I drink, therefore I can

"Drowning your sorrows is always an option, but could there be creativity in the bottom of that glass too? Unsurprisingly, several researchers have endeavoured to find out. After all, many of the most creative pursuits - jazz, for instance, and poetry - are associated with heavy boozing. Alas, not just one but several separate studies have come to the same conclusion: drinking alcohol does not make you more creative, it just makes you feel that you are, which, as everyone knows, is the next best thing."<p><a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227073.200-raise-a-glass.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227073.200-raise-a-g...</a>

The Ballmer Peak <i>is</i> real.

I've experimented with drinking for creativity in programming.<p>I occasionally get a good idea out of it but mostly just leads to confusing disjointed code. The difficulty lies in getting the level of intoxication right.<p>For those looking to try it, my recommendation would be to find an issue you can't solve sober. Make a copy that it doesn't matter if you destroy (you likely will). Then try and solve it while intoxicated.

It could also be that slightly-old-of-touch-with-reality people tend to drink, and also tend to be more creative in general. 552.<p>Churchill might seem an exception, but he suffered from depression (the "black dog"), and received heads of state while he was smoking a cigar in the bathtub. He also said "And you madam are ugly. But in the morning I shall be sober". One of my favourite guys.

I have never known a single person in my life that drinks to get "creative". I know people that are alcoholics. One old friend just gets morose. Another is a freaking violent, unstable asshole that I try increasingly to stay away from.<p>I can drink a little, or a lot, or none. I'm lucky that I can occasionally enjoy drinking without it "needing" it. Smoking is the vice that I can't seem to stop.<p>There is nothing good that comes out of being an alcoholic. It doesn't make you more creative of loosen your inner poetic homonculus. My brother is a recovering alcoholic. For years he was the biggest ass I have ever known. He stopped drinking completely about 10 years ago and while he still can be an all around jerk, the family loves having him around now and I've actually been building a real relationship with him after 20 years.