Substance abuse and writing

I don't Smoke weed. I'm kinda a square.

I like whiskey, and depending on my mood I rock with whiskey in hand.

I just hope it doesn't get out of hand.
 
Carl Sagan (of all people) wrote a very interesting pamphlet on his experience with marijuana (long story short, he was cautiously enthusiastic about the stuff). His suggestion was that the ideas and insights achieved while under the influence can be significant, but that they take some parsing when one's sober because after all, one is operating in an altered intellectual state.

For my part, weed has on occasion (I believe) promoted making connections and insights into characters' inner monologues, and some 'hey this is cool' plot and action ideas too (about 25% still seem cool enough to use the next morning, of which about 10% make it to late-stage drafts). I think of it as a sort of knocks stuff loose thing; my thinking becomes more lateral and my range of free association becomes wider. But it's an absolute handicap if I'm doing any kind of precision design or technical work, or photo-editing, or anything like that. I'll perfectly execute several complex exacting series of irreversible tasks, then realize that (a) although perfectly executed, they were the wrong tasks and (b) for some reason I've been forgetful and failed to save as I went along over the last six hours.
 
Batutta said:
Yeah, but he couldn't do sh*t until they were rebuilt. I'm not being moralistic. I just seriously don't understand how anyone can think impairing the function of the organ you are using to work is a good thing. Sounds like a myth that needs busting. There's an old boxing myth that you shouldn't have sex during the build up to a fight, but I saw this Sports Science show on discovery where they proved boxers actually functioned BETTER after having sex, as it released more testosterone into their bloodstream. But still people believe it.
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For those writers throughout history who have performed quite nicely under the influence, I don't think there's a rational motive for or against it. I don't think over-using drugs makes them better writers, but I certainly think that the demon driving them to over-use drugs is the same demon that drives them to be great in their work. So the two often go hand in hand.

I don't drink when I write, mostly because I wind up writing crap. I think that's how I knew I wasn't a genius. I can, however, code quite well with a few in me.

To the OP though: Clearly, your drinking is bad for you, because you are posting on DVXUser when you should probably be writing.
 
I think that a number of famously drug-hungry authors - William S Burroughs, anyway - actually performed the writing, organizational and editing tasks that in the technical sense made the work while sober (or at perigee to it, anyway).

But when not working...intoxi-cated. Which I think sounds like it's less about one's work and more about one's life.
 
My writing style isn't facebook friends with Mary Jane...
But the tales of Absinthe couldn't be more write
(the real stuff, mind you - not those fugazi bottles I've been seeing over the last couple a' three years...)
 
I would say that the professional writer shouldn't go into it asking "should I drink when I write"? 'Coz, well, "substance abuse" on the job, ANY job, isn't very professional.
 
I admit I can't remotely fathom the notion that drinking improves anyone's performance at anything. Someone I know drinks too much sometimes and when they do they go from witty and brilliant through subtly off to slow and stupid in half an hour's time. Without knowing it. And sometimes without remembering it.

I see nothing wrong with a drink or two, (unless you are exquisitely sensitive to alcohol, which happens, or you cannot stop once you start) but to imagine it improves your work? Count me deeply skeptical.
 
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I think it goes without saying, don't abuse the substance! :) I like to have a beer, glass of wine or a glass of absinthe before some creative sessions. It relaxes me a bit when changing modes from VERY different tasks.
 
When I want to be at the top of my game, I think nothing beats getting a good night's rest beforehand and then having some green tea or coffee. I don't add anything to them either, just green tea leaves right into hot water, and black coffee. Most of the time weekends are when I get my best work done, after I have gotten up and had a few cups of some caffeine.

Alcohol is a downer, it slows your system down as well as your reaction time. I've never found it helpful for getting into a creative mode, but good beer or wine are nice after the day's work is done.

Weed is probably a terrible idea. Everyone I've known who has used it had zero motivation to do much of anything :| Can't comment on it myself though as I've never used it nor do I want to.
 
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was written by Stevenson while experimenting with cocaine, take a moment and try to calculate how many bums in seats, how many films, television shows, plays were spawned by that drug fueled tale. Hemingway didn't drink much, William .S Burroughs, Stephen King, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Coleridge, Byron, Edgar Alan Poe, Elizabeth Barret Browning, Bukowsky, Phillip K Dick, Ken Kesey, John Cassevates and on and on and on. Any examination of art, history and culture without the drugs that fueled it is impaired. In fact it is argued that our evolution itself was accelerated by the edge enhancing effects of hallucigenic mushrooms. Just recently the incredibly piece of work by Gaspar Noe "Enter the Void" owes its genesis to DMT. There is use and abuse, and one's man meat is another mans poison; so lets give credit where credit is due; that is the task of the honest man.
 
Stevenson, Hemingway, Burroughs, et al, had something going for them which had nothing to do with chemical substances -- the talent and the drive to write. If you don't start with both, nothing else matters. At all.

So it's not the drugs which made the writers, it's the writers who made the writers, not least of which because they frickin' wrote. If you're looking for something to make you write, and make you write well when you can't already, you're out of luck. "Substances" aren't going to help you fill up on either quality.
 
wibblinwu said:
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was written by Stevenson while experimenting with cocaine, take a moment and try to calculate how many bums in seats...
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There is an implicit fallacy in most of the reasoning that points to the drug use of creative people. The fallacy goes like this...

All Creative People use drugs. (just for the sake of the argument I'll use the 'all' quantifier...)
I use drugs.
Therefore I am one of the Creative People.

To put this fallacy more clearly.

All Chinese drink Soymilk (again for the sake of argument...)
I drink Soymilk.
Therefore I am Chinese.

My mother would have been surprised... or, that's why I actually don't drink soymilk...

One of my problems with "Requiem for a Dream'(2000), is not that the heroin addicted artist girl descends into prostitution, when her 'dream' is to become an artist, but that Aronofsky uses the usual trope of fallen woman into prostitution as the ultimate point of how degraded she has become.

Personally, and I know this is like pushing wet rope uphill, I think sexual 'art' needs a significant boost in societal 'appreciation', such that it is not seen as an ultimate degradation... but I digress...
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
There is an implicit fallacy in most of the reasoning that points to the drug use of creative people. The fallacy goes like this...

All Creative People use drugs. (just for the sake of the argument I'll use the 'all' quantifier...)
I use drugs.
Therefore I am one of the Creative People.
Click to expand...

That is what I was getting at, yes.
 
One place it might be useful would be where you are working on a scene involving a character with a severe hangover. Ouzo and tequila should do it. Call it research.
 
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