Pubdate: Mon, 28 Jun 2004
Source: Daily Times, The (TN)
Copyright: 2004 Horvitz Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.thedailytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1455
Author: Steve Wildsmith

JUST FOR TODAY: CREATIVITY NO EXCUSE FOR CHEMICAL DEPENDENCY

As a journalist who covers popular music and pop culture, I've watched with 
fascination over the past couple of years as more and more musicians go 
public on their battles with chemical dependency.

Granted, it isn't a new phenomenon -- when the members of Aerosmith decided 
to clean up in the mid-1980s, they set the benchmark for recovering rock 
stars by being willing to discuss their problems with drugs and alcohol.

Why is it musicians and artists seem marked by a predisposition for 
substance abuse? A lot of us like to use the excuse that because emotions 
resonate with us more deeply than they do most people, we need alcohol and 
drugs to dull the pain those negative emotions bring out. Others of us like 
to think that drugs unlock doors of creativity that we can't otherwise 
access when we're substance-free.

I use the term "us" collectively, because I once felt the same way. I 
always thought I wrote my best prose when I was wrecked, just like I'm sure 
many musicians feel like they write their best songs or play their best 
shows while they're under the influence. Personally, I like author Stephen 
King's take on such thinking, from his 2000 memoir "On Writing":

"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 B.S. Creative people probably do run a greater risk of 
alcoholism and addiction than those in some other jobs, but so what? We all 
look pretty much the same when we're puking in the gutter."

Incidentally, King has well-documented his own battles with alcohol and 
drugs. He's not alone as a celebrity in the public eye: Lately, Kurt Cobain 
widow Courtney Love, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, Whitney Houston, Kelly Osbourne, 
Jo Dee Messina and Stone Temple Pilots/Velvet Revolver singer Scott Weiland 
have all battled addiction in the pages of various newspapers and on 
countless entertainment news shows.

This isn't really something new -- over the past 20 to 30 years, there have 
been many artists who disclosed their battles with chemical dependency 
- --Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Elton John, Ozzy Osbourne, 
Michael Jackson, Natalie Cole, Mary J. Blige and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' 
Anthony Kiedis, to name a few. And there have been just as many stars who 
never made it to recovery -- Blind Melon's Shannon Hoon and Sublime's Brad 
Nowell, on back through the Doors' Jim Morrison, the Who's Keith Moon, the 
Sex Pistols' Sid Vicious, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and the Rolling 
Stones' Brian Jones.

As bad as addiction can be on everyone, the lifestyle of decadence, the 
money and the sycophants and fans willing to do anything for them make it 
twice as hard on celebrities. Personally, I'm glad I hit my bottom as 
quickly and as hard as I did. If I'd had the money and the access to drugs 
to keep going, I'd probably be dead.

The world of celebrities mirrors our own -- just as there are addicts and 
alcoholics in programs all over East Tennessee who get overconfident and 
fall off the wagon, there are just as many celebrities who do the same -- 
actors Edward Furlong and Brad Renfro and Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee are 
a few whose names spring to mind.

And the ones who make it discover the same things about life that those of 
us in recovery know too -- that life, for all of its ups and downs, can be 
such a beautiful blessing without the haze of drugs to cloud our minds. We 
don't need drugs to be creative, and we certainly don't need them to cope 
- -- all we need is a step in the right direction, a little 12-step recovery 
and support from our fellow addicts and alcoholics.

After that, it's just a matter of taking it one day at a time, and not 
getting high again, no matter what.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager