Vessels of Rage: Engines of Power (Book Review)

Recently, Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide. His alcoholism and substance habituation were always in the background of his writings but, if mentioned, his personal problems are usually minimized as a sideline issue. In the most laudatory terms his writings are described as an iconoclastic form of outrage journalism where the writer interjects oneself, his persona and his ideas into the journalistic effort. Contemporary journalists often celebrate and honor him by replicating his style. Particularly copied is Thompson’s irreverent, angry rhetoric directed to anyone he disagreed with.

Hunter Thompson’s alcoholism and other issues were not sideline issues. The very nature of his literary style as well as a considerable portion of its content is a function of his problems. As with many alcoholics, Thompson had a domineering, big ego problem quite characteristic of the disease we call alcoholism. This big ego problem is found in other disorders but its presence is so common in many alcoholics it has been studied and described.

One of the best such tabulations can be found in Vessels Of Rage, Engines of Power by James Graham. The author is not a mental health professional but he is an experienced writer and researcher; hence, he has gathered the findings in this matter in a careful and clear fashion.

To begin with Graham points out the extremely high incidence of alcoholism in writers, journalists and movie stars. He then focuses on the personalities of many writers—Ernest Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Eugene O’Neill and others. Essentially, Graham postulates alcoholism results in a form of “egomania” which holds out the possibility of ego-satisfying recognition at an early age. Besides ego satisfaction, writing for a living permits both a chance to attack and to gain power over others.

Graham sees some alcoholics as having such a drive for power such that it becomes the overriding personal issue in their life. Not only is personal power desired but it is used to abuse others. The author then develops a laundry list of “power symptoms” that are characteristic of some alcoholics and, especially, those who choose writing for a living.

The first power symptom is denial. No matter how educated, sophisticated or intelligent the alcoholic writer actually denies the possibility of alcoholism or substance habituation. Sometimes this even takes the form of accurately describing one’s alcoholism but it is also described as a simple bad habit, excess and so forth. Indeed, the behaviors may be lionized or even bragged about. The key here is if the alcoholic admitted a problem, the ego would be seriously deflated. From the alcoholic’s view point, this must never happen regardless of evidence to the contrary.

The second power symptom is lying. Healthy people lie for mundane purposes. Alcoholics lie to maintain and acquire power. Telling lies puts the alcoholic in a position of superiority over others. The alcoholic knows he is lying and thus turns others into fools or dupes. This inflates his ego.

The third power system is overachievement. The destructive power of alcohol is met with a determined effort of early achievement and success. Writers often, contrary to popular opinion, develop alcoholism early and succeed early. They must prove they are better than others and usually they do this by their early twenties.

The third power system is ethical deterioration. Psychiatric residents are often told that the universal solvent for the super-ego (conscience) is alcohol. Truer words cannot be found elsewhere. Not only is marked ethical deterioration manifested by ordinary lying, infidelity and dishonesty, but it is also marked by complex frauds and extraordinary falls from grace and respect.

The fourth power system is craftiness. Alcoholics develop a crafty, cunning nature to enable drinking and project this onto the remainder of their life. Simple, straightforward statements and actions become rare while crafty manipulations designed to enhance their ego become common. The fourth power system is false accusations. Alcoholics elevate themselves by depressing others. The key here is the alcoholic accuses completely innocent people of nefarious actions and motives. In this fashion they destroy the innocent and accentuate their own personal power.

The fifth power system is grandiose behavior. They are always better than others and as such they take extraordinary efforts to prove it by wild expenditures, claims and so forth and so on.

Graham gives many other power system examples including door-matting, serial destruction of a significant other, multiple marriages and relationships, rejection of normal friends, unreasonable resentments over trifles, superficial emotions, Jekyll and Hyde personality transformations, association and identification with social inferiors, rejection of traditional religion and attempts to correct for their addiction by geographic and occupational moves.

The point of all of these “power systems” is to constantly affirm, shore up and expand the unreasonable egocentricism of the alcoholic writer. Then Graham reaches a conclusion that only a few others have made. The essential role of Alcoholics Anonymous is to deflate the egos of alcoholics such that they are amenable to ordinary human emotions and desires as well as spiritual experiences. Giving up the overweening desire for power is, indeed, the first step on the road to recovery.

I have reviewed this book in spite of its being eleven years old (published in 1994) because it makes for easy reading, is well written, meticulously referenced and remains timely as a means of understanding alcoholism.

I especially appreciated his use of “goals” rather than causes in understanding troubled and immature behavior. Alfred Adler’s psychology focused on the goals of the immature and mentally troubled as being a striving for—attention, power, revenge and making someone responsible for you (emotional dependency). As such these pathological goals can be ameliorated or replaced such that attention becomes recognition, power becomes influence, revenge becomes spirited debate and emotional dependency becomes interdependency. At the same time the author pursues these interests he also notes that alcoholism is indeed a biological affliction or disease but that it has to be met with a psychological and spiritual cure.

James Graham has done his job at helping others understand the problem from a different and unique perspective. The book is worth reading and buying.

In reviewing the above I note one problem. I did not and surely the author does not assume writers are all alcoholics. Generally, the point prevalence for alcoholism is 5% and careful reviews of successful authors suggests that at most only 40% are alcoholic.

I also forgot to mention James Graham is a Freeper!

Actually the number of major American authors of the 20th century with heavy drinking problems is pretty astonishing.
It's one of the reasons, I believe, why their writing, although powerful, has major problems. I continue to admire Faulkner, who could only write when he was entirely drunk, but I think there are limitations to his work. Malcolm Lowry's "Under the Volcano" is an important work, basically about drunkenness, but it too has limitations and is the only significant work he wrote.

Scott Fitzgerald and Eugene O'Neill were both major writers, but their work is bleak and mainly about psychological problems and despair.

Ernest Hemingway was no better than a marginal writer, in my opinion: pretentious and repetitious. Drinking destroyed any claims to greatness he might have begun with.

All these people drank like fish and basically killed themselves with alcohol. Most of them got into the state where they could only drunk while loaded. I would guess that, without alcohol, they would have either been better writers or at least led better lives. They were all destructive to everyone around them. And I think it comes through in their art, which is basically immoral, brutal, despairing, and nihilistic, despite their many brilliant qualities.

without alcohol, they would have either been better writers or at least led better lives

Certainly true. There also was a book about Faulkner etc., The Thirsty Muse, which looked at the role of alcohol in destroying the lives of American writers. In many cases, it destroyed their mental and physical health and cut short their careers.

Among women writers of that generation, Edna St Vincent Millay and Dorothy Parker were also destroyed by addictions.

Differ with you on Hemingway's literary worth. His novels might not hold up over time, but his short stories--"My Old Man", "A Clean Well Lighted Place", et al--rank among the best ever written anywhere, by anyone.

I'm a recovering drunk and addict myself, who happens to make a living as a freelance writer and illustrator, and while I can't speak for the literary giants mentioned above, I can speak for myself. Drunken writing is like drunken driving: you think you're Steve McQueen, but you're really all over the road. I would argue that Faulkner and Hemingway and Fitzgerald probably did their best writing between binges rather than during them.

The article is flawed, in my view. Too much speculation, not enough hard, supporting facts or specific examples. If it reads like hazy conjecture, it probably is.

..."And I wonder if these characteristics pre-date the addiction; i.e. grandiose thoughts, irresponsibility, trickiness, power-lust etc.

As a general rule, we have more diagnoses than symptoms or behaviors. Also as a general truism a manifest mental disorder must interfere with work, love (family and personal relationships) or friendship (social living). As an added complication some diagnoses such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder,Paranoid Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality disorder are often more a problem for associates rather than the afflicted one.

Alcohol per se is a dis inhibitor. It actually first functions as a sedative but then results in cortical dis inhibition and a propensity to become angry or rageful.

One can go down Graham's laundry list and find 9 out of 10 of them clearly fit known alcoholic writers. The ego problem is one of excessive ego expansion. If you look at the steps of AA, they try to deflate the ego of the alcoholic in overt and covert ways. This is something no professional therapist can do with any success and is only successful in AA because of its wide appeal including its spiritual overtones that suggest recovery is more than stopping drinking.

Graham's book is clear on all of this, and my short review cannot touch all the bases.

It's a good article that provokes thought.

My invoked thoughts are upon the sin of vanity. We all might be guilty of it. Perhaps we should reflect upon calling our opposites by their name instead of using our ingenuity to make up new words to call them "stupid".

We should attack the weakness of human character and not human characters. What would our God do?

Because of the many irreverent slurs we label freedom's enemy, I sometimes wonder if we're revisiting the days of when conservatives were drunk on vanity and didn't think we could lose to a man named Clinton.

Surprisingly, the Socialist Communist of Democrats may hope that conservatives forget themselves and abuse our competitors as such. From that, they may gain the sympathy that President Bush Jr. had for all of the insults he withstood.

Hmmm... A lot of what he says has been observed thousands or millions of times in AA rooms all across the country.

Musicians are pretty much as self-destructive as writers. We all know about rock musicians. The classical composers and musicians tended to live short eventful lives as well.

Most recovering drunks and addicts I know--those with serious sobriety under their belts--don't spend a lot of time conducting in-depth analyses of the psychology involved, or pondering the causal relationships. It's like the Buddhist story of the man shot with a poisoned arrow. As he was was lying there dying, he was asking questions like "What kind of arrow? What kind of bow?" All of which are somewhat irrelevant under the circumstances. As for me, I don't ask why I am an alcoholic (Genetic predisposition? Bad character?) or even 'Why me?' I just focus on doing the few simple things it takes every 24 hrs. to stay sober.

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