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When I got sober in 2008, there were a few commonly-held positives about drugs and alcohol.
One was that a glass of wine or a beer or two every day might actually have some health benefits.
Another was that alcohol and drugs can take the edge off at night and help you sleep.
And a big one for me personally was the idea that getting tipsy or loaded was a big boost to my creativity. I found myself nodding along a few months ago when musician Harry Styles credited mushrooms for inspiring him to write his most recent album, which was a giant hit. He’s the millionth artist in human history to point toward some sort of alcohol or drugs as a jumpstarter for creativity. That always made sense to me.
Well, it turns out that all three of those might be total b******t. Or at least it’s unclear whether they help, hurt or have no effect.
For the first one, recent studies have shown that it’s pretty dubious whether all the early headlines about a drink or two might boost health. To be fair, it also appears to be unclear whether it necessarily hurts health. It’s just safe to say that if I ever clung to the idea that my health is being hurt by not drinking, well, that’s probably not true.
For the second one, it’s become pretty obvious that alcohol and drugs as a sleep aid is actually the exact opposite of the truth. The stuff I have been reading indicates that drinking may help you get to sleep easier and faster, but the sleep is not good sleep and that over the long haul, it’s damaging to your overall health.
And last but not least, I really did hold the belief that I would lose some creativity if I didn’t have drugs and alcohol in my system. I didn’t entirely find that to be the case since I got sober. But I still subscribed to the idea that some of history’s great artists probably made beautiful paintings and books and songs with the aid of being drunk or high.
Well, last week I stumbled upon a study that concludes pretty firmly that that is not the case. Researchers found that even though artists tend to believe this is true—Harry Styles, for one—it probably is a myth.
What was especially interesting to me is that that same study found a few things that are more beneficial to creativity than drugs and alcohol. They cited meditation, exposure to culture and working out as better aids… which is pretty wild, because those are several things that sobriety encourages you to explore as you try to replace the void of alcohol and drugs.
Huh, who’d have figured?
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
FISHING FOR A LITTLE SYMPATHY, an AA member, quoting from the Bible, said, "I'm just a laborer in the vineyard." In proper Al-Anon fashion, his wife retorted, "You're an alcoholic, what are you doing in a vineyard?"
(Credit: AA Grapevine, April 2005, by John M. of Toronto, Ontario)
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