Stephen King and Alcoholism
Disclaimer: Always keep in mind that we are not professionals in any specific category that we cover. We are avid researchers and speak our opinions based on the data we gather. Please do not take the information we give you as solid evidential truth. With that being said, we encourage you to read studies and collect information as well to come up with your own hypothesis.
Alcoholism is a troubling addiction. Some people can recover and move on with their lives, while others are stuck with dangerous patterns until they die. Successful alcoholics, such as Stephen King, were able to pull themselves out of that mindset and turn their lives around after hitting rock bottom, which he goes thoroughly through during a Guardian interview. He was very open about his alcoholism and cocaine use, even admitting that he does not remember writing Cujo due to his cocaine binging at the time.
Something that strikes me as fascinating is that the very thing that was captivating Stephen was the catalyst that led him to become one of the greatest writers of all time. It was the cornerstone of his career. Him, and so many other people in the world such as leaders, writers, artists, etc., are all alcoholics too and are much more similar in their chemical make-up then you may be aware of.
Landmark Study on Alcoholism
In 2018, a new breakthrough came about during an Atlantic study on alcoholism. They used rats, but shifted their approaches to filter out the rats that contained addictive mindsets. You see, traditional methods never worked well because the researchers did not give rats a choice but to drink booze. In this study, the researchers gave the rats a choice, booze or sugar water.
The one who chose booze over the sugar water were the ones who were then brought to the next stage. This is where scientists opened them up and looked inside their brains to see if they could find a common theme, and they did. What they found were the rats who showed alcoholic behavior had a much smaller amygdala, the part of the brain that regulates emotion and stress, than normal rats. This equates to those rats not being able to regulate their emotions because their GAC13 was not pumping back into their GABA correctly, resulting it to accumulate around other molecules, causing them to worry and stress. Because of this, they turned to alcohol to try and help them cope with their need for regulation.
Though this is incredible to find out, what makes this even more eye-opening is that out of all the rats that were used, 15% of them had smaller amygdala and chose booze over the sugar water. From a human standpoint, that is the same percentage of alcoholics we have as well. Could this be an evolutionary trait, where this behavior is fostered on purpose for 15% of the population? In our opinion, maybe worried people are part of the human race, and all mammals, for that matter, have this feature to bring awareness and focus to the world. After all, Stephen King and others like Hemingway used their addiction to hyper-focus on their creations, which could be the reason why they are such great, articulate people.
Myth: Life Events Can Cause Alcoholism
How often do you hear someone saying, "this is the reason why I drink" or "my job drove me to drink"? Students in college are even said to grow alcoholic habits because of the partying going on. However, based on the research and rat study, this is not the case. Sure, life as a college student, parent, leader, or writer can cause stress, but it does not cause your amygdala to shrink. You already have that in you if you are part of the 15% noted earlier. So, life circumstances that promote drinking can cause you to formulate the adverse patterns and water that unhealthy addiction that you already had the seed for.
College drinking, or parenthood, teachers, etc. all joke about drinking and being driven to drink. Not to say booze helps to cope, but what you do with repeated drinking is revealing if you are part of that 15%. These areas do not create it; it sets the pattern if you are a part of the population of people who have an alcoholic fostering brain.
Turning Off the Switch
First and foremost, everyone is different, and things like AA meetings and 12-step programs do work well for some. But statistically speaking, the positive recovery outcomes from programs such as these are only around 5-10%. For the rest, even taking medication such as Antabuse does not stop them from drinking, even though doing so results in awful effects. Circling back to the rat study, after adding an electric shock to the booze to try to deter the rats from drinking the alcohol, they still did it anyway.
Now, what if in a few years we can turn the cravings for booze off completely? What if we can find a solution that works better than just 5-10% of the time? Though everyone is unique and reacts to treatments in different ways, there is a promising antidote that could be the key to curing those with the irregular amygdala.
A man named Olivier Ameisen, a French-American cardiologist, was also a known alcoholic. He actually quit his job for some time to journey on the road to recovery. After attending 700 meets a year over the course of 7 years, he was still suffering. Current medications on the market did not help the cravings (they also tend to contain addictive properties), so he decided to take high doses of an anti-anxiety medication called Baclofen. And it worked. It worked so well that it cured Oliver's addiction.
The problem with this right now is that Oliver is the only success story so far. But this is attributed to the fact that Oliver took a much higher daily dose than the studies used. The lower dose cases could be the reason why no one has been able to replicate his success yet. But it could be the new future if Olivier's results were not a fluke.
Final Thoughts
Alcoholism is something very serious and is not a flaw in your character. You may be part of the population that has the breeding ground brain for addiction, and that is not your fault. Though people like Stephen King made great success from his alcoholism, he still knew when to get help. He made it out thriving, and so can you. No amount of success, money, or popularity is worth your health.
Always remember that everyone is different, and it can take some time to find the right treatment plan for you. If you are just starting your recovery journey, please go to AA meetings and participate in a 12-step program to get on the right track. If it does not work, don't quit trying to quit. Seek out a professional who can support and guide you to getting the individualized care you need to take your life back. Doctors and therapists can help you chart your cravings, habits, mechanisms, and assist you in navigating through your unique brand of addition in a realistic and meaningful way.
Written by Todd Lemense presented by Joe Anthony