Life Magazine Presents Famous Literary Drunks & Addicts. Ayn Rand on speed, Burroughs on heroin, Dorothy Parker & Jack Kerouac drinking the drink, Louisa May Alcott on Opium and more! Also – who said, “I’m an alcoholic. I’m a drug addict. I’m homosexual. I’m a genius.” (and no it wasn’t Internicaine KC Danger).
Riese’s Team Pick – Famous Literary Drunks & Addicts
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Riese
Riese is the 41-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.
Riese has written 3239 articles for us.
Ah, I enjoyed this! I didn’t know about some of the addictions.
Hunter S. Thompson: Everything.
Truman Capote? Was that a trick question? Interesting team pick, anyway. So much good stuff was written on drugs/alcohol.
Stephen King looks like such a CREEPER.
A mousey one at that.
Truth.
I knew Ayn Rand very well, visiting her weekly in her apartment in her last couple of years. Ayn Rand did not take “speed,” and the small daily dose of Dexedrine she took, under doctor’s prescription, had no visible effect. Addiction? I remember in 1981 when she was in the hospital for what turned out to be heart trouble, she was still given those daily Dexedrine pills, but she chose not to take them.
Ayn Rand had many unique and colorful attributes, but addiction was not one of them.