My mind immediately went to the Beat generation of writers.. Jack Kerouac was an abuser of alcohol and they all did drugs, so probably alcohol as well. According to my college lit professor, Thoreau (Walden Pond) and his contemporaries were a bunch of free-basing trust fund kids when they wrote their most notable works. That's just what I heard.
Has anyone seen Kill Your Darlings? What were they using?
Yeah, it almost glamorizes substance abuse in a way. But their stories end the way they end. They die.
Far from these habits contributing to their being extraordinary, I think artists are very sensitive and draw on their pain and other lower emotions to create.. so they would think in order to do that they would need a mind altering substance.