Creative Musings

 I recently came across an article in a health magazine whose headline really got my attention-"Getting Tipsy May Inspire Creativity".  Really?  Is there a connection between intoxication and inspiration? The article seems to suggest there is. Because if there is, I'm left out again. You see, I don't drink alcohol. Period. Nada. Not a single drop. Not a sliver of champagne at a friend's wedding toast. Not a can of beer after mowing the lawn. New Years Eve, I'm putting down the diet sodas like crazy or at least until 11:30 when I can no longer stay awake. So whatever creative advantage there is in lubricating your right side of your brain with booze, grog, firewater, moonshine, hooch or whatever you choose to call it, I'm shit out of luck.

Now before I go any further, let me set the record straight. I'm am not a teetotaler, a temperance advocate, a prude or an advocate of prohibition. If you like to drink, that's your business.  There are plenty people who drink normally and get along just fine. In fact, I had a 25 year love affair with alcohol. Then we broke up and it ended badly. Believe me when I say, if I could have a few drinks of what ever new micobrew they are making these days and be a little more creative, without it ruining the rest of my life, I would. However, I don't believe I need alcohol to enhance my creativity anymore and I don't need to drink alcohol to have a good life.  But I used to.

In HS, this held my creative muse.

It started out innocently enough. Sneak some beer to a junior high party and everyone thinks you're cool. Act a little stupid, act a little silly, no harm done. Sneak an empty Plochman's mustard bottle filled with cherry vodka  into the bell of your saxophone and take it with you on the marching band trip. Have a mixed drink at halftime of a football game and while you're at it, pour a few drinks for your friends. Every now and then, drink till you puke, scribble creative writings on the back of a record album and call it being creative. Got a 10k run in the morning? Go ahead and drink too much the night before. That hangover will wear off by mile 3. Oh, and lest I forget, go to class, get good grades, get a job, fall in love, go to college, get another job, and act like nothing is out or order in your life. Drinking became a part of every normal thing I did-the good things, the bad things, the ordinary things.

For most people, drinking enhances an ordinary experience, takes the edge off our worries and lightens the load. And I suppose it makes them more creative, so the article suggests. It didn't me. I forgot how to enjoy the good things in life just as they were. A great concert...make it better with booze.  Got some sadness in my life? Drown it away with with a couple of cold ones. From simply wanting to enhance the ordinary, I got to place where I couldn't live with or without it. For people like me, drinking is a deal you strike with the devil. I took all I wanted in the moment, but I paid for it in the end. I had no idea of what kind of a tab I had run up until it came time to pay up. I reached the end. I was done. I was out of options. I made the biggest decision of my life and stopped drinking. That was 23 years ago.

Learning to live without alcohol after having it woven into nearly ever part of your existence is no easy task. But with the support of people who share this common malady, it can be done. By any measure, my life is better in every way without alcohol in it. I've learned how to experience every thing this life has to offer, the good the bad and the ugly, with all of my senses fully intact. Not always as gracefully as I'd like, but I am a still work in progress. I still remember vividly going to my first big concert after I got sober-would it sound as good and would I enjoy it as much as I thought it did when I was drinking? Armed with a cup of black coffee, I can still hear Paul Simon and his 18 member band of world class musicians that night--the music was crystal clear, all frequencies firing, I was totally immersed in the moment.  I was sure the tulips were brighter that first spring I experienced it sober. Today, to play on the floor with our beagle, to get swept away by the sounds of music, to walk on a mountain trail or around the neighborhood with my soul mate by my side, to sit and listen to friend who is sick and afraid-these are enough they way they are. They need no altering. They are to be experienced as they are and that is the gift of sobriety.

The world of creative people is full of stories of those who used alcohol or drugs as their creative muse. Some got away with it, many crashed and burned. The article goes on to state that men who were moderately drunk solved problems more intuitively than sober ones. Seems an impaired executive function may be helpful for these types of creative functions, they stated. Executive functions? Is that like when you can't remember where you parked your car or what you said that insulted your friends? Or when you thought you needed one more beer only to wake up and find yourself sitting in the the living room at 3 am, with some bad infomercial playing on the TV and there is a full can of beer still sitting on the end table? 

I don't know if drinking alcohol gives as person a creative edge, but I'm going to stick to diet lemonade and coffee. Life seems to go better that way and besides, I've been drunk and I've been sober and I like sober better.