my
mascara as “blotched on my drooping eyelids.” BLOTCHED ON MY DROOPING EYELIDS?
The only salve for my humiliation was knowing that the guy who writes this
column is himself a self-confessed drunkard who, possibly due to his drinking,
occasionally forgets that his column is supposed to be about sports.
While I didn’t feel I had, in 12-step parlance, “hit bottom” per se, I did
feel a tad concerned. Was it, perhaps, time to do something about my drinking?
To answer this question, I had to determine how severe my problem was, and to
do so, I decided to resort to the time-honored approach of comparing my habits
to those of other writers. I started by picking up a book, The Thirsty
Muse, by Tom Dardis, a depressing tome which details the alcoholism of
Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and O’Neill. I kept meaning to underline the
parts where they go into the hospital or get third-degree burns or completely
alienate all their family and friends, but instead I marked passages like this
one, which describes an afternoon’s drinking in Venice by Hemingway’s
semi-autobiographical character Cantwell in The Sun Also Rises:
“Cantwell begins with a gin and Campari before moving on to the bar at the
Gritti Palace Hotel, where he drinks three very dry double martinis. When he
leaves the bar for his room, his waiter gratuitously serves him another gin and
Campari…. It’s then time to meet Renata at Harry’s New York Bar, where he
lowers three Montgomerys, explaining to her that they are extra-dry martinis
made with a ratio of fifteen parts gin to one of vermouth. Now the couple
return to the Gritti Palace to order their dinner and the wines to drink with
it. They begin with a bottle of Capri Bianco, proceed to two bottles of
Valpolicella, followed by a bottle of champagne, Roederer brut ’42. They like
the Roederer enough to order another bottle but have to settle for
Perrier-Jouet, which brings their meal to a close. When they leave the hotel
for their lovemaking, they take along another bottle of the Valpolicella. At
the end of the evening, the Colonel has a nightcap from still another bottle of
Valpolicella, which the waiter has thoughtfully left in his room.”
While I may be the sportswriter’s Fitzgerald, I comfort myself with the
thought that I’m the picture of sobriety compared to my heroine Dorothy Parker.
If you’ve seen Mrs. Parker and Her Vicious Circle, the bio-pic starring
Jennifer Jason Leigh, you know that the Algonquin group could really toss ’em
back. What a bunch of boozers. Thank God I don’t have that problem!
Unfortunately, I can’t write like that either, or continue to be so amusing
when completely blotto, or look at least a little bit like Jennifer Jason
Leigh.
You might think that this film, which follows Parker’s survival of her
numerous suicide attempts, horrible depression, and severe alcoholism only to
wind up 80 years old, pitied by strangers, and drinking alone at 10 in the
morning, or this book, in which everyone drinks themselves talentless or dead
by the age of 40, would make me rush to the liquor cabinet and pour every
bottle down the sink. But no. I left the Parker movie and headed straight for
the nearest martini. I call this the Sid and Nancy effect, after the
movie about the horrifically decadent bass player of the Sex Pistols. I sat
there watching junkies ruin their lives for close to two hours and only wanted
to stick a needle in my arm worse than ever. I must be a very bad girl.
I then turned my attention to my contemporaries, who, in contrast to the
writers of yesteryear, seem to have their drinking more or less under control.
I conclude this because when I call them up to find out what happened last
night, as I am forced to do from time to time, they usually know. Perhaps, I
thought, I can learn from their positive example how to drink with panache.
What to drink, where to drink it, perhaps a little friendly advice.
My first call was to Sarah Bird. I’m doing this little survey about writers
and drinking, I told her.
What do you want to know? she said.
What’s your winter drink? I asked.
Ovaltine, she said.
Summer drink?
Cold Ovaltine.
I cut the interview short, immeasurably dispirited, and decided not even to
call Elizabeth Crook. I began to realize that most of the people I’ve known who
were equal or worse off than I in the addictive personality department are
either in recovery or dead now. Perhaps the advice I need to heed is that given
by my friend Dana Ellinger to aspiring juvenile delinquents: If you must sell
pot, don’t carry it while driving. If you must carry it while driving, make
sure you also have your license, registration, and insurance card. If, god
forbid, you are driving around holding it without any legal documents
whatsoever, remember at all costs to observe the speed limit.
Writers who drink to excess could perhaps follow a vaguely similar set of
guidelines. If you must drink all night, drink slowly. If you can’t drink
slowly, drink glamorously. Should you fail in both of these and find yourself
in the morning with blotched mascara and a terrible hangover, get in the
bathroom, wash your face, then write the smartest, funniest, most interesting
thing you can, if only to correct the bad impression you’ve made on the world. n
Marion Winik lives with two gorgeous young boys from Bryker Woods
Elementary. She is a commentator on All Things Considered, author of First
Comes Love and Telling, and a surprisingly decent person. She is working on a
new book.
This article appears in October 25 • 1996 and October 25 • 1996 (Cover).