15% of Caucasians May Have “Churchill Gene”

Ever wonder how some of the great minds could handle so much alcohol? They may have had the “Churchill Gene.” Instead of being a vice, alcohol became the stiumulus for creativity.

Winston Churchill claimed it crucial for The World Crisis, his six-volume memoirs, stating: “always remember that I have taken more out of alcohol than it has taken out of me.” Novelist William Faulkner drank more intermittently, but claimed not to be able to face a blank page without a bottle of Jack Daniels. Beethoven fell under the influence in the later part of his creative life. Among painters, Van Gogh, Jackson Pollock, Francis Bacon and many others liked a drop or two while working.

Mark Twain endorsed this view saying: “My vices protect me but they would assassinate you!”

Yet until recently science has had little to say about alcohol and the creative process, confining itself to studies of damage, tolerance and addiction. Over the last few years, however, evidence has emerged that some have, if not a Churchill gene, then a creative cocktail gene.

See the whole story at the Prospect.