I've been taking anti-depressants for almost seven months, and let's be clear that mixing SSRIs with alcohol once a week, or three days in a row, or any increment of time other than "intermittently" packs a suckerpunch of health risks. There's something very Beatnik about mixing prescription drugs with alcohol.
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| Clockwise from top left, skeletal diagrams of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine. Diagrams from Wikimedia Commons. |
I hate the Beatniks.
There's always been a bad taste in my mouth when I read writing inspired by someone's drug use. I don't regard my art as my own if taking a substance that modifies me is to take credit for my creativity. There's a lot to do with intent behind it: I don't agree with choosing to take some mind-altering substance in order to create art. It feels cheap to me -- like, what, you weren't creative enough on your own? Steroids build muscle and water is wet -- you just don't have enough of a drive or the skills or the talent to succeed the God blessed American way through hard work and tenacity.
To me, artwork inspired by and promoting drug use isn't something with which I connect. I guess Bush's War on Drugs really did succeed - thanks, D.A.R.E.
During my teen years, I mentally cautioned myself against getting mixed up in drugs --whether they were hard, soft, smoked, injected, cheap, expensive. I knew that, as an artist, I had an addictive personality, and substances are typically, you know, addictive.
Now, I've found myself using alcohol to fall asleep, or to feel happy and carefree for once. It's even inspired a poem for me.
Because I've been using SSRIs and alcohol to cope through this depressive period, I decided to try a style of poetry I was first introduced to by our loving and lovely leader, Alli. The form is a palindrome: a poem that can be read forwards and backwards, producing two meanings or stories from one form. It's a BOGO deal! Some common palindrome words or phrases are racecar, borrow or rob? , or red rum, sir, is murder.
I regret to inform you that "palindrome" is not a palindrome.
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| Damn Beatniks. Photo courtesy of The Onion |
Though the poem itself was about alcohol, the difficulty of crafting a palindrome required sobriety. This kind of inspiration from alcohol seems a bit ass-backwards and atypical, though, and a choice of which I think the Beatniks wouldn't be too fond. I don't know if I'd be open to appreciating artwork inspired by someone's drug use, though the concept has crept into my own life in an unexpected way. It's definitely something I need more exposure to and consideration of.
--Cam
I used to play in a band with a friend who referred to cannabis as "green inspiration", the implication not only being that was inspiration something that he could turn on and off through his consumption of marijuana, but that inspiration would not come unless he smoked. In this way, he used art-making as a way to excuse a frankly disgusting habit.
On one hand, I resent artists who lean on mood-altering substances of any type for inspiration, if only because it impedes collaboration. As a songwriter and a former bandleader, I have had to wrangle musicians who have shown up to performances or recording sessions lit up like a pinball machine, stoned out of their gourds, rolling down paradise parkway, monkey tripping, candy flipping, or good old-fashioned drunk. These incidents almost always resulted in my best impression of J.K. Simmons' Dr Fletcher from Whiplash.
On he other hand, while keeping in mind that mood-altering substances should never be a crutch, I nevertheless support the idea that they provide crucial supports in the creative process and in living. We all do drugs, in one way or another. But please do not misunderstand me - by "drugs" I do not strictly mean "controlled substances" or "psychedelics" or "uppers and downers". We all have some sort of habit, either regular or irregular, that we use to regulate our moods and support ourselves in our creative lives. Philosopher Alain de Botton has cited, in his School of Life videos, that his drug of choice is, based on this definition, emmental cheese.
Increasingly, I have become interested in what drug use means as a wider social phenomenon. My generation is one that came of age between years of peak methamphetamine and cocaine overdose deaths (2007) and peak opioid overdose (2016, but perhaps 2017 or 2018). What are we to make of that? My generation has embraced the use of adderall and microdose LSD in order to maximize productivity. What are we to make of that? My generation holds a generally positive opinion regarding the use of magic mushrooms, ecstasy, and ayahuasca in mental health treatments, or even for "spiritual healing". What are we to make of that?
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| From the National Institute on Drug Abuse |
Making sense of large-scale drug use trends usually means talking to drug enthusiasts, which has invariably led to some of the most frustratingly circuitous conversations of my life. Broadly speaking, drug users I have spoken to fall into one of three camps: supplementers, brain hackers, and oblivion seekers. Supplementers see drugs like cannabis, adderall, or microdose LSD as harmless supplements they can take to improve their day-to-day lives. These drug users see drugs as room for personal improvement, making them less anxious, more productive, more perceptive, or more outgoing. Brain hackers see the human mind as something than can be radically altered for the better by entheogens or psychedelics. They might be simply more intense supplementers, but more frequently they carry utopian visions - think Timothy Leary, Huxley's Doors of Perception, or Tao Lin's upcoming Trip - that radically from simpler self-improvement goals.
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| The benefits of brain hacking, from Tao Lin |
The oblivion seeking mode of drug use, in my mind, represents the Thanatos to the other modes' Eros. A drinker looking to black out is an oblivion seeker, as is an individual who seeks out opioids, benzodiazepines, or other drugs that slow and mind and numb sensation. True, the current opioid crisis is due in large part to the greed of the Sackler pharmaceutical family and the flaws of the American healthcare system, but do what degree did these drugs satisfy a preexisting, Freudian death-drive? I don't have an answer to that. Not yet, at least.
--Vernon
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