Though the stories and characters have become the focal point for analysis as Mad Men has evolved, early in its existence there was a great deal of discussion regarding the amount of smoking and drinking the characters do. (See this New York Times article from 2007 for one example).
How accurate is this presentation? Is that what the advertising world was like in the 1960s? What about other businesses?
Essentially: is the portrayal of business professional smoking and drinking in excess while at work presented in Mad Men accurate?
Answer
Via Jerry Della Femina, the veteran ad exec widely regarded as one of Madison Avenue's biggest personalities, most creative thinkers and an over-the-top publicity-seeker:
Q: Did ad agency executives really drink that often — and that much — in the 1960s?
A: If anything, it's underplayed. There was a tremendous amount of drinking. Three-martini lunches were the norm.
Q: But the show makes it look like everyone kept a bottle or two in their desk drawer. And it wasn't Geritol.
A: Bottles in desk drawers were not the exception but the rule. I had an open bar at the agency in which I kept 10 to 15 bottles of booze. Anyone at the agency could walk in and get it. Invariably, one or two guys would come in at 9 a.m., pour a shot and slug it down. It was a business of drinking. The way we lived really would make the characters in Mad Men all look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. We drank and screwed around.
Q: Did agency executives really smoke that much?
A: I smoked three to four packs a day. Everybody smoked at all times in all meetings. Once, when I was sitting in a meeting for the Contac account, I had a (lit) cigarette in my hand and another in the ashtray. When I put down the cigarette to do a chalk talk, I tried to light the piece of chalk.
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