Creativity without using alcohol?
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Join Date: Jun 2017
Posts: 2,909
However the reality is people use substances to be more creative.
People use substances to release their inhibitions. Inhibitions block creativity.
Doing the work of recovery eliminated my inhibitions. I am free of inhibitions today.
In my experience, eliminating as opposed to releasing, has proved to allow for a more continual and free flowing creativity. My creativity is more pure in ti's essence as a result and thereby yields increased and better fruit.
This is strictly my experience. I have no idea if others would have the same experience, but since you asked the question
Are there other creatives who saw life after alcohol?
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Join Date: Feb 2019
Location: The Midwest
Posts: 649
Originally Posted by Burra 
I have always enjoyed being a creative, but alcohol made it so much more exciting and easy, not to mention more daring and technical. Without alcohol, I can't seem to come up with much enthusiasm at all. Guitar, drawing, digital art, whatever, it's so boring to me. Are there other creatives who saw life after alcohol?
If you're lacking motivation or excitement about those things, could it be due to some other factor - depression, anxiety, general melancholy? Maybe try some strategies to center yourself, meditate, work out, whatever it is before you get started on your work or hobbies. Let us know how it goes!!
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Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2021
Location: Midlands UK
Posts: 28
Originally Posted by Surrendered19
Being sober and plain or back to being a drunk. That is a false choice Burra. Your AV at its finest.
Dismissing others' input as "finger wagging" is also very convenient isn't it? If you view what others have to say as condescending or finger-wagging, it is all easily discarded and you don't have to think about any of it.
I challenge you to challenge yourself on all of this.
Dismissing others' input as "finger wagging" is also very convenient isn't it? If you view what others have to say as condescending or finger-wagging, it is all easily discarded and you don't have to think about any of it.
I challenge you to challenge yourself on all of this.
Originally Posted by BullDog777
That's a false perception. That's our brain having a distorted image of what's real and what isn't. Nobody creative(that I've ever known) has lent any credence to a bottle of liquor enhancing their ability. I could rattle off more than a dozen professional writers fine artists and musicians who would take issue with your statement after some lengthy recovery.
Most of the time, it's our ego and mind being angry that it's grieving the loss of false input from the poison we ingest. We lash out when it no longer works for us in whatever capacity we need it to. It's understandable, but simply not a true statement of measure.
Most of the time, it's our ego and mind being angry that it's grieving the loss of false input from the poison we ingest. We lash out when it no longer works for us in whatever capacity we need it to. It's understandable, but simply not a true statement of measure.
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: East Coast
Posts: 1,906
Originally Posted by Burra
As previously mentioned Surrended, I know this is a sober place. But you are looking completely in the wrong direction. I have used substances in the interest of creativity and it has worked. That is solid to me. What is an alcoholic voice? If it's something that takes any shape, at any time, for anything, then why believe in it. It could be anything. Everyone could have an alcoholic voice. It means nothing to me.
Sorry. Again I don't agree with any of this. Especially with lashing out because it no longer works. I don't get any of that
Sorry. Again I don't agree with any of this. Especially with lashing out because it no longer works. I don't get any of that
Your AV "alcoholic voice" is that voice that craves booze. We all have it if we're being honest. In whatever capacity you need it. Creatively, socially, whatever you may want it to do. That voice is trying to give you permission to do it because it wants you to drink and believe whatever stack of BS you wanna come up with is better being drunk or high. No brain ever works better poisoned.
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Join Date: Feb 2019
Location: The Midwest
Posts: 649
Originally Posted by Burra
As previously mentioned Surrended, I know this is a sober place. But you are looking completely in the wrong direction. I have used substances in the interest of creativity and it has worked. That is solid to me. What is an alcoholic voice? If it's something that takes any shape, at any time, for anything, then why believe in it. It could be anything. Everyone could have an alcoholic voice. It means nothing to me.
Sorry. Again I don't agree with any of this. Especially with lashing out because it no longer works. I don't get any of that
Sorry. Again I don't agree with any of this. Especially with lashing out because it no longer works. I don't get any of that
It's not real, man. It's a lie we tell ourselves to keep the addiction going. It's not based in objective reality. Alcohol didn't create that art - you did.
This may sound harsh, but you're in relapse mindset right now.
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: UK
Posts: 782
I wrote most of a highly innovative doctoral thesis under the influence. Bottles of Scotch pretty much wrote it for me.... or so I misguidedly thought.
Now I am nearing three years sober, my creativity and interest in old activities, both of which had severely waned have completely rebounded. What's more I now dream every night and often start the day full of new ideas and solutions to problems. It does take time though - in the first six months to a year of sobering up you may be in the doldrums but it gets gradually better and better with time.
I wonder what I could have achieved had I never started drinking. Perhaps I would have completed the aforementioned doctorate instead of veering off the rails... Alcohol fuelled so called creativity only goes so far.
Good luck, Forwards.
Now I am nearing three years sober, my creativity and interest in old activities, both of which had severely waned have completely rebounded. What's more I now dream every night and often start the day full of new ideas and solutions to problems. It does take time though - in the first six months to a year of sobering up you may be in the doldrums but it gets gradually better and better with time.
I wonder what I could have achieved had I never started drinking. Perhaps I would have completed the aforementioned doctorate instead of veering off the rails... Alcohol fuelled so called creativity only goes so far.
Good luck, Forwards.
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Join Date: Sep 2021
Location: Central NC
Posts: 205
The fact remains however I want to quit. That could mean choosing between being sober and plain, or back to being a drunk.
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Join Date: May 2021
Location: Midlands UK
Posts: 28
Originally Posted by BullDog777
Let me explain...what you're doing is trying to analyze yourself into permission to use whatever substance you deem appropriate to heighten your creativity. Those who have recovered and are recovering are simply saying what you're trying to rationalize it isn't going to work. We have all been there. I tried for the better part of 25 years to rationalize, analyze and out think my illness. Let me clue you in on something. You aren't the first person to try this. I'm trying to save you the pain of having to learn this yourself but then again, some people just have to learn the hard way.
Originally Posted by Forwards
Now I am nearing three years sober, my creativity and interest in old activities, both of which had severely waned have completely rebounded. What's more I now dream every night and often start the day full of new ideas and solutions to problems. It does take time though - in the first six months to a year of sobering up you may be in the doldrums but it gets gradually better and better with time.
I wonder what I could have achieved had I never started drinking. Perhaps I would have completed the aforementioned doctorate instead of veering off the rails... Alcohol fuelled so called creativity only goes so far.
I wonder what I could have achieved had I never started drinking. Perhaps I would have completed the aforementioned doctorate instead of veering off the rails... Alcohol fuelled so called creativity only goes so far.
Originally Posted by KAD65
Just out of curiosity, how long have you been sober before? Sorry if you already said that and I missed it. You seem awfully convinced that if you're consistently sober, you're going to be "plain." I was sober for 6 years and I never felt that way about my life. In fact, it got considerably more interesting. Not only that, I could remember it all! I relapsed for 8 days after those 6 years and am now going on 7 months sober again. I can say for a fact, that those 8 days were pure hell. I'll take sobriety any day over the insanity of addiction.
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
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Hi Burra
If you don't want to quit drinking completely or forever, that's your call.
I don't know of any way to drink at a 'normal' setting, but if you decide to drink again at some point, I genuinely hope you find it.
People here who have been through the rigours of addiction to the point they lost their creativity (and other even more important things) are simply hopeful that sharing their experience might stop you from getting to that point.
There's no need to look for hidden motives.
We're not zealots or fundamentalists or people with messiah complexes - we're just trying to cut someone a break.
If the thread (or parts of it) are not useful to you it may be useful to someone else reading.
I hope my aim to be clear and concise does not come off as condescending.
D
If you don't want to quit drinking completely or forever, that's your call.
I don't know of any way to drink at a 'normal' setting, but if you decide to drink again at some point, I genuinely hope you find it.
People here who have been through the rigours of addiction to the point they lost their creativity (and other even more important things) are simply hopeful that sharing their experience might stop you from getting to that point.
There's no need to look for hidden motives.
We're not zealots or fundamentalists or people with messiah complexes - we're just trying to cut someone a break.
If the thread (or parts of it) are not useful to you it may be useful to someone else reading.
I hope my aim to be clear and concise does not come off as condescending.
D
Member
Join Date: Aug 2014
Posts: 1,408
Well I for one need to have this discussion today. As a (mostly hobby) writer with a drinking problem, it's easy for me to fall into the romantic trap that alcohol somehow improves my creativity.
Stephen King writes, in his semi-autobiographical book On Writing, that he used "the Hemingway Defense" as his excuse for drinking. To paraphrase:
I'm a creative and sensitive individual who has to deal with the existential horrors of the world, but I'm a man, and as a man I cannot give into my sensitivities, so I drink. Besides, being a man, I can take it.
Later on, King said this was the typical sort of B.S. ANY alcoholic would use if only to have another drink. "After all," he said, "I've heard people who drive snow plows say the same thing. 'Got to keep drinking in order to get through life.'"
When he quit, King admitted that in the first year his work was difficult. But think about it. What part of life is easy in early sobriety? Creative or not, can't we all recall the many times we kept tabs on our first time doing "xyz" without a drink?
Here's my first Christmas without a drink.
Here's my first wedding without a drink.
Here's my frist weekend without a drink
And all of it felt awkward and sucked, as though it was the first time we'd ever tried it and we fell on our ass. So of course Stephen King or any number of creative people (or not) are going to feel their work suffering in the beginning. In the beginning, everything suffers. It's the biggest leverage addiction has over you.
Stephen King writes, in his semi-autobiographical book On Writing, that he used "the Hemingway Defense" as his excuse for drinking. To paraphrase:
I'm a creative and sensitive individual who has to deal with the existential horrors of the world, but I'm a man, and as a man I cannot give into my sensitivities, so I drink. Besides, being a man, I can take it.
Later on, King said this was the typical sort of B.S. ANY alcoholic would use if only to have another drink. "After all," he said, "I've heard people who drive snow plows say the same thing. 'Got to keep drinking in order to get through life.'"
When he quit, King admitted that in the first year his work was difficult. But think about it. What part of life is easy in early sobriety? Creative or not, can't we all recall the many times we kept tabs on our first time doing "xyz" without a drink?
Here's my first Christmas without a drink.
Here's my first wedding without a drink.
Here's my frist weekend without a drink
And all of it felt awkward and sucked, as though it was the first time we'd ever tried it and we fell on our ass. So of course Stephen King or any number of creative people (or not) are going to feel their work suffering in the beginning. In the beginning, everything suffers. It's the biggest leverage addiction has over you.
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Join Date: Oct 2013
Posts: 11,429
Originally Posted by WaterOx
Well I for one need to have this discussion today. As a (mostly hobby) writer with a drinking problem, it's easy for me to fall into the romantic trap that alcohol somehow improves my creativity.
Stephen King writes, in his semi-autobiographical book On Writing, that he used "the Hemingway Defense" as his excuse for drinking. To paraphrase:
I'm a creative and sensitive individual who has to deal with the existential horrors of the world, but I'm a man, and as a man I cannot give into my sensitivities, so I drink. Besides, being a man, I can take it.
Later on, King said this was the typical sort of B.S. ANY alcoholic would use if only to have another drink. "After all," he said, "I've heard people who drive snow plows say the same thing. 'Got to keep drinking in order to get through life.'"
When he quit, King admitted that in the first year his work was difficult. But think about it. What part of life is easy in early sobriety? Creative or not, can't we all recall the many times we kept tabs on our first time doing "xyz" without a drink?
Here's my first Christmas without a drink.
Here's my first wedding without a drink.
Here's my frist weekend without a drink
And all of it felt awkward and sucked, as though it was the first time we'd ever tried it and we fell on our ass. In the beginning, everything suffers. It's the biggest leverage addiction has over you.
Stephen King writes, in his semi-autobiographical book On Writing, that he used "the Hemingway Defense" as his excuse for drinking. To paraphrase:
I'm a creative and sensitive individual who has to deal with the existential horrors of the world, but I'm a man, and as a man I cannot give into my sensitivities, so I drink. Besides, being a man, I can take it.
Later on, King said this was the typical sort of B.S. ANY alcoholic would use if only to have another drink. "After all," he said, "I've heard people who drive snow plows say the same thing. 'Got to keep drinking in order to get through life.'"
When he quit, King admitted that in the first year his work was difficult. But think about it. What part of life is easy in early sobriety? Creative or not, can't we all recall the many times we kept tabs on our first time doing "xyz" without a drink?
Here's my first Christmas without a drink.
Here's my first wedding without a drink.
Here's my frist weekend without a drink
And all of it felt awkward and sucked, as though it was the first time we'd ever tried it and we fell on our ass. In the beginning, everything suffers. It's the biggest leverage addiction has over you.
In sobriety, I slowly feel the urge to create coming back but it has taken some time. I did a lot of damage and I am still somewhat in repair mode, but I can sense a gentle momentum and ideas trickling up from that part of myself thawing out from the booze-numb. It has taken patience, self-honesty and multiple relapse / resets to get this far.
I don’t know if I can be a “good” artist again, but I believe at this point I can get my creative self back and try.
The Little Alcoholic Monstress That Could
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Northern California
Posts: 1,159
I took up sewing in sobriety, so for me I've not only gotten more creative but I've had the wits and spare time to do it. I also think of Elton John's sobriety and awesome music like "I'm still standin" Luv that 1!
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Join Date: Feb 2019
Location: The Midwest
Posts: 649
Originally Posted by WaterOx
Well I for one need to have this discussion today. As a (mostly hobby) writer with a drinking problem, it's easy for me to fall into the romantic trap that alcohol somehow improves my creativity.
Stephen King writes, in his semi-autobiographical book On Writing, that he used "the Hemingway Defense" as his excuse for drinking. To paraphrase:
I'm a creative and sensitive individual who has to deal with the existential horrors of the world, but I'm a man, and as a man I cannot give into my sensitivities, so I drink. Besides, being a man, I can take it.
Later on, King said this was the typical sort of B.S. ANY alcoholic would use if only to have another drink. "After all," he said, "I've heard people who drive snow plows say the same thing. 'Got to keep drinking in order to get through life.'"
When he quit, King admitted that in the first year his work was difficult. But think about it. What part of life is easy in early sobriety? Creative or not, can't we all recall the many times we kept tabs on our first time doing "xyz" without a drink?
Here's my first Christmas without a drink.
Here's my first wedding without a drink.
Here's my frist weekend without a drink
And all of it felt awkward and sucked, as though it was the first time we'd ever tried it and we fell on our ass. So of course Stephen King or any number of creative people (or not) are going to feel their work suffering in the beginning. In the beginning, everything suffers. It's the biggest leverage addiction has over you.
Stephen King writes, in his semi-autobiographical book On Writing, that he used "the Hemingway Defense" as his excuse for drinking. To paraphrase:
I'm a creative and sensitive individual who has to deal with the existential horrors of the world, but I'm a man, and as a man I cannot give into my sensitivities, so I drink. Besides, being a man, I can take it.
Later on, King said this was the typical sort of B.S. ANY alcoholic would use if only to have another drink. "After all," he said, "I've heard people who drive snow plows say the same thing. 'Got to keep drinking in order to get through life.'"
When he quit, King admitted that in the first year his work was difficult. But think about it. What part of life is easy in early sobriety? Creative or not, can't we all recall the many times we kept tabs on our first time doing "xyz" without a drink?
Here's my first Christmas without a drink.
Here's my first wedding without a drink.
Here's my frist weekend without a drink
And all of it felt awkward and sucked, as though it was the first time we'd ever tried it and we fell on our ass. So of course Stephen King or any number of creative people (or not) are going to feel their work suffering in the beginning. In the beginning, everything suffers. It's the biggest leverage addiction has over you.
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,442
The thread has reminded me of two quotes
One by Stephen King
and by Joseph Chilton Pearce
D
One by Stephen King
The idea that the creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time. Substance abusing writers are just substance abusers — common garden variety drunks and druggies, in other words. Any claims that the drugs and alcohol are necessary to dull a finer sensibility are just the usual self-serving bull****. I've heard alcoholic snowplow drivers make the same claim, that they drink to still the demons.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2014
Posts: 1,408
Originally Posted by Dee74
The thread has reminded me of two quotes
One by Stephen King
and by Joseph Chilton PearceD
One by Stephen King
and by Joseph Chilton Pearce
Yes! That's it!! Thanks Dee I was looking it up to quote verbatim but too lazy....
Also I might add the late great Frank Zappa who almost never drank and took zero drugs, yet he was one of the most creative people to have walked this earth. People seldom believed he never took drugs and yet here was his basic thesis on the matter:
Drinking is an excuse to be a royal Azz-Hole. What you're looking for is a spiritual connection, one that comes from art and found within art. Drugs and alcohol won't fulfill you there.
I'm paraphrasing again but I remember the sentiment of that phrase very well. That was back, WAY back before I had a drinking problem. I remember I championed that phrase and applauded it. I yearn to get back to it.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2021
Location: Central NC
Posts: 205
Originally Posted by Burra
My output has always dropped very low when sober. But, being consistently sober has never been appealing to me. I plan to be dry for the next several weeks at least and 2022. Being drunk all the time means terrible hangovers and feeling like crap all the time. Well done on another 7 months
I guess I'm not clear on why you came to a sobriety forum to tell everyone you're more productive if you drink? Surely, you must know no one here is going to encourage and support that idea? It's because we all, or most of us, have already been down that road so many times and it always leads to dead ends. As Dee said, we're trying to prevent you from making the same mistakes. They can be very costly.
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