Women Of Substance

To do this Sally has chosen five iconic artists: Frida Kahlo, Billie Holliday, Anna Kavan, Andrea Dunbar and Nan Goldin. All five are celebrated for their daring, all were artistically progressive and they all remain highly relevant today. Whilst elements of their art reflect traumatic events in their lives, showing that addiction does not happen in a vacuum, their work is so much more than their addictions - startling, beautiful, innovative and enduring - evoking powerful emotions as well as critical acclaim. These artworks - books, music, plays and photographs resonated with Sally and allowed her to better understand her own struggle, eliciting empathy and facilitating healing.

In the first in the series, Sally looks at Frida Kahlo's life and work. Scientists talk about biological, psychological and social causes of addiction and Frida painted all three. A collision between a bus and a tram when she was 18 caused horrific life-changing injuries and Frida spent long periods of time in hospital. Aged 22 she married the famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera who was 20 years her senior. Their relationship was fraught and Frida famously remarked “There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the tram and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst. ? Her injuries, her miscarriages and the betrayal of Diego's affair with her sister, Frida painted all these. She also wrote openly about the prescription drugs she took to control the pain.

Sally looks at her diaries and says that as an addiction researcher she is surprised Frida's drug and alcohol use have not been more widely analysed but then with such a remarkable talent, her addictions quite rightly should be secondary to her art.

Billie Holiday sang about alcohol and broken hearts and went to prison for drug use.

Addictions researcher Professor Sally Marlow asks what five women artists can tell us about addiction through their art, starting with how Frida Kahlo medicated her pain.

What does the art of Frida Kahlo reveal about her addictions?

Billie Holiday sang about alcohol and broken hearts, but she also fought racism most famously through the song Strange Fruit written by Abel Meerpol about the lynchings of J Thomas Ship and Abraham S Smith. Billie first performed Strange Fruit in 1939. It became her signature last song. She would sing in darkness with a spotlight on her face and there would be no encore. It was shortly after she sang Strange Fruit for the first time that The Federal Bureau of Narcotics led by Harry Anslinger began to pursue her. When she was arrested for possession of heroin in 1947 she pleaded guilty and asked to be sent to hospital so she could be cured. Instead she was sent to jail.

And this is something societies still wrestle with. Many people with addiction problems are still likely to be punished rather than supported to quit and stay clean. Professor Sally Marlow is a specialist in mental health and addiction. She analyses the lyrics of Billie Holiday's songs for what they tell us about alcohol use in women. Without treatment Billie Holiday's addiction escalated and in 1959 she collapsed dying in hospital from cirrhosis of the liver. She had offers of detox and rehab but was not allowed to take them up. Her death symbolises the conflict between addiction as a health issue and a criminal one.

Billie Holiday sang about alcohol and broken hearts, fought racism and heroin use. But why did the state criminalise her instead of rehabilitating her for her drug use?

Anna Kavan had a traumatic childhood, abusive relationships, spent time in psychiatric institutions and used heroin for decades. She also wrote experimental fiction and painted furiously. She was a writer's writer, fans included Anais Nin, J.G.Ballard. Sally wants to know who Anna was and why did she use heroin? Anna is unusual, women who use heroin are rare, about one woman for every 10 men.

Clues exist in Julia and the Bazooka published after Anna's death, the title story tells of Julia who has a kind doctor who sanctions her drug use. In real life Anna was legally prescribed heroin by her psychiatrist Dr Carl Theodor Bluth. Between 1926 and 1968 the Departmental Committee on Morphine and Heroin Addiction recommended that medical professionals in the UK could prescribe heroin or morphine to those addicted to it if it would enable the patients to lead useful lives, and created a Home Office register. Anna was one of the comparatively few people on it. Heroin was considered a medical problem not a criminal problem and as a registered heroin user Anna was spared some of the dangers linked to criminal distribution.

Her relationship to Dr Bluth was platonic but extraordinarily close, and she was distraught when he died. She painted him in a painting now held at the Museum of the Mind which Sally visits. But even with Dr Bluth's prescriptions she died younger than she should have done of heart failure and suffered enormous painful abscesses on her legs, the result of infected injection sites.

As Sally tries to piece together her life she is left with an overwhelming sense of fragments, and the dream-like quality of Anna's writing adds to the difficulty of getting beyond glimpses of reality. But also despite her addiction Anna produced phenomenal literature.

Legally prescribed heroin by a psychiatrist, Anna Kavan's writing reveals her addiction.

Experimental novelist Anna Kavan, described as Kafka's sister, lived a very private life and only after her death at 68 were her decades of heroin addiction revealed.

Unlike Sally, Andrea returned to Bradford after the play's run, living on Buttershaw Estate with her daughter before moving to a battered wives home in Keighley. There, she completed her play started at 15, written in dialect, expressing a commitment to authenticity.

Sally is intrigued by Andrea's life and class differences. Both Andrea and Sally battled addiction in the 1980s, but while Sally quit drinking around the time Andrea passed away, the impact of women's drinking persists. Alcohol remains a significant cause of mortality among women in their 50s, particularly among white women in deprived communities.

In a recording at the Royal Court Theatre, Sally explores Andrea's scripts to comprehend her alcohol use, which subtly permeates her plays without direct commentary. Andrea authored two more plays, one of which, 'Rita Sue and Bob Too,' was adapted into a film that underwent significant alterations against her original intentions. Andrea's life beyond writing became increasingly challenging; she had more children and struggled to continue writing. Tragically, she died of a brain hemorrhage at 29, and her eldest daughter also battled addiction after her mother's passing. Andrea Dunbar, like other artists in this series, remains enigmatic, her life marked by struggle despite her evident talent showcased in her brilliant yet darkly comic plays. Her poverty not only curtailed her writing prematurely but exacerbated her drinking and possibly contributed to her early death.

At 18 Andrea Dunbar was the youngest playwright ever at the Royal Court Theatre, London.

Andrea Dunbar wrote plays about life on Bradford's Buttershaw Estate, The Arbor was staged when she was just 18. But a bright legacy was blighted by cross-generational addiction.

Photographer Nan Goldin used the power of her fame, her art and personal experience to campaign against prescription opioids.

In the 1980s she sought help for her addictions; she went to rehab and got clean. In 2014 following wrist surgery she was prescribed the pain killer Oxycontin and says 'I took it as directed and became addicted overnight'.

When she became sober again in 2017 she said she decided to make the personal political. Using tactics learnt in part from the Aids activist group Act Up she turned her anger into protest. The Sackler family, some of whom owned Purdue Pharma, the manufacturers of Oxycontin, sponsored many arts institutions. Nan Goldin created activist performance pieces at these sponsored art galleries, campaigning to have their names removed. The campaign led to many institutions either removing the Sackler name from the galleries they sponsored or refusing donations.

Presenter Sally Marlow is a specialist in mental health and addiction and says it is uplifting to end her series on women artists and addiction with Nan Goldin who leveraged her name, art and connections to bring changes and to also lobby for support, services and treatment for people addicted to opioids.

Nan Goldin beat heroin and Oxycontin. Her biggest fight was against the drug manufacturers