Gary Gygax, Lake Geneva, and Inebriants

 Why?

I've sat on this article for months, and I've asked several gamer friends—including 2 who were close to Gary—what they thought. The strong consensus was that the truth should come out. But I wanted a more concrete reason to share this information about a cherished figure and friend, and I was given one: I stopped reading the message boards around 2002. But apparently, there is much speculation about Gary's drug use, which includes claims that he was dysfunctional on them.

Gary and Cocaine

So I will specify that during his post-divorce, second childhood taking place between Lake Geneva and the L.A. production of the D&D cartoon, between roughly 1982 and 1983 (the only years I know of personally), Gary used cocaine regularly, but in enough moderation that I never saw it as an impediment to his level of functioning or health.

Fritz Lieber

The first time I ever heard of Gary using a drug was when a mutual friend told me Gary had smoked opium with Fritz Lieber, so I asked him one night at Jane's, and he chuckled, "Oh, yes, indeed," and then we must have been interrupted, or my attention skipped off elsewhere. It would be wonderful to have the details of that experience now, but at the time I never thought to press him further. So now it's like one of those stories you wish you had elicited from your forebears while they were still alive—like, "What was my very good-looking single grandfather Nelson doing between 18 and 35 besides barbershop quartet?"

Lake Geneva, for Context, Not Excuses

Lake Geneva is Chicagoland's vacation destination, and the lake is lined with the mansions of Chicago tycoons with names like Wrigley (gum), Parker (pens), and Schwinn (bikes). I lived in town within blocks of the man who came up with the original recipe for the Three Musketeers bar; the guy who invented the curly extension cord adapted to nearly every landline in the nation; the inventor and millionaire Ron Bender, who began the 70s customized van craze; my best friend's father, David Meier, who hit millions after establishing the Accelerated Training movement; and, a few blocks further, Gary Gygax, the inventor of D&D. Hell, even Al Capone had once had a mansion on the Lake.

As a massively rich resort town, cocaine coursed through our downtown streets like its lifeblood. At one point, both our mayor and chief of police were "previous" operatives of the town's primary source! To give you an idea of how hard it was to bust a townie, a couple of us grabbed a couple of beers from our car's cooler in the trunk down by the busy lakefront. About five cars down the street, a couple of Chicagolanders did the same thing after seeing us. The cop car drove past us and busted Chicago.

Jane's Bar

My favorite bar was Jane's, a biker stop since at least the 60s. The bar itself was exceedingly long, transplanted from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. It was also Gygax and Kuntz's favorite place to drink. We had intellectuals, hippies, bikers, town drunks, game designers, cocaine dealers, and town artists, including Tom Wham and Dave Trampier, also of TSR association. The bar was filled with eccentrics. We also had Skip Williams, co-author of D&D's 3rd edition, who would sometimes come in after work for just a beer or two, and that seemed to be his limit.

As an undiagnosed bipolar person, and being intellectually curious, I've self-medicated quite a bit over the years. So I tried cocaine, and being so close to the source, it was quite pure, AKA strong; but my brain is neurodivergent, so it's par for the course for me to have an unusual reaction to a drug or pharmaceutical. I wasn't impressed with cocaine. I don't think coke had the same effect on me as it did on others, so I frequently had to turn it down, which was OK because I was a townie, and anytime it made an out-of-towner nervous, there was always someone around who'd instantly vouch for me. So some of us in this environment set our limits.

Simply put: Gary couldn't have bonded so tightly with other Jane's Bar regulars had he been a sloppy drunk or unable to handle the cocaine he used. And some of those regulars partied with Gary out in Hollywood. We would have quickly heard if he lost himself.