Sartre and Beauvoir relied on amphetamines that worsened their psychological distress.

Evidence

Beauvoir too was under strain from work, political tension and a personal crisis: she was trying to decide how to manage her long-distance relationship with Nelson Algren, who was not happy coming second to Sartre and wanted her to move to America. She and Sartre both tried to stave off their exhaustion with pills. Sartre became ever more addicted to his favourite drug Corydrane, a combined amphetamine and painkiller. Beauvoir took orthedrine for anxiety attacks, but it only made them worse. By the time she and Sartre set off for a Scandinavian holiday in the summer of 1948, she was suffering hallucinations in which birds swooped down at her and hands pulled her upwards by her hair. The calm of the northern forests helped her more than the pills did. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 795

Categorization

• XREF: Sartre’s Corydrane addiction is well documented elsewhere and partly explains the manic productivity and later paranoid episodes of his middle years.
• ADDENDUM: The contrast between forest calm and pill-induced hallucinations echoes the therapy-vs-medication theme running through my silence and listening work.