The Chicken or the Egg

Many writers are also alcoholics. This is presumably because they have a lot of idle time on their hands and they succumb to the not entirely untrue belief that alcohol limbers the mind.

I wonder whether Hemingway would have been more prolific had he eschewed the booze. Was his genius fueled by booze? Certainly, many of his stories came from episodes of drinking and we would want for their entertainment had he not been drunk all the time.

The same inquiry can be made into F.Scott Fitzgerald's life and work or, to take from another discipline, that of Mickey Mantle. We could name hundreds of greats who seemingly drank their gifts into the ground. But for every Hemingway there is a Waylon Jennings, a talent who got off of drugs or alcohol and started making art that was inferior to their inebriated work.

Is the genius fueled or inhibited by alcohol?