The Tempting and Deceitful Link Between Intoxication and Creativity

Your tips are greatly appreciated! Upgrade at 30% offMany writers think a glass of wine may serve as the pilot light to ignite the fires of their imagination.Beer can be too brutish and crude. It’s good for writing amusing anecdotes that will likely be rejected from the college newspaper. The effects of rum, whiskey, or tequila come on too fast. That state of pleasant warmth when the words flow freely is truncated to the point of uselessness. Wine feels the most refined and educated. That’s what you pick when you’re trying to write literature.But in my opinion, any of these choices is incorrect. The best fuel for writing is coffee, and I’ve tried everything.I never thought of myself as a serious drinker. Then again, I’m from Wisconsin where drinking is a way of life. What’s thought of as a casual drinker in Wisconsin would be a problem drinker anywhere else.It’s cold and dark through most of the year. In Wisconsin, we drink beer.Years ago, I went to Oktoberfest in Munich. The Germans kept telling me to “pace myself” because, according to them, “Americans don’t know how to drink.”I laughed and told them they hadn’t met anyone from Wisconsin yet. Then I proceeded to put them all under the table. We shut the beer tents down and I tried to drag them to a bar for a White Russian to top off the night. I even have a memory of that experience, which by all rights I shouldn’t.Despite where I grew up, I didn’t drink much as a young person. I have an addictive personality so I tried to avoid self-destruction. I become competitive about the things I do. Competitive drinking is not conducive to a long and happy life.I only had a few beers at parties throughout high school and college. Those were tough years as I attempted to navigate the rough waters of my youth. It wasn’t until I moved to Lima, Peru that I came into myself.I remember the times when I had a day off in Lima. I’d go to the center of the city and find a cafe with a view of the sidewalk. The weather was always pleasant, and the people walked by at just the right pace. It’s like going for a train ride and looking out the window, though the whole world moves and you remain in place.As long as you were periodically ordering, cafes let you occupy a table all day. You could sit and sip on your wine, or serve yourself from your pitcher of sangria, and it felt like living in another world.You never knew quite what would happen. Maybe somebody would stop and join you. Maybe you’d get harassed. Maybe a friend would walk by. Maybe you’d spend the day swimming in a sea of strangers. That it was all a mystery was the best part.This experience isn’t really writing, but it’s adjacent to writing. It’s tempting to call it research. In truth, you’re avoiding the work.The moment you sit down and take a sip of wine, it’s like having a cartoon bird land on your shoulder. There’s a part of that experience that feels like the creative process. Sitting there is sort of like gathering yourself up to create a story. You clear off your desk, you turn on your computer, and you stretch your fingers. Then, you get to work. You enter the flow state that’s critical for creating a new perspective on our reality.Intoxication suggests that. I think a lot of writers fall into the trap of connecting alcohol to creativity because if you drink right, and you play it out, the day starts to unfurl before you.The problem with drinking is that it’s a shortcut that leads to a dead end. It might get you 90% of the way through the barricades of inhibitions and self-doubts that prevent you from heeding the call of your spirit, but you’ll never traverse that last 10% drunk. The only solution is to grab a wide-brimmed hat and walking stick, and go the long way around.I did learn a lot about people, and I had many fun experiences during my drinking days in Lima.Lima is a huge city that feels small. The population of American residents would all turn up at the same places eventually. There was one central bar where you’d go to watch NFL football games. Even though I have grown to disapprove of the economic model that features billionaire owners and millionaire players competing in a stadium funded by taxpayer dollars, life was simpler for me back then.You have to strike that delicate balance where you pick your battles, but you also have to ignore many injustices just to get through your day-to-day life. This is a question of survival. There are so many things that are wrong with the world that if you fretted over all of them constantly you’d derive no joy from life.So, I would go down to the local bar, and I’d watch football. Sooner or later the other Americans would come, and I would organize poker games. We were strangers with a common background, and we’d sit and drink and gamble and laugh.Alcohol loosens up your vocal chords. It makes it fun to go to the karaoke bars. It helps you shed the burden of your self-awareness. You become emboldened to tell people they’re beautiful, which is always a good thing. A night out in a foreign city is like going through a portal to another world.That’s how it is similar to writing. There’s a universe populated by fully developed characters. I liked playing cards because that brought Lady Luck to the table. I never quite knew when she’d show up, but it was always a delight when she favored me.You fall into a certain kind of mania. There’s always a point during the night when the intoxication would come into alignment with your voice. Then you could speak with a rhythm that sounded like poetry. You could make the table erupt into laughter. The kind of out-of-control, belly busting laughter that brought tears to your eyes.“Sometimes when you get rolling,” one of my friends said, “I want to record everything you say.”This felt like creation. There was a ball of energy, a ball of light, that you could hold delicately up for everyone to see. You’d create a lighting flash of perfect harmony. It was an eternal moment when nothing else in the world seemed to matter. It was a flow moment.Then, it was gone.There was a time in my twenties when I lived for moments like that.I wrote during that period. I drank all the way through. From a Wisconsin perspective, I never thought of myself as a heavy drinker. But it would have been labeled as such by folk from other states.Then, going on two and a half years ago now, I quit.It’s only been since then that I’ve really managed to embrace the writing side of things. What I’ve come to realize is that drinking provides only an approximation of the eternal feeling you get when you slide into the flow state. You get the illusion of entering another world, but until you give up drinking it’s always held at an arm’s length away.You know the stories are out there, but you can’t capture them.Intoxication gives you a sense of what you’re after, but it’s the difference between listening to a recording and attending a concert.I found that since I’ve given up drinking, my writing has become a lot more effective. I’ve made more money at it, I’ve completed all my manuscripts.There are many writers I’ve known who get perpetually caught in the attractive lure of settling in on an outdoor patio in a foreign city and sipping at their drink as they watch the world float by. There’s a certain vulnerability that comes as you feel the intoxication begin to take hold, and both mystery and magic become tangible.You yearn to prolong that peak moment where your senses relax and the universe aligns. When time stops, you can take a moment to look around, smile to yourself, and then scribble down some notes.Intoxication gives you a fleeting glimpse as to what’s out there. But if you really want to bathe in the waters of the flow state, you have to learn how to make the journey sober.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! I have payment tiers starting at as little as twenty dollars a year.Upgrade at 30% offUpgrade at 40% offUpgrade at 50% offUpgrade at 60% offI'm so happy you're here, and I'm looking forward to sharing more thoughts with you tomorrow.My CoSchedule referral linkHere’s my referral link to my preferred headline analyzer tool. If you sign up through this, it’s another way to support this newsletter (thank you).I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe