"I don’t drink and have had literally dozens of people suggest that I get shit-face drunk at least once in my life, if only for the experience. The first time you hear this suggestion, you smile. The seventeenth time you hear the suggestion, you roll your eyes. What you do not do is sit down and write a story about how one of your friends is going to wind up a toothless derelict who empties spittoons in the hope of scraping together enough money for a bump of coke. That’s not just silly, it’s silly is a way that reflects way more poorly on the jabber than the jabbed.
The reason this type of story reflects worse on the teller than the told is that it comes from a place of abject terror. In writing this story, Lovecraft may have assumed that he was satirising his friend’s lack of self-control but in order for the satire to stick you kind of have to assume that people who enjoy getting fucked up will inevitably wind up as raving derelicts and if that’s true then what does it say about Lovecraft’s own abstinence? Does he abstain because he doesn’t like the taste and sensation, or does he abstain because he assumes that even a momentary loss of self-control will result in the complete unravelling of his entire identity? That is not a position of strength but of profound fear and weakness. If you are willing to experiment because you know that experimenting will not change who you are then you have significantly more ego-integrity than someone who refuses to experiment out of fear that they will become instantly lost."
— On “Old Bugs” by H.P. Lovecraft 
; Moreau Vazh
; Moreau Vazh