Do you have any drug habits?
If yes, do you keep it in private, or are you open about it?
Where and how does it fall into your literary life?
Will a writer benefit from such a lifestyle, if he takes his craft seriously to begin with?
The purpose of this thread is simply to collect Veeky Forums's thoughts and musings on this subject matter
>Will a writer benefit from such a lifestyle, if he takes his craft seriously to begin with?
kek
every """""""""""""writer""""""""""""" takes his """""""""""""craft""""""""""""" seriously
DUDE
stop trying to justify your depravity son
I am not a writer, but the only one I make a habit of is alcohol. I'll typically drink once or twice a week and get moderately fucked up every time. I've tried weed, and it really didn't seem that interesting. Just makes me hungry and screws up time perception, and I laugh at things I don't even want to laugh at. All of my friends who have turned it into a habit become unmotivated in everything and can't have any fun if they're not high.
Shrooms, however, are very interesting. They're not what I'd call fun, and I'm not one of those assholes that say you need them to enlighten you or whatever, but the perspective they give you is wild and nearly indescribable. I've only done them twice, and they affect people in very different ways.
For me, they made me analyze absolutely everything, things that were happening that day and in my life as a whole. I kept telling my friend that it was like I saw my life as lines in Hamlet, and I was picking it apart to find subtext and symbolism in everything around me. I remember walking down a dorm staircase, with an alarm going off that got louder and louder until we reached the bottom, opened the door, and stepped out into sunlight on snow, and it was one of the most beautiful and poetic things I'd ever seen. I told him we'd been baptized, and that the outside was a new life. I highly suggest trying them if you can find somebody you trust to make sure you don't lose your shit.
>consuming anything other than absinthe
>Do you have any drug habits?
Yes. I drink and smoke pot and cigarettes and do psychedelics ocassionally.
>If yes, do you keep it in private, or are you open about it?
Can't really hide the smell of cigarette smoke. And I am usually always stoned and/or drunk. Psychedelics are fun to talk about too so I guess I'm pretty public.
>Where and how does it fall into your literary life?
I actually feel like taking drugs has made me read and write less. I am trying to cut back some. All my life I thought I was an introverted person but now I'm constantly hanging out and smoking with friends since I became a psychonaut.
>Will a writer benefit from such a lifestyle, if he takes his craft seriously to begin with?
The careful use of certain drugs can certainly be medicinal to the psyche. There is no shame in self-medication insofar as so many valuable drugs are illegal due to draconian laws.
The only poetry I've been deeply proud of, sober, I wrote while I was under the influence of heroin. I can deeply empathise with the Romantic poets like Coleridge and their description of pipe dreams - it is like being transported to an ineffable world where even mundane things are imbued with emotional potential and depth. The most vivid dream I had while nodding was one where I was sat in the shade of a wind mill, in a pastoral scene, with fields of flowers spreading out around me warmly blurred like in a Monet painting. I felt a found sense of serenity that left me feeling regret when I came to again with my attempt at a rollie strewn on the floor in front of where I sat. These pipe dreams leave a sort of vivid afterimage in your mind that inclines it towards poetic expression and unaffectedly eloquent composition. When you try to write prose on opiates though, you end up going into painfully long digressions and meandering paths of thought - it's why Confessions by de Quincey is so rife with them.
With amphetamines, you can produce voluminous amounts of prose, though I find it altogether useless for poetry. The prose you write also tends towards being verbose and sesquipedalian. I find it generally draws out a very Latin vocabulary, and a very formal and rigid style. It turns writing into an extremely quick and efficient process, because it combines a rapid and associative form of thinking with induced ability to assemble it in a florid way with few mistakes. The main drawback is that the speed of thought renders it difficult to dwell on any one detail for long, and you end up rapidly flitting between them. This results in shallow work that lacks insight. I would recommend avoiding amphetamines for concise or serious prose. I'm a pharmaceutical chemist and I use it for college work mostly, where there is a constant back-and-forth between reference material, data and the writing that suits amphetamine, and where the functional tone of the writing isn't out of place.
Hope this helped. I don't advocate starting to use drugs as it will probably damage your style and general well-being instead of developing your skills as they should - properly and painstakingly. On the other hand, I find amphetamines a lifesaver for functional and academic writing.
As it sets off serotinin in controlled bursts, you could argue that internet use is a drug. in which case mine of choice are watching youtube videos and perusing the various chans.
Other than I used to be addicted to weed and am probably an alcoholic. I'm also fat and on my third coffee for the day, so throw in food and caffeine to the mix.
I drink occasionally, and when I do I smoke tobacco. I end up smoking because all the best conversations happen between drunk people huddled together smoking in the smokers area of the establishment. Other than that I take acid maybe once a month with breaks of up to 6 months sometimes. I always feel more grounded after taking acid, the experience itself can be horrifying but the months afterwards are fantastic.
I used to smoke weed almost every day for a period of about a year, it's easy to fall into that habit. I still do but only socially. Weed just makes you happy and dumb.
As for writing, psychedelics could give you fresh perspectives, but aren't going to make you a creative genius, as popular opinion would have you believe.
my favorite drug book is Peter Pan
it's about a little boy who never grew up
Drugs are fun but will have little if any positive impact on your writing
ok loser fag
A lot of people never stop using drugs, they just stop being blatantly obvious or obnoxious about it.
You'll meet post-docs and lecturers who still 420blazeit on the downlow, even outside of the arts.
Here's your (You)
You kids... You can smoke pot on the regular and still read and write and do all your dumb creative shit. I've been smoking on and off for 6 years, I still read a shit ton and write a shit ton, with out without weed. I smoke for the same reason I write, but I don't smoke in order to write or feel creative.
They're separate activities, you dig?
Interesting, user.
I've taken to smoking a pipe, if you count nicotine as a drug. I find it relaxing to sit down for an hour or two and smoke while reading or simply thinking.
Aside from that I've done a multitude of drugs, uppers, downers, psychedelics, hallucinogens, and even dissociative and deliriants. None of them were of much worth in the end though, and I don't believe they have added anything in terms of creativity or originality, basically just rehashing my own thoughts previously held. Oh and I've drank plenty as well.
In the end it is your own choice to do as you please, but if you are so lacking that you seek to drugs for an answer I am quite sure you will find them equally as empty as your self.
Absinthe is the fedora of drinks
Druggie degenerates have no place on Veeky Forums.
So fuck up. Before I fuck u up.
during my final two years of college i drank pretty heavily, smoked weed errday for about a six month period, and experimented with whatever other drugs i could get my hands on. in retrospect i regret nearly all of it. that lifestyle of excess only encouraged physical and intellectual laziness, and i'm grateful to have moved beyond it.
i still drink, but rarely more than a beer or two during a meal or something. i'll get drunk maybe once or twice a month. smoke pot every now and again as well. kind of wish i had some right now but i don't know any dealers anymore.
I flirted with marijuana but I have zero skills to hang out with groups. I can keep a one on one conversation but 2 is a crowd.
So most of my use was alone in my bedroom until my family found out because of snitchy neighbors.
I took the edgy stance of being the weed activist who's hard working in uni. And boy did they fucking break me.
I can't concentrate sober because of adhd. Under weed ridden with paranoia I'm a vegetable.
I know it's not for everybody, but I've found that an occasional psychedelic trip at a high doage is good for getting much needed perspective. It's like stepping off the moving train that is your life and taking a look at where it's going, where it's been recently, and if the answers to those questions are unsatisfactory, what needs to change.
Regular use of any drug will bring nothing but harm to your life and will corrupt your consciousness, so stay away from that I guess.
I trip once or twice a year for the same reason. Cleans me out, so to speak.
With respect to the OP, I used to be a pretty heavy drug user and pretty open about it. I still do them occasionally, but I'm much more private about it now and stay clear of certain substances.
Drugs have no association with my literary life. I think a writer might benefit from getting out of the house and getting into a bit of trouble, but I don't think they have any direct kind of benefit. Certainly not when it comes to actually putting words on the page. However, drugs will show you a side of human nature that you may not be exposed to otherwise. I am talking about harder stuff though, not smoking weed or taking the occasional pill. That being said, it's easier than you think to fall off the deep end. Gotta be real careful with some things. And you can get out of the house and get some life experience without drugs too, just to be clear.
Am I in no way an advocate.
To speak directly about the correlation between drugs and writing, I'll start with: psychotropic substances of any kind will land you in a position of polar thinking in which everything implies everything else. You can't have one without another. To that extent, the liberation of judgement and simply the transition into awareness can excel a writer to get down to the real nitty-gritty. You see, because it's really all a fantastic story, each and every one of us. These small moments we take for granted shape the perception of people around us; and in turn we can appreciate the same sentiments about the characters, places and plots we write.
Every culture is different and same with those who inhabit them. As Westerners we're not often open to the thought of hedonism in any form and are forced to pretend like when we crack open a beer, it's because we deserve it: we had a long day, we were stressed, we're tired. It seems the only time appropriate for indulging in fun activities is at night... Take for example: sex.
Narcotics are goofy and fun, ruthless and unforgiving. Creativity can't be bottled, if it could it wouldn't be very creative anymore. The point is: who cares? I would rather die ten years too early than ten minutes too late. Life is the cosmos at play. As a writer, as a poet, it's your duty, it's your privilege and it's your challenge to describe the indescribable.
Now, how do you do that? Well, definitely by not taking it seriously.
I'm in grad school and I've found that it's a lot easier to read everything if I smoke a couple times a week. It's perfect for the initial skimming of texts and identifying important parts of the text to go back to later. I also notice that if I smoke even a little bit, I don't want to drink alcohol for long periods of time.
I was drinking too much last year, and even though it wasn't a lot yet, I would lose about half of my weekend to hangovers/going out. If I smoke I can get shit done, it's more enjoyable, and I don't feel like shit after.
I'd like to cut both out though, because I don't think my girlfriend really knows how much I smoke, and I don't think she would approve if she knew.
I drink whiskey mainly at night and drink myself to sleep. That's usually it. But I do most of my reading and writing during day or while I'm drinking myself to sleep at night
I kek'd
i cycle a bunch of different shit. i don't take anything unless at least 3 days has passed since i last took it. seems to be working out fine i guess.
i basically can't function if i'm sober
I used to do drugs and drink a lot.
I don't anymore. I am much more productive now. I read and write more.
I believe that it is possible to manage a drug habit and a writing habit but it hasn't worked for me. And I would find it genuinely difficult to believe if someone were to tell me that doing drugs is actually improving their writing practice longterm. I think that drugs and writing can go together but I think it is rare that they improve each other.
Writing is work. Drugs get in the way of work.