Many great writers have struggled with alcoholism yet
produced brilliant work while under the influence of the demon drink.
Dylan Thomas, Edgar Allan Poe, Norman Mailer, James Joyce,
Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote, Kingsley Amis, F. Scott
Fitzgerald… the list goes on and on and will continue to grow as long as there
are ideas to be transferred and relatively cheap alcohol on tap. And it’s not only
well known authors. Many a struggling writer has died, unpublished and
unfulfilled yet addicted to alcohol.
But why? Why would someone who obviously possessed such a
fertile imagination feel the need to dull it with a beer buzz? While I don’t
drink currently (thanks for that, Doctor) I've certainly had my fair share of
falling down moments in the past. It’s made me many things such as funny,
idiotic, ill, maudlin, confrontational and embarrassing but one thing that
drinking too much has never made me is more creative. There is no way that I
could write anything of any quality after a few beers. My thoughts become too
fleeting and random, and I become very repetitive. Probably most importantly my handwriting is
pretty bad at the best of times; when I’m drunk it becomes totally illegible
even to me.
I understand the euphoria and loosening of inhibitions that
comes with a good slug of a good Scotch. I understand the numbing of physical
or emotional pain that it supplies. I even understand that a gallon of Dutch chemically-tasting
lager might silence the voices in our heads for a wee while, those non-stop
gibbering monkeys who constantly scream new ideas coated with promises about
how they’re so much better than the crap that I’m working on at the moment. I
understand all that. But what I don’t understand is how it helps the creative
process one tiny bit.
Maybe I’m just too uptight and straight-laced, and need to
learn to relax a little?
Or maybe I just need a drink?
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