There's a lot to digest here. I read King's On Writing not long after I got sober more than 17 years ago. It was eye-opening. I believe there is a connection between mental illness, substance abuse (which is, depending on the expert du jour, either a mental illness in its own right or a symptom of it - cause, effect or both) and all art and artists. Highly creative people seem cursed to view the world in different ways, we think about shit way too much, and we have some kind of drive to express it. And maybe that's where the problem is - in expressing it. Of course I can't speak for anyone else, but no matter how good my writing is, no matter how well I convey what I mean, now matter how well spun my prose are - I never quite get what is inside my head (and my heart) out. Up until I got sober (and clean, because drugs do the same thing alcohol does), I used chemicals to reconcile that divide. It worked, for a long time. But the cure almost killed me.