Drugs of Choice: Cocaine, alcohol His books have sold more than 350 million copies worldwide and he is the undisputed master of contemporary horror and supernatural fiction, but Stephen King was so far into the depths of a drug and alcohol binge in the 1980s that he can't remember writing many of his works during that period. King is best known for penning Carrie, The Shining, Misery and The Green Mile, just a few of his novels adapted into blockbusting Hollywood movies, and a selection of the books that have amassed him an estimated fortune of £135million. But despite his success, King was plagued by memories of his childhood poverty growing up in Portland, Maine, in the years following World War Two. He used vast amounts of cocaine to escape from his troubles and spur on his writing, saying 'One snort and cocaine owned me body and soul. It was my on-switch, and it seemed like a really good energising drug.' Tabitha King, the writer's wife, became sick of finding her husband collapsed at his desk in a pile of vomit and staged an intervention to encourage him to stop his self-destructive habits. After struggles with relapses and writer's block, King got clean and sober and managed to continue writing bestsellers without the aid of drugs and alcohol.
