ALCOHOL AND CREATIVY
There has been a romanticized connection between ALCOOL AND CREATIVITY. Alcoholic drinks predate history so it is not surprising that references to alcohol are threaded through notable art and literature dating back to the time of omer and Seneca. Alcohol has also been the subject of many creative artists. There have been countless blues, country and western, and jazz songs that have references to alcohol. These often reflected the lifestyles of the writers and musicians who wrote and performed them and the ‘‘lovable drunk’’ was a staple in comedy for many years. Creative works about alcoholism reflected the serious underlying issues and long-term effects of drinking. Plays like The Iceman Cometh, novels such as Under the Volcano, firsthand reminiscences of drinking like Jack London’s John Barleycorn, and Oscar-winning movies The Lost Weekend, The Days of Wine and Roses, and Leaving Las Vegas are just a few examples. This article will review what creativity researchers have found about the use of alcohol among eminent creative people and how it influenced their work.
A. Extent of Use among Eminent Creative People
Alcohol and creativity have been linked by the fact that many eminent creators have been heavy users and alcoholics. Table I is a partial list which is impressive because there are numerous great writers, artists, performers, and musicians.
The largest scale attempt to identify the level of alcoholism in eminent creative people was done by Arnold Ludwig, who in 1995 reviewed the lives of 1,004 eminent people who had a biography reviewed in The New York Times Book Review between 1960 and 1990. He assessed alcohol dependence or abuse on the basis of physical problems, work interruption or poor performance, personal and interpersonal problems, and arrests. He found,
"among our eminent people 26% experience alcoholrelated problems during their lifetime, 23% forwomen and 27% for men. . . . Actors or directors, musical entertainers, sports figures, fiction writers, artists and poets (29% to 60%) have higher rates of alcohol dependence or abuse than natural scientists, soldiers, social scientists, social activists and social figures (3 to 10%). . . . Progressively greater proportions of artistic types, compared to other types, succumb to alcoholism after age 20 and throughout much of the remainder of their lives. (1995, pp. 133–134)."
These rates are considerably higher than the 7.1% rate of combined alcohol abuse and dependence of alcoholics in the United States based on an extensive survey by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in 1992. Men (11%) greatly outnumber women (4.1%), and in contrast to eminent creators, rates of alcoholism declined with age rather than increased.
Higher rates of alcoholism among creative artists, especially writers, have been found in a number of other studies. One study found that 30% of the Iowa workshop for creative writers had a problem with alcoholism at some point in their lives. Another study found that female writers had an alcoholism rate of 20% relative to a control group rate of 5%.
Higher rates of alcoholism in the creative arts could be encouraged by the nature of the work, which is often isolating and allows the individual to drink more easily. Alcoholism is found less frequently in scientific professions where personal vision is less important than producing objective data that can be replicated.
B. Families of Alcoholic Creative People
There appears to be a genetic component in alcoholism. Ludwig found 12.2% of the fathers and 2.4% of the mothers of eminent creative artists were alcoholic compared to 6.6% of the fathers and .5% of the mothers in other professions. Furthermore 10.6% in the creative arts had alcoholic siblings compared to 6.3% of others. Other studies found that 11% of the writers had at least one alcoholic parent compared to 7% of the total sample. Examples of creative people who came from alcoholic families include Charlie Chaplin, Tennessee Williams, Orson Welles, and Truman Capote.
In a study on painters, the only characteristic which differentiated excessive drinkers from moderate drinkers was having the same profession as their father. In one case, the son of a successful father exhibited anxiety over competition with the father. In another case, the son pursued painting to satisfy his father’s unfulfilled ambition ‘‘at the cost of inner development and constant strain.’’
A. Physical Effects
Small doses of alcohol may help stimulate some aspects of brain function but alcohol is otherwise a depressant. Encyclopedia Britannica states that as more alcohol is consumed, an individual becomes more depressed,
"going on to sedation, stupor and coma. The excitement phase exhibits the well-known signs of exhilaration, loss of socially expected restraints, loquaciousness, unexpected changes of mood, and occasionally uncontrolled emotional displays. This may result from an indirect effect of alcohol in suppressing the function of inhibitory brain centers rather than a direct stimulation of the manifest behavior. (Britannica Online)"
Prolonged use of alcohol damages the health of many alcoholics. Consuming four drinks a day or more can cause high blood pressure, coronary heart disease and failure, and stroke. Prolonged alcohol use is also associated with brain damage and the development of neuropsychological disorders. Impairments may include deficits in short-term memory, disrupted cognitive and motor functioning, poor attention span, difficulties with problem-solving and learning new information, sexual dysfunction, and suppression of the immune system.
The lack of inhibition caused by drinking is directly linked to criminal behaviors, including physical violence and homicide. Legal problems as well as divorce also increase.
Alcoholism can cause death from cirrhosis of the liver and impaired motor ability relating in alcoholrelated fatalities in automobile accidents, falls, and drowning. High levels of alcohol are found in 36% of suicides.
B. Effect of Use by Eminent Creators
Some eminent creative people believed alcohol was a vital component in their success. The most common use was to overcome fear and anxiety. Aristophanes, in a play written in 424 B.C., wryly commented on the benefits of alcohol: ‘‘When men drink, then they are rich and successful and win lawsuits and are happy and help their friends. Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.’’ Dorothy Parker said, ‘‘Three highballs, and I think I’m Saint Francis of Assisi.’’
Other creative people drank to escape the difficulties of life. The sensitivity and awareness which made their work special also made them more prone to depression and a sense of isolation. In many cases, alcohol was used as a type of medication to dull the sharp edges of life. Tennessee Williams seemed to be speaking for himself when he had one of his characters in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof say, ‘‘Mendacity is a system that we live in. Liquor is one way out an’ death’s the other.’’
In some cases, creative professions may be the only work an alcoholic could do. The individual has the freedom to drink and work as a writer or painter. Utrillo, according to Sandborn, was slightly retarded. His family kept him supplied with wine and painting supplies.
A sense that alcohol somehow contributed to theircreativity (perhaps used as a justification for their drinking) helped demolish the long-term productivity or shortened the lives of many eminent creative people. Younger creative people still have the physical resilience to drink heavily and get their work done, but as they age it becomes more difficult, which is not surprising considering the physical effects of alcohol.
Of course, alcohol can deter productivity even when it is not used while an individual is working. Albert Rothenberg defined three states of drinking for the writers he studied:
1. Early in their career, they only drink after work.
2. Drinking begins to occur during the day as the need for alcohol increases, which is the progression experienced by most alcoholics. In the case of writers, the loneliness of the job combined with the anxiety and uncertainty of the work can lead to a state of ‘‘irritability.’’ Alcohol is used as a sedative which helps soothe frayed nerves.
3. The increased drinking results in a deterioration in the quality of the work.
Rothenberg cautioned that each case is individual and may be triggered by elements unconnected to writing such as genetics or family history. When the parent whom the writer lovingly and competitively identifies with is an alcoholic, then the dangers of alcoholism are particularly high. Examples include John Cheever and William Faulkner.
C. Experimental Research
Results of research using noneminent subjects indicates that the perception that alcohol influences creativity is greater than any real benefit to creativity that alcohol may give. The drinking of alcohol may exaggerate an individual’s self-assessment of his or her work. One study found that low doses of alcohol did not affect the quality of creative work, but subjects who believed they had taken alcohol thought their work was better. In another study, subjects who thought they had taken alcohol produced more creative combinations of wildflowers even if they had a placebo. This suggests that just thinking one has drunk alcohol may loosen some people’s inhibitions.
A few researchers have attempted to determine if alcohol facilitates creative writing under laboratory conditions. There are indications that alcohol significantly increases the number of words produced, confirming anecdotal accounts of writers who find alcohol an aid in producing work, but quantity does not necessarily equal quality.
One study measured the effect of alcohol on a control group, a placebo group, and an alcohol group during different phases of creativity. Moderate amounts of alcohol facilitated incubation and restitution in the college students, while harming the preparation, illumination, and verification stages. The researchers tied this in to self-reports of professional writers indicating they used alcohol primarily during the incubation and restitution stages of writing. They also concluded that the difficulty of creative writing leads to increased drinking.
Alcohol may reduce anxiety and tension for some writers, but there also appears to be a tendency for users to exaggerate the benefits, perhaps to justify its continued use. Because life circumstances are confounded with the propensity to use drugs, the causal relation of drugs to creativity remains uncertain. The fact that many creative people used alcohol moderately or heavily does not mean the alcohol caused creative solutions. None of these studies looked at how alcohol affects accomplished creative individuals under actual working conditions.
Numerous researchers have cited reasons why creative people would use alcohol. They include:
1. Opportunity. Writers, artists, and composers often work alone so they can drink more often without anybody knowing about it.
2. The difficulty of the work. Creative work is tough and uncertain, and the road to success is paved with disappointment and rejection. Creative artists suffer blocks at times. Alcohol may provide escape from the pain.
3. Stress. Success brings its own pressure. Creators often feel they must match or exceed their previous work. Simonton proposes alcohol use may provide the user with a self-handicap, a convenient excuse that justifies failure.
4. Social reasons. Many artists, writers, and musicians met in bars and restaurants where drinking alcohol was an accepted part of the ritual.
5. Depression. Alcohol is sometimes used as selfmedication to ease depression even though in the long run it is a depressant.
6. Addiction. Some people simply cannot drink in moderation and eventually develop a dependency on alcohol.
7. Genetic predisposition. A much higher percentage of fathers, mothers, and siblings of eminent creative people were alcoholics.
8. As an aid. Some creative people have stated they felt alcohol helped their work, especially in overcoming anxiety during the initial sages of creation.
The number of variables involved make the relationship between alcohol and creativity a complex and intriguing area. Many questions remain unanswered. Research on alcohol and creative leaders in business, politics, and science needs to be done. Alcohol use peaked in 1980 and has been declining as awareness of the dangers of alcoholism and stricter drunk driving laws have been enforced. It will be interesting to see if the number of eminent alcoholic creators also declines.~
While many creative people have claimed that alcohol helped them, the truth of this statement in objective terms has not been determined. Ludwig concluded 9% of his sample had helped their creativity by using alcohol; however, he cautioned that the perception alcohol helps creative work could be exaggerated by the properties of alcohol. He pointed to John Cheever, Eugene O’Neill, and Jackson Pollock as examples of creative people who gave up alcohol and then did some of their best work.
Heavy use of alcohol over a long period of time clearly damaged the careers of many eminent creative people. This can be seen by looking at the declining quality in the work of actors such as Richard Burton and John Barrymore and writers such as Truman Capote and Jack Kerouac. In addition, many alcoholic creative people such as Charlie Parker, Jack London, and Stephen Crane died from alcohol-related illness, accidents, or suicides. F. Scott Fitzgerald summed up the danger of drinking in his work and life: ‘‘First I take a drink. Then the drink takes a drink. Then the drink takes me.’’
Sherwood Anderson
John Barrymore
Bix Beiderbecke
Robert Benchley
John Berryman
Mathew B. Brady
Robert Burns
William Burroughs
Richard Burton
Truman Capote
Raymond Chandler
John Cheever
Eric Clapton
Stephen Crane
e. e. cummings
William de Kooning
Theodore Dreiser
T. S. Eliot
William Faulkner
W. C. Fields
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Gustave Flaubert
Stephan Foster
Jackie Gleason
Gluck
Dashiell Hammett
Lorenz Hart
Lillian Hellman
Ernest Hemingway
O. Henry
Dennis Hopper
Victor Hugo
James Joyce
Frida Kahlo
Buster Keaton
Jack Kerouac
Ring Lardner
Charles Laughton
Sinclair Lewis
Jack London
Robert Lowell
Malcolm Lowry
Dean Martin
Carson McCullers
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Robert Mitchum
Modigliani
Mary Tyler Moore
Modest (Petrovich) Mussorgsky
Nick Nolte
John O’Hara
Eugene O’Neill
Charlie Parker
Dorothy Parker
Edith Piaf
Edgar Allan Poe
Jackson Pollock
Bonnie Raitt
Frederic Remington
Mark Rothco
Jean-Paul Sartre
Ringo Starr
John Steinbeck
Elizabeth Taylor
Dylan Thomas
James Thurber
Toulouse-Lautrec
Mark Twain
Maurice Utrillo
Dick Van Dyke
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Wolfe
By Steven R. Pritzker in "Encyclopedia of Creativity", Mark. A. Runco & Steven R. Pritzker (editors-in-chief), Academic Press, USA, 1999, excerps v. 1 pp.53-57. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.
I. USE OF ALCOHOL BY EMINENT CREATIVE PEOPLE
A. Extent of Use among Eminent Creative People
Alcohol and creativity have been linked by the fact that many eminent creators have been heavy users and alcoholics. Table I is a partial list which is impressive because there are numerous great writers, artists, performers, and musicians.
The largest scale attempt to identify the level of alcoholism in eminent creative people was done by Arnold Ludwig, who in 1995 reviewed the lives of 1,004 eminent people who had a biography reviewed in The New York Times Book Review between 1960 and 1990. He assessed alcohol dependence or abuse on the basis of physical problems, work interruption or poor performance, personal and interpersonal problems, and arrests. He found,
"among our eminent people 26% experience alcoholrelated problems during their lifetime, 23% forwomen and 27% for men. . . . Actors or directors, musical entertainers, sports figures, fiction writers, artists and poets (29% to 60%) have higher rates of alcohol dependence or abuse than natural scientists, soldiers, social scientists, social activists and social figures (3 to 10%). . . . Progressively greater proportions of artistic types, compared to other types, succumb to alcoholism after age 20 and throughout much of the remainder of their lives. (1995, pp. 133–134)."
These rates are considerably higher than the 7.1% rate of combined alcohol abuse and dependence of alcoholics in the United States based on an extensive survey by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in 1992. Men (11%) greatly outnumber women (4.1%), and in contrast to eminent creators, rates of alcoholism declined with age rather than increased.
Higher rates of alcoholism among creative artists, especially writers, have been found in a number of other studies. One study found that 30% of the Iowa workshop for creative writers had a problem with alcoholism at some point in their lives. Another study found that female writers had an alcoholism rate of 20% relative to a control group rate of 5%.
Higher rates of alcoholism in the creative arts could be encouraged by the nature of the work, which is often isolating and allows the individual to drink more easily. Alcoholism is found less frequently in scientific professions where personal vision is less important than producing objective data that can be replicated.
B. Families of Alcoholic Creative People
There appears to be a genetic component in alcoholism. Ludwig found 12.2% of the fathers and 2.4% of the mothers of eminent creative artists were alcoholic compared to 6.6% of the fathers and .5% of the mothers in other professions. Furthermore 10.6% in the creative arts had alcoholic siblings compared to 6.3% of others. Other studies found that 11% of the writers had at least one alcoholic parent compared to 7% of the total sample. Examples of creative people who came from alcoholic families include Charlie Chaplin, Tennessee Williams, Orson Welles, and Truman Capote.
In a study on painters, the only characteristic which differentiated excessive drinkers from moderate drinkers was having the same profession as their father. In one case, the son of a successful father exhibited anxiety over competition with the father. In another case, the son pursued painting to satisfy his father’s unfulfilled ambition ‘‘at the cost of inner development and constant strain.’’
II. EFFECTS OF USE
A. Physical Effects
Small doses of alcohol may help stimulate some aspects of brain function but alcohol is otherwise a depressant. Encyclopedia Britannica states that as more alcohol is consumed, an individual becomes more depressed,
"going on to sedation, stupor and coma. The excitement phase exhibits the well-known signs of exhilaration, loss of socially expected restraints, loquaciousness, unexpected changes of mood, and occasionally uncontrolled emotional displays. This may result from an indirect effect of alcohol in suppressing the function of inhibitory brain centers rather than a direct stimulation of the manifest behavior. (Britannica Online)"
Prolonged use of alcohol damages the health of many alcoholics. Consuming four drinks a day or more can cause high blood pressure, coronary heart disease and failure, and stroke. Prolonged alcohol use is also associated with brain damage and the development of neuropsychological disorders. Impairments may include deficits in short-term memory, disrupted cognitive and motor functioning, poor attention span, difficulties with problem-solving and learning new information, sexual dysfunction, and suppression of the immune system.
The lack of inhibition caused by drinking is directly linked to criminal behaviors, including physical violence and homicide. Legal problems as well as divorce also increase.
Alcoholism can cause death from cirrhosis of the liver and impaired motor ability relating in alcoholrelated fatalities in automobile accidents, falls, and drowning. High levels of alcohol are found in 36% of suicides.
Some eminent creative people believed alcohol was a vital component in their success. The most common use was to overcome fear and anxiety. Aristophanes, in a play written in 424 B.C., wryly commented on the benefits of alcohol: ‘‘When men drink, then they are rich and successful and win lawsuits and are happy and help their friends. Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.’’ Dorothy Parker said, ‘‘Three highballs, and I think I’m Saint Francis of Assisi.’’
Other creative people drank to escape the difficulties of life. The sensitivity and awareness which made their work special also made them more prone to depression and a sense of isolation. In many cases, alcohol was used as a type of medication to dull the sharp edges of life. Tennessee Williams seemed to be speaking for himself when he had one of his characters in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof say, ‘‘Mendacity is a system that we live in. Liquor is one way out an’ death’s the other.’’
In some cases, creative professions may be the only work an alcoholic could do. The individual has the freedom to drink and work as a writer or painter. Utrillo, according to Sandborn, was slightly retarded. His family kept him supplied with wine and painting supplies.
A sense that alcohol somehow contributed to theircreativity (perhaps used as a justification for their drinking) helped demolish the long-term productivity or shortened the lives of many eminent creative people. Younger creative people still have the physical resilience to drink heavily and get their work done, but as they age it becomes more difficult, which is not surprising considering the physical effects of alcohol.
Of course, alcohol can deter productivity even when it is not used while an individual is working. Albert Rothenberg defined three states of drinking for the writers he studied:
1. Early in their career, they only drink after work.
2. Drinking begins to occur during the day as the need for alcohol increases, which is the progression experienced by most alcoholics. In the case of writers, the loneliness of the job combined with the anxiety and uncertainty of the work can lead to a state of ‘‘irritability.’’ Alcohol is used as a sedative which helps soothe frayed nerves.
3. The increased drinking results in a deterioration in the quality of the work.
Rothenberg cautioned that each case is individual and may be triggered by elements unconnected to writing such as genetics or family history. When the parent whom the writer lovingly and competitively identifies with is an alcoholic, then the dangers of alcoholism are particularly high. Examples include John Cheever and William Faulkner.
C. Experimental Research
Results of research using noneminent subjects indicates that the perception that alcohol influences creativity is greater than any real benefit to creativity that alcohol may give. The drinking of alcohol may exaggerate an individual’s self-assessment of his or her work. One study found that low doses of alcohol did not affect the quality of creative work, but subjects who believed they had taken alcohol thought their work was better. In another study, subjects who thought they had taken alcohol produced more creative combinations of wildflowers even if they had a placebo. This suggests that just thinking one has drunk alcohol may loosen some people’s inhibitions.
A few researchers have attempted to determine if alcohol facilitates creative writing under laboratory conditions. There are indications that alcohol significantly increases the number of words produced, confirming anecdotal accounts of writers who find alcohol an aid in producing work, but quantity does not necessarily equal quality.
One study measured the effect of alcohol on a control group, a placebo group, and an alcohol group during different phases of creativity. Moderate amounts of alcohol facilitated incubation and restitution in the college students, while harming the preparation, illumination, and verification stages. The researchers tied this in to self-reports of professional writers indicating they used alcohol primarily during the incubation and restitution stages of writing. They also concluded that the difficulty of creative writing leads to increased drinking.
Alcohol may reduce anxiety and tension for some writers, but there also appears to be a tendency for users to exaggerate the benefits, perhaps to justify its continued use. Because life circumstances are confounded with the propensity to use drugs, the causal relation of drugs to creativity remains uncertain. The fact that many creative people used alcohol moderately or heavily does not mean the alcohol caused creative solutions. None of these studies looked at how alcohol affects accomplished creative individuals under actual working conditions.
III. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Numerous researchers have cited reasons why creative people would use alcohol. They include:
1. Opportunity. Writers, artists, and composers often work alone so they can drink more often without anybody knowing about it.
2. The difficulty of the work. Creative work is tough and uncertain, and the road to success is paved with disappointment and rejection. Creative artists suffer blocks at times. Alcohol may provide escape from the pain.
3. Stress. Success brings its own pressure. Creators often feel they must match or exceed their previous work. Simonton proposes alcohol use may provide the user with a self-handicap, a convenient excuse that justifies failure.
4. Social reasons. Many artists, writers, and musicians met in bars and restaurants where drinking alcohol was an accepted part of the ritual.
5. Depression. Alcohol is sometimes used as selfmedication to ease depression even though in the long run it is a depressant.
6. Addiction. Some people simply cannot drink in moderation and eventually develop a dependency on alcohol.
7. Genetic predisposition. A much higher percentage of fathers, mothers, and siblings of eminent creative people were alcoholics.
8. As an aid. Some creative people have stated they felt alcohol helped their work, especially in overcoming anxiety during the initial sages of creation.
The number of variables involved make the relationship between alcohol and creativity a complex and intriguing area. Many questions remain unanswered. Research on alcohol and creative leaders in business, politics, and science needs to be done. Alcohol use peaked in 1980 and has been declining as awareness of the dangers of alcoholism and stricter drunk driving laws have been enforced. It will be interesting to see if the number of eminent alcoholic creators also declines.~
While many creative people have claimed that alcohol helped them, the truth of this statement in objective terms has not been determined. Ludwig concluded 9% of his sample had helped their creativity by using alcohol; however, he cautioned that the perception alcohol helps creative work could be exaggerated by the properties of alcohol. He pointed to John Cheever, Eugene O’Neill, and Jackson Pollock as examples of creative people who gave up alcohol and then did some of their best work.
Heavy use of alcohol over a long period of time clearly damaged the careers of many eminent creative people. This can be seen by looking at the declining quality in the work of actors such as Richard Burton and John Barrymore and writers such as Truman Capote and Jack Kerouac. In addition, many alcoholic creative people such as Charlie Parker, Jack London, and Stephen Crane died from alcohol-related illness, accidents, or suicides. F. Scott Fitzgerald summed up the danger of drinking in his work and life: ‘‘First I take a drink. Then the drink takes a drink. Then the drink takes me.’’
*************************
Eminent Creative People Thought to Be Alcoholic
Sherwood Anderson
John Barrymore
Bix Beiderbecke
Robert Benchley
John Berryman
Mathew B. Brady
Robert Burns
William Burroughs
Richard Burton
Truman Capote
Raymond Chandler
John Cheever
Eric Clapton
Stephen Crane
e. e. cummings
William de Kooning
Theodore Dreiser
T. S. Eliot
William Faulkner
W. C. Fields
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Gustave Flaubert
Stephan Foster
Jackie Gleason
Gluck
Dashiell Hammett
Lorenz Hart
Lillian Hellman
Ernest Hemingway
O. Henry
Dennis Hopper
Victor Hugo
James Joyce
Frida Kahlo
Buster Keaton
Jack Kerouac
Ring Lardner
Charles Laughton
Sinclair Lewis
Jack London
Robert Lowell
Malcolm Lowry
Dean Martin
Carson McCullers
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Robert Mitchum
Modigliani
Mary Tyler Moore
Modest (Petrovich) Mussorgsky
Nick Nolte
John O’Hara
Eugene O’Neill
Charlie Parker
Dorothy Parker
Edith Piaf
Edgar Allan Poe
Jackson Pollock
Bonnie Raitt
Frederic Remington
Mark Rothco
Jean-Paul Sartre
Ringo Starr
John Steinbeck
Elizabeth Taylor
Dylan Thomas
James Thurber
Toulouse-Lautrec
Mark Twain
Maurice Utrillo
Dick Van Dyke
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Wolfe
By Steven R. Pritzker in "Encyclopedia of Creativity", Mark. A. Runco & Steven R. Pritzker (editors-in-chief), Academic Press, USA, 1999, excerps v. 1 pp.53-57. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.
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