There are probably many reasons why writers tend to drink. Here are some possibilities: both encourage subversiveness; both are an alternative from dealing with the world on its own terms; both let you temporarily trust your voice with less judgment. They also grant some sense of control over the world or an ego boost--making your perspective seem correct and central.

In his recent The New York Times article, Geoff Nicholson argues that the rules for drinking and writing are similar. Some of the maxims for writing, which Nicholson details as "write what you know. Write every day. Never use a strange, fancy word when a simple one will do[, and] always finish the day's writing when you could still do more," tend to work for drinking too. Just swap in one concept for the other: "Drink what you know, drink regularly rather than in binges, avoid needlessly exotic booze, and leave the table while you can still stand." Those parallels probably work so well because writing and drinking are similar activities insofar as they encourage a creative flight for the ego but lose structure when the ego goes too far.

Nicholson pushes his parallel in a cleaner way when he plays with quotations--exchanging the verb "drink" for "write" in some famous great quotations about writing. (He includes F. Scott Fitzgerald's "An author ought to write for the youth of his generation" and Richard Ford's "Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer's a good idea.") Here again, the parallels seem to work because writing and drinking share some of the same promises (like a chance to create a new reality) and a lot of the same risks (like solitude). I'm excited by this play with quotations to test out the rationale behind and limits of a parallel. So I'm going to pile up some more quotations on writing, below. Try exchanging the verb "drink" for "write" in any of these, and tell me if this parallel resonates for you, and why.