Alcoholism

I was listening to the radio when Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” started to be played.  I inevitably made the connection with Carver’s stories: the both portray alcohol abuse as a way of evading meaning. In her song, Amy Winehouse denies the possibility of treatment and sees alcohol as the only way of coping with life: alcohol is losing control, is madness but is her refugee and she does not want to abandon it. Therefore, she becomes completely detached from existence. In fact, Amy makes direct reference to death when naming Mr. Hathaway who was a soul singer that killed himself:

“There's nothing you can teach me
That I can't learn from Mr. Hathaway”

Furthermore, it is quite interesting that both artists where immerse in alcoholism when becoming famous, and that somehow alcohol triggered on the one hand her music and on the other hand his writing. Somehow, on their way to avoid meaning, they actually gave meaning to their careers.
Indeed I read an interview a couple of days ago in which he talks about the story that inspired “Why don´t you dance?”:

INTERVIEWER
Could you say something about one of my favorite stories in your most recent collection? Where did the idea for “Why Don't You Dance?” originate?

CARVER
I was visiting some writer friends in Missoula back in the mid-1970s. We were all sitting around drinking and someone told a story about a barmaid named Linda who got drunk with her boyfriend one night and decided to move all of her bedroom furnishings into the backyard. They did it, too, right down to the carpet and the bedroom lamp, the bed, the nightstand, everything. There were about four or five writers in the room, and after the guy finished telling the story, someone said, “Well, who's going to write it?” I don't know who else might have written it, but I wrote it. Not then, but later. About four or five years later, I think. I changed and added things to it, of course. Actually, it was the first story I wrote after I finally stopped drinking.