Charles, active Johnson

Charles R. Jackson was born in Summit, New Jersey in 1903. He graduated from Newark High School in 1921. As a young man he worked as an editor for local newspapers and in various bookstores in New Jersey, Chicago and New York prior to falling ill with tuberculosis. Jackson spent the years 1927-1931 in sanatoriums and eventually recovered in Switzerland. His successful battle cost him a lung and served as a catalyst for his alcoholism. He returned to New York at the height of the Great Depression and his difficulty in finding work spurred on his binge drinking. His battle to stop drinking started in late 1936 and was largely won by 1938, the year in which he married. During this time he was a free-lance writer and wrote radio scripts. The 1944 publication of The Lost Weekend catapulted his career toward success. He moved briefly to Hollywood in the Summer of 1944 and shortly thereafter to New Hampshire with his growing family, including his two young girls. He lived on and off at his home in New Hampshire for ten years. At the height of his career, Charles R. Jackson lectured at various colleges. In the mid-1950s he begain struggling with finances and moved with his family to Connecticut. Jackson spoke about alcoholism to large groups, sharing his experience, strength and hope. He was the first speaker in Alcoholics Anonymous to openly address drug dependence (Barbiturates and Paraldehyde) as part of his story. After relapsing into alcoholism Jackson became estranged from his family and rented an apartment in New York City that was shared with his lover in 1965. Jackson suffered from Chronic Lung Disease and committed suicide via an overdose of sleeping pills in his room at the Hotel Chelsea in New York City on September 21, 1968. Whether he was gay or bisexual is unclear; Anthony Slide, a modern scholar, asserts "Charles R. Jackson [was] identified as bisexual late in life." (from wikipedia)