On Drinking

by Charles Bukowski

  some of them, and I look at them and become conscious of my hands, my

  feet, my back, my neck, and a small turning in the mind: being near

  70 gives a long look back: the cities, the women, the jobs, the good

  times and the bad and it seems very odd to still be alive, puffing on

  a cigarette, then lifting this tall-stemmed wine glass while there is

  a wife downstairs who says she loves me, and there are 5 cats, and now

  my radio is blasting Bach.

  drunkenness can have its advantages: I feel as if I have passed through

  5,000 wars but now there are just these walls holding me together while

  there are 2 Henry Miller paintings downstairs.

  I look back through my life and I do suppose that the most ridiculous

  thing I ever imagined was that I was a tough guy—I never could fight

  worth a fucking lick, I only thought I could and it cost me many times,

  but drunkenness can have its advantages: one A.M., confessionals toward

  the bartering hordes.

  yet

  who cares?

  the final vote is not yet in.

  I am tough.

  tough enough to die well.

  I look at the lights of the city, exhale a puff of blue smoke, lift my

  tall-stemmed wine glass, toast what is left of myself, of what is left

  of the world:

  across continents of pain

  I slice through like the last bluebird

  winging it

  dumbly.

  the gigantic thirst

  been on antibodies for almost 6 months, baby, to cure a case of

  TB, man, leave it to an old guy to catch an old-fashioned

  disease, catch it big as a basketball or like a boa-constrictor

  with a gibbon, I’m put on the antibodies and told not to drink

  or smoke for 6 months, and talk about breaking iron with your

  teeth, I been drinking heavily and steadily with the best of

  them and the worst of them and by myself for over 50 years, yeah.

  and the most difficult part, pard, I know all these people who

  drink and they just go on drinking right in front of me like

  I’m not aching to crack their skulls and roll them on the floor

  or on the ground or just the hell out of my sight—a sight which

  notices very much anything microscopically alcoholic.

  the second hardest part is being at the typewriter without it,

  I mean, that’s been my show, my dance, my entertainment, my

  raison d’être, yep and how, mix booze with typer ribbon and you’ve

  got a parlay where the luck rains night, day and in between, and

  there’s the phrase “cutting it cold” but I don’t think that’s

  strong enough, it should be “chopping it cold” or “burying it

  warm,” anyhow it hasn’t been easy, no no no no no no no no no no,

  and I even had a dream where I was drinking somewhere and later

  got picked up for drunk driving, and when I look at a bottle of

  beer it looks like bottled sunlight, and a bottle of wine, espec-

  ially the dark red, it looks like the life-blood of the world.

  for drunks it is hard to think of a future: the immediate pre-

  sent seems too overwhelming, so I forgive those who fail; these

  almost 6 months have been the longest almost 6 months of my life.

  forgive me for boring you with this . . . but what’s that you’re

  drinking there?

  looks good.

  now, you talk and I’ll

  listen.

  From

  “Charles Bukowski”

  Question: In one of your poems, you said you would drink heavily and then type all night. Your goal was to write ten pages before going to sleep, but you’d often write as many as twenty-three. Can you tell me about this?

  Bukowski: I had just quit the post office and was attempting to be a professional writer at the age of fifty. Maybe I was scared. The chips were on the table. l was writing the novel Post Office and felt that my time was limited. At the post office, my starting time had been 6:18 P.M. So each night I sat down at 6:18 P.M. with my pint of Scotch, some cheap cigars and plenty of beers, radio on, of course. I typed each night away. The novel was finished in nineteen nights. I never remembered going to bed. But each morning, or near noon, I found all these pages spread across the couch. It was the good fight, at last. My whole body, my whole spirit, was wild with the battle.

  Question: For you, is there a difference between writing done while drunk and writing done while sober? Does one state lend itself better to writing?

  Bukowski: I used to always write while drinking and/or drunk. I never thought I could write without the bottle. But the last five or six months I have had an illness that has limited my drinking. So I sat down and wrote without the bottle, and it all came out just the same. So it doesn’t matter. Or maybe I write like I’m drunk when I’m sober.

  Question: Was Whitey a real-life friend of yours?

  Bukowski: “Whitey” was an off and on drinking partner in this hotel on Vermont Avenue. I went there now and then to see a girlfriend and often stayed two or three days and nights. Everybody in the place drank. Mostly cheap wine. There was one gentleman, a “Mr. Adams,” a very tall chap who took a fall down the long stairway two or three nights a week, usually around 1:30 A.M., when he was making a last attempt at a run of the liquor store around the corner. He would go tumbling down this long, long stairway, you could hear the sound of him banging along, and my girlfriend would say, “There goes Mr. Adams.” All of us always waited to see if he would go through the glass doorway, which he sometimes did. I think he got the glass doorway about fifty percent of the time. The manager just had somebody come and replace the doorway the next day, and Mr. Adams went on with his life. He was never injured, not badly. The fall would have killed a sober man. But when you’re drunk, you fall loose and soft like a cat, and there’s no fear inside of you, you’re either a bit bored or a bit laughing inside of yourself. Whitey just let it go one night, blood roaring from the mouth.

  [To Carl Weissner]

  November 8, 1989

  [ . . . ] I fell off the wagon twice. My daughter got married and all those drunks about and all those free drinks about got to me. Free drinks, hell, I paid for the reception. Then about a week ago I gulped down four or five beers. Not bad for a life-long alcoholic. Anyhow, the x-ray of chest came out clean—all white clouds. I’m free of TB and all related things. But will still take antibiotics until and thru Nov. 13, just to nail it down for sure.

  Man, that was some shit. Months of being weak, coughing for 12 hours straight, no sleep, no appetite, almost too weak to walk to bathroom. Nothing to do but lay in that bed. I watched baseball games on TV I had no interest in. One good thing about TB, though, you don’t have any visitors and that’s great. I guess the best moment for me was when I managed to scrawl a couple of poems in a yellow notebook. [ . . . ]

  Yes, I am going to begin drinking again but not as often. I like it, of course, when I’m writing and when there are visitors. People are more interesting to me when I am drinking.

  Martin is bringing out another book in the Spring, Septuagenarian Stew, which is an admixture of poetry and short stories. One of the funny things is that many of the poems John selected were written during my recent illness period. Which shows that I haven’t slipped entirely. Makes one feel fairly good. I am still hooked on the typer, like to slip in the white sheets and bang bang bang bang at the keys. I am sick with writing. It is my drug. It is my woman, my wine, my god. My luck.

  From

  “Q&A”

  Question: Does a relationship exist between the creative personality and the desire to use drugs or alcohol? If so, why?

  Bukowski: Writers are mostly dissatisfied wit
h life as life and with people as people, etc. Writing is an attempt to explain, escape and change the outrageous forces which make us more than unhappy. Drinking is a chemistry which also rearranges our horizons for us. It gives us two ways to live instead of one.

  Question: Do you believe a large percentage of writers are alcoholics, or is that a myth?

  Bukowski: I have known any number of writers and I am the only alcoholic I know. In fact, I am drinking as I answer these questions.

  Question: Do you think some writers believe that while on alcohol or drugs they experience greater insight or a greater ability to see “truths”? Do they delude themselves?

  Bukowski: Drinking oils the machinery but I doubt if it gives us any insights or truths. It just gets us going off our dead asses. It whirls the winds behind the gods. Besides, I drink when I don’t write but, in a sense, I think I am writing then. The mind spreads to gather new surfaces, small imprints.

  Question: Does living in a world dominated by technology require drugs as a door to perceive mythical levels of existence?

  Bukowski: A drunk will use any excuse to drink: bad luck, good luck, boredom or maybe too much technology. Is drinking a disease? Is eating? So many things are needed to get us through. And if they aren’t there, we invent them.

  Question: Would you agree that addicted writers write well in spite of their addiction, as it has been said that Van Gogh was a genius in spite of his illness?

  Bukowski: I think that the “illness” is in not being ill. I think that the most horrible people are the well-balanced, the healthy and the purposeful. Van Gogh is overrated but if he were around now I’d sure as hell hate to see him down working out at the corner gym.

  Question: Can alcohol and drugs be surrogate friends for writers?

  Bukowski: A writer has no friends, only distant allies. And I don’t like to speak of alcohol and drugs in the same way. I fell into drugs for a while. I found that drugs made the mind indifferent to creation. Indifferent to everything. Alcohol made the muse dance; drugs made the muse vanish. For me.

  Question: Have you ever written under the influence of drugs or alcohol? If so, how do specific drugs stimulate or retard your thought and visual processes? How do they affect your writing?

  Bukowski: I drink when I write. It’s good luck, it’s background music. Wine and beer are excellent for long hours of good luck. Whiskey, hard drink, if you drink it the way I do, well, that’s only good for maybe an hour. After that, you imagine you are creating the world’s greatest masterpiece, only to awaken in the morning to pages of wasted dung.

  Question: Is writing while experiencing the effects of drugs important to the creative process for you? Or are the benefits of drug use obtained at a time entirely separate from the act of writing?

  Bukowski: Drinking is just fine, all by itself. In fact, sometimes it’s a real savior, especially when you find yourself trapped with dull, lonely and unoriginal people.

  Question: Truman Capote said that once he began writing, “in fearful earnest, my mind zoomed all night every night, and I don’t think I really slept for several years. Not until I discovered that whisky could relax me.” Have you used drugs or alcohol to escape the grip of obsessive writing, or to relax from the effects of creation?

  Bukowski: When I read Capote I need a drink to get that thin crap out of my mind.

  Question: If you do drink or use other drugs, is it at least partly to rid yourself of inhibitions and self-consciousness? Does it help to overcome the fear of exposing yourself? Do you think that there is a point of diminishing returns?

  Bukowski: Only a jealous non-drinker would ask a question like that.

  Question: Do you think drugs or alcohol can erode the creative process in the long run? Under what conditions can this be avoided, if it can be at all?

  Bukowski: Drugs, especially, can erode the creative process. On drink, any gamble entails a possible loss but it’s better to roll the dice than to sleep with the nuns. At the age of seventy, for the sake of my wife and my six cats and my daughter, I attempt not to drink every night. Still, my own death, I am ready for. It’s only the other deaths that bother me.

  Question: If you previously used drugs or alcohol and now abstain, how has that affected your writing?

  Bukowski: That I wouldn’t know.

  hangovers

  I’ve probably had about more of them

  than any person alive

  and they haven’t killed me

  yet

  but some of those mornings felt

  awfully near

  death.

  as you know, the worst drinking is done

  on an empty stomach, while smoking

  heavily and downing many different

  types of

  libations.

  and the worst hangovers are when you

  awaken in your car or in a strange room

  or in an alley or in jail.

  the worst hangovers are when you

  awaken to realize that you have done

  something absolutely vile, ignorant and

  possibly dangerous the night before

  but

  you can’t quite remember what it

  was.

  and you awaken in various states of

  disorder—parts of your body

  damaged, your money missing

  and/or possibly and often your

  car, if you had one.

  you might place a telephone call to

  a lady, if you were with one, most

  often to have her slam the phone

  down on you.

  or, if she is next to you then,

  to feel her bristling and outrageous

  anger.

  drunks are never forgiven.

  but drunks will forgive themselves

  because they need to drink

  again.

  it takes an ungodly durability to

  be a drinking person for many

  decades.

  your drinking companions are

  killed by it.

  you yourself are in and out of

  hospitals

  where the warning often is:

  “One more drink will kill

  you.”

  but

  you beat that

  by taking more than one more

  drink.

  and as you near three quarters of

  a century in age

  you find that it takes more and more

  booze to get you

  drunk.

  and the hangovers are worse,

  the recovery stage is

  longer.

  and the most remarkably stupid

  thing is

  that you are not unpleased that

  you have done it

  all

  and that you are still

  doing it.

  I am typing this now

  under the yoke of one of my

  worst hangovers

  while downstairs now

  sit various and sundry

  bottles of

  alcohol.

  it’s all been so beastly

  lovely,

  this mad river,

  this gouging

  plundering

  madness

  that I would wish upon

  nobody

  but myself,

  amen.

  the replacements

  Jack London drinking his life away while

  writing of strange and heroic men.

  Eugene O’Neill drinking himself oblivious

  while writing his dark and poetic

  works.

  now our moderns

  lecture at universities

  in tie and suit,

  the little boys soberly studious,

  the little girls with glazed eyes

  looking

  upward,

  the lawns so green, the books so dull,

  the life so dying of

  thir
st.

  From

  “Interview with Charles Bukowski”

  Question: You seem to have a fascination with sex and alcoholism, what is this fascination?

  Bukowski: Sex? Well I was drawn to it because I missed so much of it from basically the age of 13 to 34. I just didn’t want to pay the price, do the tricks, work at it. Then I don’t know, about at the age of 35 I decided I’d better get with it, and I do suppose that playing catch-up, I overdid it. I found it to be the easiest thing in the world. I found dozens of lonely women out there. I banged and slammed like a madman. I’d be one place or another. My car parked here or there. Dinners. Bedrooms. Bathrooms. One place in the morning, another place at night. Now and then I got caught. I’d meet one or another who’d make me feel real bad, they’d reel me in and hook me, work me over. Sharks. But as time went on, even I learned how to handle the sharks. And after a while, fucking and sucking and playing games lost its reality. I screwed so much that the skin of my dick was rubbing raw. Dry pussy? Sure, but mostly I knew the tricks, what to do, how to do, and then it got old and senseless. Sex is too often just proving something to yourself. After you prove it awhile there’s no need to prove it any longer. But in a sense, I was lucky: I got all my fucking workouts before the advent of AIDS.

  Alcohol is another matter. I’ve always needed it. It needs me. I’ve had any number of beers and a bottle of wine tonight within a couple of hours. Great. The singing of the blood. I don’t think I could have endured any of the shitty jobs I had in so many cities in this country without knowing I could come back to my room and drink it off and smooth it out, let the walls slant in, the face of the subnormal foreman vanish, always knowing that they were buying my time, my body, me, for a few pennies while they prospered. Then too, I could have never lived with some of those women unless they were transferred by drink into half-dreams which wavered before me. Under drink, their legs always looked better, their conversations more than the lisping of idiots, their betrayals not a self-affront. Drugs I had no luck with. They took away my guts, my laughter. They dulled my mind. They limped my dick. They took everything from me. The writing. The small, tiny flick of hope. Booze rose me up to the sky, slammed me the next morning, but I could climb out of it, get going again. Drugs sacked me. Threw me on the mattress. A bug thing. If there is an out for the disposed, it’s alcohol. Most can’t handle it. But for me, it’s one of the secrets of existence. You asked.