Ernest Hemingway drank, Aldous Huxley turned to psychedelics, and Stephen King binged on cocaine. Countless musicians, artists, and authors over the years have fallen under the influence of drugs and alcohol, feeding into the romanticized myth about substances and creativity. Today, our culture fixates on celebrities splashed across magazine covers with the words “drug rehab” plastered across their chests in big letters. The idea persists that substances make for a better writer, musician, or songwriter, but does that idea have any basis in fact? Some would claim that anecdotal evidence says yes. Countless creative works have been produced while under the influence of drugs. Samuel Taylor Coleridge famously wrote “Kubla Kahn” while taking opium, David Bowie’s album “Station to Station” was influenced by cocaine, and Robert Louis Stevenson wrote “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” in six days while on a cocaine bender. These feats may inspire others to use drugs to fuel creative endeavours, but the truth is that long-term drug use will only cause detriment. Syd Barrett, the founder of Pink Floyd, used LSD to the point of harm; stories tell of him playing one chord for an entire concert. For every glamorous tale of creative drug use, there’s a story of those who needed treatment in an addiction recovery facility, those whose careers were ended by drugs, or most tragically, those who died by overdose or suicide. Because so many creative people…
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