And all his best books are from that time period.
Stephen King even half-jokingly admits all the cocaine use at the time could have been a contributing factor.
The fact that Stephen King was using so much cocaine and Xanax while writing Cujo that he actually FORGOT writing it...that boggles my mind.
It makes sense though - the cocaine would have allowed him to write for hours and hours on end [not really any more than drinking one coffee after another...but with more euphoria, for those who like cocaine], and the Xanax would have allowed him to take more cocaine while simultaneously making him forget what he was writing.
King looks frail these days while doing presentations and other things, so being high for literally the 1980's - a full decade - did catch up to him. He was also hit by a minivan in 1999, and was in severe pain which almost cost him his leg being amputated [IIRC]. But he opted against that and spent months in recovery instead.
That made me wonder...how can a former drug addict go through something that painful and not relapse on drugs? Because anyone struck by a minivan - at age 52, no less - would almost definitely be given opioid painkillers as part of the recovery process. Perhaps Stephen King's drugs of choice were cocaine, alcohol, Xanax, on top of smoking cigarettes, and maybe painkillers were never his thing. If so, that would have allowed him to use the pain meds as needed without relapsing on his 1980's drugs of choice. Or perhaps, to cope with the pain he did start using cocaine and Xanax again. If he did...I'd be surprised if he stopped since - and maybe that explains why he looks so frail today.
I'm not judging - I'm just trying to think of what a 52-year-old sustaining serious injuries being struck by a minivan would do to manage the pain, which was no doubt quite extreme. In fact, King apparently couldn't even sit for long periods of time after the incident:
https://web.archive.org/web/20050307182428/http://www.liljas-library.com/accident.html^ I like these Ironage websites - some of which have been archived, and others are still out there on the web. It's like reading the news through a time machine.
Some more articles on King's accident and recovery:
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1124785https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_King#Car_accident_and_aftermathInteresting videos...I had no idea that Stephen King basically spent the 1980's high as a kite. It makes me wonder - can you get to the world level at ANYTHING without using drugs? Be it steroids, recreational drugs, or any others?:
