Ouch, this is clearly meant to be (at least somewhat) tongue-in-cheek. Calling it "drug abuse" is a little extreme unless you're familiar personally with the author.<p>It doesn't seem like it's affecting his life in an incredibly detrimental way, supposing that at some point when the hoopla of a book release dies down he stops drinking every night (and even then, the quantity consumed is an incredibly important component).<p>It's just jokes.
In junior school I had a friend who was considered a little weird. One day during break I came across him repeatedly hitting his head against a wooden wall. He wasn't doing it especially hard - but I was certain it was hurting him. When I asked him why he was hitting his head against the wall he said, "It feels good when I stop".<p>This author is basically the drug addict version of my junior school friend. They're both idiots - but one was 8 and the other is a respected author.
Kingsley Amis wrote what was probably the best description of a hangover, as recounted by Dick Cavett here...<p><a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/the-wrath-of-grapes/" rel="nofollow">http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/the-wrath-of...</a>
Really, now -- I like getting trashed as much as the next guy, unless the next guy is one of that interesting subset of HN commenters who appear to regard it as "drug abuse", but how completely buried in your own head do you have to spend your sober days for a hangover to seem psychically transformative?
There's been a few times in my life where I reset myself by going on a bender. I've only done it a few times but beforehand I was in a rut - stuck motivationally, mentally exhausted, and after the bender feeling like my mind has been reset.<p>Sure the hangover sucked, but even with the hangover I could feel my brain being back to its normal energetic self including gaining the perspective of an outside observor that he mention in the article, making my problems less important.<p>I think some people do this through meditation, some through legal pharmaceuticals, and some of us by getting completely blotto on alcohol.
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