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ERNEST HEMINGWAY EXPLAINED: A Guide To Alcoholism & Addiction

Sisyphus 55 | October 2, 2025



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CHAPTERS

0:00 “A Way To End The Day: A Guide To Hemingway and Alcoholism”

2:06 Sponsored Segment

3:23 “The Old Man & The Sea: A Psychological Profile of Hemingway”

7:49 “The Good Medicine: Hemingway & Drinking”

9:37 “The Dangerous Drink: A Guide To Alcoholism”

12:16 “Cueva del Monje: The Tragedy of Addiction”

15:46 Epilogue

SOURCES

https://www.hilarispublisher.com/open-access/the-psychological-problems-and-existentialist-view-of-the-great-twoamericans-ernest-hemingway-and-f-scot-fitzgerald-a-glimpses-2151-6200-1000165.pdf

[How mental health struggles wrote Ernest Hemingway’s final chapter | PBS NewsHour](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/how-mental-health-struggles-wrote-ernest-hemingways-final-chapter)

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1521/psyc.2006.69.4.351

[Ernest Hemingway: Stereotype of an Alcoholic](https://www.willowspringsrecovery.com/substance-abuse/ernest-hemingway-stereotype-alcoholic/)

[What is an alcoholic? How to treat alcoholism](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/157163#_noHeaderPrefixedContent)

Eyes: [Eye color: A potential indicator of alcohol dependence risk in European Americans – Sulovari – 2015 – American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics – Wiley Online Library](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ajmg.b.32316)

[30 Facts About Alcohol, Plus 5 Myths: Statistics and More](https://www.healthline.com/health/facts-about-alcohol#takeaway)

[Philosophy and Addiction – The New York Times](https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/out-of-the-cave-philosophy-and-addiction/)

[How Stoicism Saved My Life: My Story Of Battling Addiction](https://dailystoic.com/stoicism-saved-my-life-my-battle-with-addiction/)

https://philarchive.org/archive/DUPAEP

Courage of Hopelessness-Zizek

Written by Sisyphus 55

Comments

This post currently has 50 comments.

  3. @haonyoass9556

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    Although some Hemingway stories may be untrue, the major ones remain provably true. His life was pretty insane by anyone’s standards. I think you make a good point though about how the cartoonish masculinity of Hemingway is unhelpful to men. I think he’s more a victim to that mindset and in living up to it ruined himself. And of course he could be a complete ass to others as a result of this. Not an excuse, just an explanation.

  4. @Verlauchthedragon

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    fell into path that lead to addiction in 2016. became dependent on it around 2018, was it its worse in 2020, ended up quitting in 2023. no one wakes up one day and declares they wish to be an alcoholic, addiction is not easy to beat and for a lot of us its made harder because we often have to do it alone without people to talk to about it as addiction is seen as a moral illness rather than a physical and mental.

  11. @christopherp.hitchens3902

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    I love how we are all compelled to accept the drunk…because he’s got a “disease” or is himself a “victim”. Never once in all of this psychobabble does the drunk consider that he makes all of us victims of his wretched behavior. Sorry, no pity or enabling from me.

  12. @Drjoshington

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    I feel like most of his insecurities and fears show pretty clearly throughout his writings. They and his alcoholism are the subtext throughout most of his fiction.

    This was a wonderful video. Thanks for taking the time to make and share.

  13. @dontthrow6064

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    12:40 To have your path already chosen for you and then to choose your addiction whose slave to be is in itself a spark of freedom, and after some time you don't even care about this freedom/slave question anymore. The freedom to not care about freedom while you slowly destroy yourself, which also lost most of its relevancy.

  14. @PerryWidhalm

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    Excellent video. It's not so much the alcohol or tobacco, rather it's the addictive personality disconnected from our bio-evolution via the civilized social construct. We did not evolve to live in cities surrounded by strangers, stress and pollution in a non-productive habitat utilizing a market economy based on scarcity and being governed by strangers, psychopaths and pathocrats. All civilized social constructs – past and present – fragment, isolate and alienate their members mostly by creating an absurd hierarchy of wealth, influence, privilege and power. The pyramid of power. Thus, the first thing to understand about ALL mental illness is the dysfunctional and devastating effect of being highly civilized.

  16. @blackbird5634

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    Yep, he got sloppy, and crashed cars, boats, airplanes and shot stuff, he shot things in his house. He shot his own leg while gaffing a shark. He punched women, and mirrors and windows and he punched an antique glass cabinet sending him, yet again to the emergency room.
    He fought bartenders, bar hags, and friends and old drunks. He argued for his own limitations and lost friends and lovers over nonsense.
    He was ''a man's man'' and got fat, and mean, and stayed mostly drunk for the last years of his life.
    Woopie!
    I sure did like his books though.

  17. @Manhattan.Productions

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    If i have nothing to keep my brain from imploding in of itself ,i will explode on to others therefore my suffering is a martyr to their lives whether it is effective or not

    If i cant keep others happy thru my suffering, it will mean i have no value to myself nor to anyone

  21. @ravenRedwake

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    6:49 man, I tried some of my parents’ beer when I was like 3 or 4 and it was just disgusting to me. And I ate (and still eat) vegetables (a lot of kids don’t because the bitter taste apparently).

    I’ve never enjoyed the taste of alcohol and still don’t really.

  22. @eyecaramba1

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    People focus on his drinking way too much. This guy dropped a skylight on his head while working on it, and it put a permanent dent in his forehead that was visible in most photographs, giving him a concussion. Then he got into two plane crashes within two days of each other, one causing a head injury so bad that cerebral fluid was leaking out of one ear, and it crushed a vertebrae, dislocated his arm, and left him with first degree burns over most of his body. He also was diagnosed with hemochromatosis, which gave him diabetes, a heart conditions and high blood pressure. It ran in the family, causing his grandfather, father, brother, sister, and granddaughter to all kill themselves. He was so depressed that he couldn't write anymore and he tried to walk into a spinning plane propeller. So it's a lot more complicated than people try to make it seem.

  25. @ragtagvagabond

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    As a maniac, suicidal, rage filled alcoholic writer myself… I find all attempts to examine Hemingway comical. Asking an alcoholic why he drinks is like asking a normal person why they breathe air. Just can’t stop myself, man!!!

  27. @Misserbi

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    If EH is a fake then what is globalism and philosophy? You literally are asking a great writer to embellish what he already is? He is human. He sins. He was ahead of his time. He influenced the condensation of prose and the micro-evaluation of events. A good fiction writer dies because his ego cannot carry him through disaster. Say he succombed to disaster instead of fooling everyone? Maybe he did fool me but he taught me something I could use too? Maybe that is why? He was a sinner influencer.

  30. @fab0527

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    Another thing to note is that Bipolars also drink because they want to induce mania. When you've felt that euphoric sensation which pulls you out of depression and into a manic state, you seek it out more.

  31. @lauren1779

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    His symptoms point towards borderline personality disporder if he has rapid mood swings as bi polar moods last up to several weeks and go back and fourth whereas rapid quick
    Changing moods in the same day is a personality disorder

  32. @chrisnugent8867

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    We alcoholics drink because we are addicted to alcohol. Once we have taken the first drink we set in motion a chemical reaction that doesn't occur in normal drinkers. After that, we can use any excuse under the sun, but the truth is, we are in a cycle of addiction.

  33. @illeatthat

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    I have figured it out. There is a compulsive need to place others' expectations, needs, and wants above my own. Forward to my own. And alcohol is a learning of mitigation so I can provide my own expectations, needs, and wants before anyone elses, for it is selfish and is an understanding of being in the self, and disregarding others' worth or being, for the sake of just being.
    I truly understand. I feel true. And to want to experience it is a bit worthwhile, but only a little bit. I'm sorry for my words. My expression isn't warranted but has to be said. There is "had" because I am inflicted upon the world. I wish to not speak anymore. Thankyou, and I hope you acknowledge my expression of what I have tried to connote. I am also very sorry.

  41. @kylerjackson7909

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    Hey I’ve watched ur channel and seen you invite people like Richard wolf who oppose capitalism and I want to get ur opinion on something. Do you think the crisis’ going on around the world and the oppressive actions in the US government also contributes to bad mental health? Also your view on how certain therapists tell patients to do more things they enjoy while not having the time or money to do so?

  42. @brianwolle2509

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    nice vid! i have been drinking all evening. sure enhanced my mood. but, and no one ever says this… it definitely opens a window to the other world. you can then see limitless possibilities and the means is also… there. some spirits offer help. they are perhaps just a part of you. after all, we encompass a lot more than we realize. people hate on alcohol but i will never condemn it though it threatened my life a couple times… peace

  45. @Ukepa

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    really good video!!! seems like "Papa" was a lost child looking for his papa. excellent thoughts on addiction, too. can it ever end?

  47. @mikemacpherson9154

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    Alcohol addiction is very very difficult to overcome it effects you mentally physically spiritually and chemically its devastating it’s sad that it’s legal but I think I know why it is it’s just unfortunate 😢

  48. @mikeborgmann

    October 2, 2025 at 12:08 pm

    Ernest was an artist who was wildly famous during his lifetime. I believe this forced him to take refuge into the myth of a man that he and the world invented for him. Once that happens the subject cant escape the self prescribed diagnosis no matter how much he may have enjoyed it when he helped invent it.

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