The Idiot’s Way To Boost Creativity
May 12, 2009
If you could take a drug to boost your creativity and transform yourself into the new Stephen King overnight, would you take it? Stephen King did and the results weren’t so great.
When I heard that King had been wasted whilst writing the Tommyknockers, I wasn’t surprised. I was a huge King fan back then but I thought the book sucked. So I was shocked to learn that Tommyknockers wasn’t the first book King wrote whilst he was high.
According to a new biography, Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King, 
King began suffering from depression, when he was struggling to get published. So, he self-medicated with alcohol. And although his first novel – “Carrie” earned King more money than he’d ever hoped to earn as a novelist, his success did nothing to lift his depression.
If anything, the money made things worse – instead of being a drunk who wrote a great book, he became an addict who boosted his creativity with coke and wrote lots of great books.
And King was not alone in his reliance on drugs to create and perform. Years of drink and drugs flattened Aerosmith, in the early eighties. But they cleaned up a few years later and proved that you don’t have to be stoned off your face to achieve success.
Some of the dearly departed did not have such a great reversal in fortune. I cringe when I hear folk talk about Hemmingway’s alcohol fueled talent, or how the Beatles wrote the best songs when they were high. What kind of messages are they giving to the talented and creative children of tomorrow?
Some say that drugs enhance your creativity but do they? And is it really worth it, if you’re too miserable to reap the benefits?
Look at the band Oasis. Now, I’ll be the first to admit, I wouldn’t cross the street to watch them play, because I think Noel and Liam Gallagher come across as a pair of mouthy yobs.
But there’s no denying their musical talent – at least there wasn’t. They can thank drugs for ruining their disasterous album – “Be Here Now.” Even Noel Gallagher admits that it sucks:
“It’s the sound of … a bunch of guys, on coke, in the studio, not giving a fuck. There’s no bass to it at all; I don’t know what happened to that … And all the songs are really long and all the lyrics are shit and for every millisecond Liam is not saying a word, there’s a guitar riff in there in a Wayne’s World style.”
Have you ever used drugs or alcohol to boost your creativity? Do you think it could be harmful to young people to hear some of these stories about famous folk being more creative when they’re high?
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36 Responses to “The Idiot’s Way To Boost Creativity”
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Cath,
I think it’s harmful for young people (or people of any age, for that matter) to think you need drugs or alcohol to be creative. If you’re creative, you don’t need a chemical boost.
Lillie Ammann’s last blog post..By: A Blog Birthday, an Easter Egg Thank You, and a Request | Confident Writing
I never did. In fact, I even refuse to drink alcohol to “loosen up” at a party. I believe I can loosen up and relax all by myself – it’s a state of mind and it’s under my control. And yes, I believe it’s a bad message. Just like the message that you can’t excel as a professional athlete unless you take steroids.
Vered – MomGrind’s last blog post..Happy Mother’s Day To The Moms Who Blog
I did some light experimenting with drugs and alcohol as a young adult and honestly, perhaps it made me less inhibited but it didn’t pull out any creativity that wasn’t already there.
That’s my amateur psychologist theory – folks are for whatever reason too inhibited to start an artistic endeavor so use drugs and alcohol to loosen up. They associate creation with the drugs/alcohol and think that it’s a necessary ingredient to the creative process.
Tracy’s last blog post..Where do all the millions of dead birds go?
I’ll go ahead and admit that my most “enlightened” papers in graduate school were written with a bottle of red wine to hand (this was all the rage, you know, for us literary types). Sadly, about two weeks after … when the paper had been handed in and given back to me dripping in blood (the red ink so preferred by evil professors), it seemed so much less enlightened.
Chania Girl’s last blog post..Remembering Who I Am
I find alcohol does more to boost my opinion of my creativity than change its quality. Output also appears much funnier in that mirror than it is.
Fred H Schlegel’s last blog post..Community Creativity: “Let’s Put On A Show”
It seems clear that many famous “creative people” have storied relationships with drugs and alcohol, but it’s less clear whether their substance abuse was the cause of their creativity, or just a way to medicate away their feelings of inadequacy long enough to let them get motivated to start writing again.
Chris Edgar hit the nail on the head. As a creative person (composer and writer), I’ve been around creative people all my life. Many, many of them have serious mental problems that they self-medicate for. In fact, they resist going to a psychiatrist because they don’t want to flatten these moods, which they think — mistakenly — enhance their creativity.
I’ve tried writing under the influence of various liquids and substances, and it has *always* turned out to be absolute crap. If a creative person is able to produce great material under the influence, I say it’s *despite* the alcohol and drugs that they can!
Mike Nichols’s last blog post..5 Interesting Articles for You: Your Occasional Reader
Hi Lillie – I couldn’t imagine it working too well and as you say, it’s dangerous.
Hi Vered – Staying in control is smart. And I agree, it’s a lot like telling athletes they need steroids to perform.
Hi Tracy – that’s interesting. I could see how they would use the drugs to get them started, then believe that they needed them to carry on.
LOL Chania Girl – That was probably a good thing if it prevented you from doing it again.
Hi Fred – I can imagine how that could happen. I know I’ve found things hysterical when I’ve been drinking that wouldn’t have been remotely funny when I was sober.
Hi Chris – That’s a good explanation – apparently Stephen King was depressed when he couldn’t get published, so it sounds like that could haver been the case.
Hi Mike – I’ve heard folk say things like that. I was browsing a writing forum once and some of the folk on there were convinced that they could only write well when they were depressed.
I’ll quite freely admit to have a quite drugged youth. And while I don’t think it did anything to help my creativity, it certainly opened up my mind to different ways of perceiving the world.
Natalie Golberg in Writing Down the Bones (I think) talks about how one day she said to her students who were sticking too much to expectations that they were missing out from not taking LSD – not that she advocated LSD use, but drugs can people shift realities and perceptions.
Fortunately I always had a really low drug tolerance so my body never got addicted, unlike many others around me who suffered big-time with addictions. So while I’m not a just-say-no type, I definitely don’t champion dropping acid.
Alex Fayle | Someday Syndrome’s last blog post..Stop Self-Destructing Your Dreams
That explains King’s amazingly prolific book writing. Sad. One of my favorite comedians, the young Mitch Hedberg, used heroin to overcome his extreme shyess onstage and died of a heroin overdose. Ironically, it was his obvious shyness that was part of his charm.
No, I’ve never used drugs or alcohol to enhance creativity, but then, I’ve never been in a position where I had to be creative to support myself, so I can’ t judge anyone else.
Dot’s last blog post..April Showers and May Flowers
Hi Dot – It’s sad – but it’s also good that he now manages to write without drugs.
The Mitch Hedberg story is sad. If only he’d known that his shyness endeared him to his audience.
Cath Lawson’s last blog post..The Idiot’s Way To Boost Creativity
Hi Alex – Sorry your comment went in approval.
I would never have guessed you to be a druggy when you were younger. I’m glad you didn’t get addicted. I never took LSD. I’ve only once taken one illegal drug, aside from cannabis and luckily it put me off for life.
Saying that – I’m beginning to question the safety of some of the prescribed meds I’ve taken.
I don’t remember Goldberg saying that. Mind you, didn’t she also advise writers to lick the walls? Yuk.
Despite the fact I use to have a roommate who was a pot head, I’ve never touched drugs. Last week a friend made fun of me because I didn’t know what a “roach clip” was.
I think it’s definitely a bad influence that these people are glamorized and made to be looked up to. I think Aerosmith’s music is 10 times better after they got off drugs.
For me, the only kind of “drug” you could say I use from time to time is alcohol, but I never really get drunk. When I do drink, however, I stay away from blogging and other communities. I just can’t think straight enough to socialize online.
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Luckily, changing your state is a skill you can learn.
You don’t need drugs. You can use NLP.
It’s a powerful skill for powerful results. I think it’s a case of a big gap between state of the art and state of the practice.
J.D. Meier’s last blog post..Changing Focus
Hi Catherine,
Haha! If only being creative was THAT easy they would be selling creativity in a bottle.
It makes me wonder how those who did “create” when they were under the influence view their work when they’re sober.
Barbara Swafford’s last blog post..Just The Facts
Honestly, Cath. I don’t know what’s the celebrity thinking. Take an example, Amy Winehouse is proud to be an alcoholic and she had no shame about it at all! Gosh, maybe like you said, “We do need some bl**dy idiot ways to sharpen our creativity!” lol
wilhb81′s last blog post..Business one-liners 51
Hi J.D – NLP is definitely a much safer way than drugs.
Hi Barbara – I’m betting that their work looked a whole lot better when they were high than it did in “real life”.
Hi Wilhb – Amy Winehouse will be lucky to see 30, if she carries on the way she is going.
Hi Cath – I guess that would explain why I find King’s books incoherent. They never were my cup of tea and I wondered what the attraction was.
I think Mike and Chris hit it on the head with the self-medication concept. But Fred beautifully synthesizes the reality of the effect.
Using any kind of performance enhancement, whether you’re an athlete or an artist, is really making it about you rather than your “customer,” isn’t it? Not that there is any shortage of people who will buy into the schtick such an artiste puts out. But seriously, hasn’t it already been done, sometimes to death?
Betsy Wuebker’s last blog post..IDEALS, ICONS AND INDEPENDENT THINKING
I think there are several issues here.
First, if Lennon and McCartney said that drugs helped them be more creative, we can’t take that away from them. Similarly, we can’t take away from Tyler and Perry that drugs were destroying their lives and chose to quit. The choice to do drugs and how that affects any given person’s creativity has nothing really to do with our opinions about whether drugs are “good” or “bad”.
That being said, it can affect our appreciation of the art made under the influence. You yourself Cath “cringe” at the thought of the Beatles advertising the fact they wrote songs while high, and how young artists will take that information.
In sports, there is drug testing because (a) purists of any given game see chemically enhanced results (more home runs, faster 100 metres, etc) as “cheating”, and (b) because of the message it sends to children and young athletes.
So should we put an asterisk next to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” or any other all-time greatest song that may have been influenced by brain-stimulating substances?
Then there is the artist’s perspective. Chris and Mike touched on this: many creative types are screwed up to begin with. They are more prone to depression, addiction, and out and out mental problems. Not surprisingly, these are the types of people more likely to use drugs and alcohol, and (in turn) experiment with them while creating their art.
I’m not sure that worrying about how kids will be affected by the knowledge that people before them have taken drugs or alcohol is an issue here either. I’ve never heard a teenager say he/she started drinking because Hemingway drank. Peer pressure and curiosity will always be the main motivating factors.
We can say that teenage drinking and drug use is bad (it is certainly dangerous, given that drunk driving accidents is the leading cause of death in this age group, in NA anyway…) But most of us did it, and most of our children will too.
But back to the central topic: we can’t worry about where artists search out their muses. We all know that creativity is a personal journey, and if some guy commenting on a blog entry says to you: “Thou shalt not drink while writing” it will have very little impact on whether you do it or not.
John Lennon said it best: “Whatever gets you through the night (or your novel, or your painting, or your song), it’s alright.”
If you found out he was drunk when he said it, would it make it any less true?
~Graham
@Graham
No, but I was hugely curious about laudanum because Byron, Shelley, Keats and Lewis Carroll all were inspired to write based on taking laudanum.
Alex Fayle | Someday Syndrome’s last blog post..How to Ask for Help Without Being Too Dependent
@Alex – Sure, but I think that the natural tendency has to be there already.
Take a look at the people commenting here so far. I’m sure we’ve have all heard of laudanum. But some of us are still more likely to try it than others — and you can probably guess who may and who wouldn’t based on these comments. So although we have all been “exposed” to stories of drug use, not everyone will actually act upon it.
What is the difference? The difference is that there are other variables involved. The most important one in my opinion is that there is something within us, something in our nature that draws us — or doesn’t draw us — to it.
~Graham
Hi Cath: I did not know that about Stephen King. I don’t think that drugs enhance creativity as much as they lower inhibitions and help people take risks. That being said, it’s obviously a better idea to find positive ways to achieve this and not use drugs. It’s one of the creativity myths that you have to be depressed and self destructive to be truly creative.
Marelisa’s last blog post..The World Needs Alchemists
Hi Cath. I didn’t know of the drug connection to any of these artists. I never actually considered it, to be honest. I just appreciate their talent and that’s it.
I’ve never used drugs or alcohol to enhance creativity. I like to have a clear head and after having a few too many at college parties, I like to wake up and remember the day before too. One glass of wine with dinner is enough for me.
I get high enough on being creative without any help
Davina’s last blog post..Positively Breathing — Not According to Plan
I don’t drink (had enough of that in college) nor have I ever tried any drugs of any sort.
That being said, my creative sparks when I hear tremendous music like the Golden Compass soundtrack or the Star Trek soundtrack. It’s all in the mind.
Enjoy, Barbara
Hi Betsy – That’s a really good point- I guess it does make it more about you, rather than the customer. But I guess a lot of writers, artists and musicians will always create what they want first, rather than focusing on what folk want to buy.
Hi Graham – I don’t know if it’s so much about the artists telling folk that drugs enhanced their work, than what other folk write about them afterwards. And those messages do influence others – not just teenagers but adults too.
I get what you mean about purists who see the use of drugs in athletics as cheating. But a lot of people are against the drug use because it is dangerous, not because it’s seen as unfair.
Folk will most likely continue to use drugs to try to enhance their creativity but whether it really works and if it’s worth the misery, will always be open to debate.
And I do think it’s a great that we’re now hearing stories from those who say – it wasn’t worth the misery. Or that they created rubbish while they were high.
Hi Alex – I can imagine why that would influence you. No matter what we want to achieve in life, I think we’re all influenced by those who’ve done the same things before us, to a certain point.
Hi Mare – Like you, I think and hope that it’s a creative myth. You’ve written a lot about creativity and you give a lot of inspiration and ideas to folk wanting to enhance their creativity in a safe way.
Cath Lawson’s last blog post..The Idiot’s Way To Boost Creativity
Hi Barbara – That sounds like a safer way. And as you say – it could all be in the mind.
Cath Lawson’s last blog post..The Idiot’s Way To Boost Creativity
There’s a HILARIOUS Family Guy episode where the parents decide to relaunch their folk band and decide to enter a talent contest. First you see THEIR perception of the performance where they are singing in perfect harmony. They are stunned when they didn’t win the talent contest and their son Chris sets them straight. “You two were so baked – you didn’t know how badly you sucked.”
Then you see how the performance appeared to everyone else. They were slobbering and shrieking in the microphone – without any “hint” of music involved.
That’s always been my experience of working while “under the influence.”
Kathy | Virtual Impax’s last blog post..It’s called S-O-C-I-A-L media for a reason…
Drug-taking is the only thing that I’m black and white on – unreasonably so. I’ve left parties and friendships when someone’s lit up – it’s simply not something I want to be around.
I think creative people can pile on a huge amount of pressure on themselves and that very creativity allows their brain to think in all sorts of ways that they wouldn’t otherwise. It’s that capacity to think, imagine and feel that creates a kind of burden that people take the edge off by taking a little something.
I completely agree that it’s simply masking the problem and creating a habit – the trick is to notice that and do something more positive to navigate through.
As for me, I like a drink, and I used to drink a lot. A heck of a lot. I don’t drink anywhere near as much as I used to, but I do drink to relax – a glass of wine at the end of a stressful day, a gin and tonic at the end of a long week, a beer with a friend.
Some might label my liking to wind down with a drink in my hand a problem, but having been in problem territory with drink before, I’m well aware of the boundary.
Steve Errey – The Confidence Guy’s last blog post..Why Be More Confident Anyway?
I have to admit that on occasion I’ve written stuff after a few beers. And then the next day wondered what on earth I was thinking.
However, I find the most creative time to be early morning – soon after I’ve woken up.
And any creative stuff is best left to the subconscious – it’s worth thinking about the topic in question in waking hours and letting you subconscious self fill in the gaps.
Most of the time I wake up with the answers, and because I’m refreshed, the right stuff flows…
Ian Denny’s last blog post..Generating New Business For You, Faster And Easier Than Ever Before…
It is easy to judge drug use, but it still remains the individuals understanding whether it is effective or not.
Only the individual knows whether a glass of wine is inspirational and good for the heart or a slippery slope to drinking the whole bottle.
Nicole’s last blog post..My Brown Children
LMAO Kathy – I’m guessing I would have a similar experience if I tried that.
Hi Steve – That’s a good point – “the trick is to notice that and do something more positive to navigate through.”
I guess habits have a way of creeping up before folk realise they have them. Like you, I used to drink a glass after work to “wind down” and the quantity crept up. I didn’t quit doing it until I realised why I was doing it.
Hi Ian – You work pretty much the same way I do. Early morning is a brilliant time and as you say, your subsconscious does work well for you that way.
Hi Nicole – that is a very good point. A drug user may have just as much control as someone drinking a glass of wine – only they can know if they are able to control it.
Cath Lawson’s last blog post..The Idiot’s Way To Boost Creativity
Nope, never. I drink rarely and I’ve never done anything creative after a drink…never tried. It doesn’t put me in a creative mood.
I’ll say that sometimes when I’m flirting with depressing I use exercise and sex to self-medicate, because it’s easier for me to be creative when riding the highs and lows than if I’m flattened out by an anti-depressant. However if I get too depressed, then I can’t be creative either. So besides self-medicating I use cognitive behavioral techniques to work on getting out of the depression because I’m also creative when mentally healthy.
It’s just easier for me to latch on, obsess, and get things done when my moods are swinging.
Mrs. Micah’s last blog post..The Value of Sewing and Tailoring
Stories like these are scary. Many writers like King wrote successful books in a drug-induced stupor. But then again more writers wrote books without touching drugs or alcohol.
Many teens who smoke pot say they use it to boost creativity. It doesn’t help that pot is legal in some places especially since it’s used for medicinal purposes. This sends the message to teens that pot is not dangerous (despite being illegal).
Meryl K. Evans’s last blog post..Q&A with Sage Cohen on Poetry
I can’t imagine using drugs to boost creativity. Alcohol just makes me tired, which makes me stop creating!
Hunter Nuttall’s last blog post..The Kobayashi Maru (The No-Win Scenario)
Very interesting blog! I read once that people think they are more creative when they are high, but they’re actually not. Who knows, though? I have smoked pot to try and enhance creativity…if anything it definitely lessens it, and I don’t recommend using it to try and be creative (or most people to use it at all, really). However, I think the knowledge would not be of harm to most young people, who will decide on their own with or without that knowledge what they will do about drugs. The parents are definitely more of an influence.
Very interesting discussion. Hmmm, if King had been writing under the influence of drugs and became one of the most published novelist of today, Asimov is also one writer with an addiction – an addiction to writing itself. I don’t believe you need alcohol or drugs to be “creative”. If you do come up with “creative” content as a result of a drunken stupor, can you call that creativity?
Just my 2 cents
Cheers!
Vanessa
Making The Best Better Team’s last blog post..Seven Success Coaching Quotes For Inspiration And Motivation