[madisgram]

there are many ways we can romance with our booze. one i think of immediately is our going sober to a bar with all the ambiance.
or recalling how warm and fuzzy we used to feel when we drank.
there are so many ways that we romance the very thing that will kill us.
imo if we enjoy the romancing. then drink on to oblivion, death, or much lower bottoms. bottoms that we can't get back up anymore.
for me alcohol is my very worst enemy. i have a healthy fear of it. i take my sobriety very seriously. i find no good cause to "play" with the notion that my alcoholism is a joke, justme.

January 16, 2011 written by james brown, author, not whitney's james brown!
I used to romanticize my drinking and using. Since most of the writers I admired were drunks (Hemingway, Faulkner, Kerouac, Eugene O'Neil...it's a long list), I came to believe that being a drunk was a prerequisite to being a writer. That it sparked creativity. That it somehow inspired the imagination. That my brother was also a drunk, and a fine actor, just reinforced my misguided belief that artists were tragic figures. So I drank. So I used. And I actually did get a good deal of writing done, some of it okay, much of it not, but in the process of romancing the bottle and powders I eventually quit producing altogether. Eventually all I cared about was the next drink, the next high. The writing deteriorated, as did my life, and toward the end of my drinking days I was really nothing more than one extremely sick man, selfish and self-centered, and oblivious to the harm I caused those I loved most. Ironically, now that I'm sober, I've been able to produce what I like to believe are my better works. Even more ironic is that I've drawn material for these better works from the very life that nearly killed me and caused terrible pain to others. How do I personally feel about that? Not good. If I could change the past, I would, but of course I can't. What I can do is change how I think about it, so the guilt doesn't devour, and that's a work in progress. http://www.jamesbrownauthor.com/blog.htm?post=766089

[Caretaker Leo]

I majored in English in college and was intrigued by some of the same authors. Creative, reporting on society and the culture of their time. Were they really alcoholics? Or did they just celebrate after submitting great works? I can't and won't judge... It is doubtful to me that they could have produced what they did if always under the influence.

For myself, I can see the huge difference between what I write if I've been drinking versus what I write when sober. It is only my sober writing that moves me ahead in my life.

Anything I write while drinking is depressing and unhealthy. Drunk writing might be a way for some of us to put our repressed thoughts and feelings on paper - but it is doubtful that those are the thoughts that will finally lead us toward a happy and fulfilled life - unless we read them again while sober and really, truly think about the "why" and "what" behind our writing.