The Cutprice Guignol

Write drunk, edit sober, so the old adage goes.

And that was an adage I took very seriously. Well, apart from the part about editing sober. Edit drunk! Proofread drunk! Catch weird word repetitions you got from going back to expand on a thought drunk!

I’ve been writing as a job for the better part of a decade now, and, during that time, I’ve certainly relied on substances of various flavours to coax my little creativity turtle out of her shell. I was less self-conscious when I was A Bit Out of It, felt like I was able to access some parts of my brain that anxiety or depression had cut off the route to for far too long. It wasn’t that I couldn’t write while I was in my right mind, I told myself; it was just that I was better at it when I happened to be drunk. I splurged out great big pages of prose and steadily worked my way through two bottles of wine and considered that an evening well spent (until the next morning, at least).

To some extent, I romanticized that idea, felt like I was tapping in to some ancient line of writers hunched over wobbly desks, smoking thirty cigarettes and scrawling away the next great novel (or at least the next mediocre blog post). I think, if you’re in any kind of creative field, substance use is a pretty standard part of the background noise. Whether it’s having a glass of wine to get the juices flowing to work on that novel or sparking up a joint to write some new music, there’s always been this tacit connection between the arts and the art of getting yourself a bit bladdered. There are plenty of reasons for this – there’s some research into the connection between those prone to substance abuse and addiction and creativity, and, in a broader sense, the creative industries often offer more flexibility and freedom than other work, leaving space for those with substance abuse issues to continue to use with more ease.

There’s also a dark kind of glamour to the stories of creative people who lose themselves to addiction, though I think a lot of us would prefer not to admit it. The tragedy of a creative consumed by substance abuse, creating incredible, seminal art and then dropping dead is a story told and retold in these circles, repeated until it starts to feel almost normal, almost, in some grim way, aspirational. Their art and their substance abuse become intimately tangled until there’s little space between them at all.

Which poses the question: what the fuck happens when you’re a creative who gets sober? It’s a question I had to contend with myself, when I quit drinking six years ago. Using drink not just as a social lubricant but as a professional one posed one hell of a problem, and I spent months putting it off because I could excuse it as part of my job: okay, but if this wine helps me finish this book, helps me be more honest and open, helps me put into words what I’m really feeling, it’s for the best, right?

Short answer: no, it’s not. But the long answer is that I did struggle with my creativity in the months following my sobriety, and found writing, which has been my refuge for so long, a low-level trigger towards breaking my sobriety. I felt like a stranger sifting through all my thoughts again, doors that had once flown open slammed in my face as I tried to access certain emotions or concepts that had been easier to pursue when I was drunk. What had once come easily to me felt clunky now; and I found myself wondering if I was just better at all of this when I had the aid of substances to get me through it. Maybe this career wasn’t for me, if I couldn’t do it when I was sober, you know?

But look, here’s the thing: writing for me has always been a matter of honesty. Which sounds strange, given that I write a lot of fiction, but there’s an honesty of emotion and expression that has always been why I come back to this place for comfort. And sobriety has given me an up-close and personal – sometimes too personal – view of what the honest, unadulterated version of myself looks like.

As I got more used to who that person was, writing actually became easier than it had been before. I wrote my first novel the year I got sober, and I’m still, to this day, so proud of it and what it represents as part of my career as an author: an actual reflection of me and my work and my passion, un-enabled by the veil of booze. On a technical level, I’ve improved because my memory retention and focus have improved since I quit drinking. I’ve gone on to do work I’m very proud of that I know I wouldn’t have had the patience or follow-through to pursue if I was still drinking, and I’m so grateful for that.

The drunk version of me felt like the most honest one, the one most unencumbered by fear, for a long time, and therefore the one that had the most to say. Truth was, that version was what I thought people wanted to read, and was always obscuring the actual one underneath. The real version of me is one who’s anxious, sometimes depressed, often self-conscious, but she’s also clearer in purpose, focused, and willing to draw on those less charming or appealing parts of herself for her work.

I know that sobriety can be intimidating if you’re someone who works in a creative industry, particularly in you make your living off it, and I’d love to hear about your experiences with it in the comments below!

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