The Affects of Alcoholism in the Life of Charlie Wales.

The Affects of Alcoholism in the Life of Charlie Wales

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism "About 18 million Americans have alcohol problems. Alcohol and drug abuse costs the American economy an estimated $276 billion per year in

lost productivity, health care expenditures, crime, motor vehicle crashes and other conditions. An estimated 6.6 million children under the age of 18 years live in

households with at least one alcoholic parent."

F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited" depicts the affects of alcoholism in the life of Charlie Wales. Because Charlie Wales was an alcoholic, he lost three

important things in his life. Alcoholism caused Charlie to lose most of his money, and it caused him to temporarily lose his sanity, and finally, it caused him to lose

his daughter Honoria.

Charlie's addiction to alcohol caused him to lose most of his money that he had made through the stock market.

Charlie Annonsbild

A study of F. Scott Fitzgerald by Gordon Bryant. P...

F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1937, June 4

Charlie proclaimed, "You know I never did drink heavily until I gave up business and came over here with nothing to do. Then Helen and I began to run around with----" (Fitzgerald 369). He was going to mention the names of friends with whom they used to go out and drink with. It is a well known fact that drinking can severely impair one's judgment. It was because Charlie was so drunk all of the time that he wasted so much money. He spent a lot of money on alcohol. He spent a great deal of money on luxury and he spent it exorbitantly at parties and other social events. "All the catering to vice and waste was on an utterly childish scale, and he suddenly realized the

meaning of the word 'dissipate'--to dissipate into thin air; to make nothing out of something" (Fitzgerald 365). He gave thousand-franc...