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Does Alcohol Increase Creativity?
“For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity or perception to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
A study filled with tobacco fumes. A desk soaked in spirit. A quill in hand. That’s the poetic view many of us have on writers. On authors of works that have inspired us to keep going, or made us cry, or rekindled a startling child inside. On authors of works that have become a piece of culture and immortalized its creator. That’s what is amazing about writing. It’s magic.
Magic, that has a severe side effect for its caster — alcoholism. Many notable writers were suffering from alcohol abuse. The most notable examples being Charles Bukowski and Ernest Hemingway. The former has said that:
“Drinking is another way of thinking, another way of living. It gives you two lives instead of one.”.
And the latter has said that:
“Drinking wine was not a snobbism nor a sign of sophistication nor a cult; it was as natural as eating and to me as necessary.”.
Why many literature giants were drawn to alcohol abuse is a topic for another article. Today I want to investigate the effects of alcohol on creativity. Does James Joyce write Ulysses without a bottle of wine on his desk? Does…
