Stephen King weighed in on the Brett Kavanaugh sexual misconduct allegations, speculating that the Supreme Court nominee’s emotional performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday reminded him of someone recovering from alcoholism.
“Brett Kavanaugh’s angry performance corresponds closely to what people in AA call a ‘dry drunk,’” said King, who has struggled with addiction.
Brett Kavanaugh's angry performance corresponds closely to what people in AA call a "dry drunk."
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) September 30, 2018
According to the American Addiction Center, a dry drunk is someone in the early stages of emerging from alcoholism, who has stopped drinking but has yet to remediate the underlying issues.
“Someone struggling with dry drunk syndrome may still maintain strained relationships with their loved ones. They may still suffer from unhealthy habits, both internally and externally,” they Center writes. “In short, while they may have quit drinking, the individual has yet to deal with the emotional baggage that led them to alcohol in the first place.”
Some of the symptoms of dry drunks includes “resentment,” “anger” and “romanticizing their drinking days.”
Kavanaugh unleashed a tirade to the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, both proclaiming his innocence to sexual assault allegations and accusing Democrat senators of orchestrating a plot to destroy his career as revenge for his work investigating Bill Clinton in the 1990s.
King is no stranger to drug and alcohol addiction, and suffered with extreme substance abuse early in his carer.
“He spent most of the Eighties on an extended drug and alcohol binge which so fogged his mind that even today he cannot remember working on many of the books he wrote during that period,” according to a 2009 Daily Mail piece adapted from a biography of King by Lisa Rogak.
It went on to say, “His dependency had reached such a pitiful stage five years later that he had resorted to buying antiseptic mouthwash for its alcohol content.”