Let’s say, for argument’s sake, it’s the works party but you can’t leave your desk until you’ve sent a client an incredible idea. You’ve been handed a wine or two and you think it’s all about to fall apart. Don’t panic – it could be a good thing; the alcohol running through your blood may increase your creativity. It’s time to write drunk.

Let’s start with the authors

Shelley, Hemingway, Thomas, Fitzgerald, King, Poe, DeQuincy, Yeats, Wild, Chandler, Plath, Lowry, Coleridge … the list goes on. A lot (A LOT) of well-known authors enjoyed a drink or two, and although alcohol is not a long-term solution, it can be credited with unlocking the doors of creativity.

So what happens when we drink?

An abundance of things happens when we drink alcohol. However, we will focus on the ones that encourage creativity.

Glutamate and GABA
Glutamate and GABAergic neurons comprise 90% of all brain cells (Lewis, 2013). When we drink alcohol, our glutamate is inhibited, and other inhibitors such as dopamine and serotonin are released (Bardi, 2002).

GABA calms the nervous system by preventing the transmission of specific signals to the brain (with all the neurons talking to each other, they can get too excited and need to be regulated). Alcohol is thought to mimic GABA’s effect by binding to the same receptors and inhibiting neuronal signalling, which is one of the reasons you feel more relaxed and less inhibited.

Dopamine 
“Alcohol tends to activate the whole reward system.” (Professor George F. Koob, cited in Bardi, 2002, p. 2)

Dopamine floods our system (the release of dopamine can be increased by even a small amount of alcohol) , and the reward areas of our brain are activated, which results in the feeling of pleasure. So we become more excitable and more prone to find ways of keeping our dopamine levels up.

Norepinephrine
A hormone and neurotransmitter made from dopamine helps to increase alertness, arousal, and attention. After your first drink, your norepinephrine levels are elevated. This increases your impulsivity and lowers your inhibitions. At this point, we start reacting without thinking about the consequences.

When we drink, we become less inhibited, more excitable, and reduce our ability to use rational thinking. Potentially the best ingredients for increasing our creativity.

A bit of scientific research

To test this theory, 40 men were asked to complete 20 word puzzles. Half of the men were given alcohol (blood alcohol content 0.075%), and half weren’t. The men who didn’t have alcohol in their blood were 32% slower than those who had had alcohol. The conclusion drawn by the researchers was that they thought in a more creative way to get to the solution (Jarosz et al., 2012).

A bit of not-so-scientific research

Then there’s the experiment that The Drum conducted. Eighteen advertising creatives were split into two groups and given three hours to develop some ideas from a brief. These ideas were then pitched to a group of creatives. One group was sober, and the other was allowed to drink as much alcohol as they liked. Named the Newt/Judge Experiment (after the masterminds behind it), the theory was that the alcohol would initially encourage more creativity but then this would drop “below initial standards” as the number of shots built up.

The theory was proved wrong.

The alcohol team was not only more productive throughout the whole exercise, but they came up with four of the five top ideas.

Can we go too far?

The obvious disclaimer is that doing this excessively leads to many nasties.

But is too far … too creative .. even a problem?

I prefer to look at this on two levels. The first is that it could be argued that every author I’ve studied who misused substances had a natural talent and would have created remarkable work regardless of their use of alcohol (my dissertation examined substance abuse and the way it affected writers)(Spencer, 1995).

The second is that, yes – you can take it too far.

Uninhibited thought

Heroin, opium, cocaine etc. … Yes – I know this escalated quickly, but hang in there!

Uninhibited thought can also be reached through drug use. Naked Lunch – the novel by William Burroughs – is a fabulous example of un-gated unconscious thought. Burroughs used several opiates during the years in which he wrote Naked Lunch. The novel is a delightful example of the mind being recorded on the page without interruption. He was lucky enough to have a group of talented friends who sorted it into some sort of narrative.

Some call it a masterpiece (Burgess, 1964), some call it a “stain” (Harris, 2009) – whatever way you look at it, Naked Lunch, I feel, forces us to see sides of human nature that we don’t want to see – and this is taking things too far.

So, although alcohol may unlock inhibitions, we still need to curate what everyone else gets to see.

Imagine a world full of unfiltered thoughts and actions!!!

This is why we cannot depend on this technique to come up with all of our creative – we can’t afford to lose our grip on reality.

Do we need alcohol to be creative?

How can we be consistently creative without having to get drunk?

One thing we can take from Burroughs is a technique he described as “automatic writing”, which allows the writer to let the information flow from their mind without barriers. Burroughs used substances to do this; some writers use meditation, and others put themselves into a trance. I, however, champion Anne Lamott’s advice which is simply to write:

You don’t have to go to the pub

• Don’t block
  Implement the “don’t block” rule – don’t block yourself, don’t block others. There’s nothing worse when everyone’s dopamine is running high than someone saying, “that won’t work”. Keep it all calm in a non-threatening way – encourage the feeling of the GABA.

• What happens in Vegas
  Build an environment that encourages uninhibited ideas and unfiltered thoughts through trust. Not just a “catch me if I fall” kind of trust but a “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” level of confidence. Everyone should be free to flow with their thoughts without any level of judgment. In a way, we’re recreating the effects of the norepinephrine.

• Be possessed
  Keep the pace up and have one person scribbling down everything like they’re channelling the afterlife. Hit the creative hard and hit it fast; keep the dopamine flowing. And when the energy levels drop. Stop. Have a break. Then come back and hit the dopamine again.

• Then sleep on it
  Give yourself a break and let your unconscious thoughts flow. Take your thoughts to bed with you and see where your ideas are taken.

And when you’re done with all of this, look at what you’ve got and see what has legs

The takeaway

So, to take that infamous misquote “Write drunk, edit sober” and make it more usable – “Create spontaneously, edit later”. Not quite the same buzz, admittedly … but more natural. Or just hold your creative meetings in the pub (occasionally).