During this period, he lived mainly at the 'commune' at Powell Lake, located 18 kilometers by boat from the nearest road or electricity. On February 14, 1971, he was diagnosed with severe schizophrenia and committed to Hollywood Psychiatric Hospital in Vancouver. Standard psychotherapy did not help him, and most of his doctors said his case was hopeless. Then Vonnegut went to the Brain Bio Center. "They fixed me up with embarrassingly inexpensive, simple, nonprescription pills," he later said. "Vitamins mostly."[3]

Vonnegut first attributed his recovery to orthomolecular megavitamin therapy and then wrote The Eden Express. He subsequently studied medicine at Harvard Medical School and later came to the conclusion that he had been manic-depressive for hereditary reasons.[4] He is a pediatrician in Milton, MA.