What is Don Birnam's profession in The Lost Weekend?

Don Birnam is a writer in The Lost Weekend.

Played by Ray Milland in Billy Wilder’s 1945 film, Don is an alcoholic New York writer whose planned weekend trip collapses into a prolonged search for liquor. His profession matters to the story: he is not only battling addiction but also frustration, isolation, and the fear that he may never complete the book he keeps discussing. His typewriter and unfinished manuscript become symbols of both ambition and paralysis.

The character comes from Charles R. Jackson’s 1944 novel, which was based partly on Jackson’s own experience of alcoholism. The film follows Don through bars, liquor stores, his apartment, and an alcoholic ward, presenting his drinking as a serious psychological and social crisis rather than comic behavior. Viewers sometimes confuse Don’s profession with reporter because the film’s central character is a struggling urban intellectual, but the story consistently identifies him as a writer.