The father of our country may have had the disease of alcoholism. No, it isn’t Washington.
Review: “Tom Paine: America’s Godfather”by W. E. Woodward
“If Thomas Paine had drunk even half the liquor that [the experts in the art of slander] said he drank he never could have written anything, but would have died of delirium tremens before he had reached middle age.”(p. 16)
“In describing his alcoholic habits [the maligners of Paine] made his liquor consumption and drunkenness so preposterous that, if it were true, he could never have written anything at all, and certainly not such powerful literary creations as Common Sense, The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason. Nor could he have lived to the ripe age of seventy-two.”(p. 337)
So wrote W.E. Woodward near the beginning and end of his 1945 biography of Thomas Paine. As pointed out on a number of occasions in reports from www.ThorburnAddictionReport.com, as well as in “Drunks, Drugs & Debits,” one cannot make sense of the lives of all-too-many historical figures without comprehending alcoholism. Alcoholism-fueled egomania explains the apparent contradiction between the public achievements and private turmoil of countless famous people. One of these is the giant who may be more responsible for the creation of a free United States of America and our Fourth of July celebration than Thomas Jefferson or any other revolutionary.
“Common Sense” may have sold more copies per capita in a few short years than any publication ever written (an extraordinary 500,000, most of which were sold in the Colonies with a population of 2 million). It not only laid the foundation for the Declaration”some who study styles of writing who have compared the two documents say he wrote that too. Yet, he died maligned and hated. Six people attended his funeral. “Not even one person of distinction took the time to pay his respects, to stand over the grave with uncovered head, or to say a few words at the funeral service,”wrote Woodward.
How could that square with the fact that not one person attending Thomas Jefferson’s dinners and social gatherings in the early 1800s while Paine was his guest at the Executive Mansion “said he was…a drunkard, or that his manners were bad.â€? The likely explanation is that alcoholics often cycle in and out of abstinence. They know when they must be on their best behavior and control their drinking for extended periods. How could a drunk have written so many great books? Like Steinbeck and Hemmingway and so many other great writers*, when he was in his prime he was able to connect with readers on an emotional level better than others. When combined with his intellectual prowess during the Age of Enlightenment, his books had an appeal like few others have ever had.
Woodward argues that Paine couldn’t have been a drunkard since contemporaries failed to mention Paine’s drinking habits, and heavy drinking, if it existed, would have caused all manner of ailments that did not afflict Paine. Many contemporaries may not have witnessed the drinking and he may have inherited a particularly sturdy constitution from his father, who lived to nearly 80. The fact that no one of stature attended his funeral after having been a house guest of the President just a few short years before his death in 1809 speaks volumes. While one could attribute the hatred so many had for him to his publication of The Age of Reason, in which he advocated deism, the timing isn’t quite right”he published it in 1796 and was still obviously best friends with Thomas Jefferson and many others in the early 1800s. The best explanation for the absence of friends at his funeral, the lack of contemporaneous commentary on his drinking and his (for the time) long life is that Paine was a periodic: he went on benders after what may have been long periods of abstinence. During the benders he destroyed relationships, as alcoholics so often do.
His struggle with alcoholism doesn’t mean we shouldn’t celebrate the life of Thomas Paine. He is the first to have proposed the name The United States of America. He published the first article in America on the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of slaves. In fact, if it were it not for his alcoholism we might not be celebrating the Fourth of July. As is true of so many great writers and others, egomania rooted in alcoholism probably explained both his prodigious public achievements, as well as his private failures.
* Examples of other great alcoholic writers are provided in the winter 2008 edition of Wealth Creation Strategies headline piece at www.DougThorburn.com, “How do Alcoholics Get Away with Financially Abusing Others.”These were: Edgar Alan Poe, Stephen King, Ernest Hemmingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, James Thurber, Jack London, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and O. Henry.