There's a quote from Ernest Hemingway that I love: "Write drunk; edit
sober." (I did not learn of this quote in any of my English or writing
classes. I learned this from Pinterest. Can you believe it?) I'm not
much of a drinking-while-writing type--pretty sure I'd end up using my
keyboard as a pillow--but it looks like science is actually backing up
Hemingway.
Hemingway's not alone, of course. There are plenty of artists who
have called on the bottle (and other things) when they were writing,
painting, composing, or drawing when they wanted some creative
inspiration. Now, a new study in
Consciousness and Cognition is showing that alcohol may actually help creative problem-solving. In other words: it really
could get you thinking more creatively.
In the study, researchers gave half of the participants (all men)
vodka and cranberry cocktails; the other half teetotaled it. Everyone
watched
Ratatouille (this is sounding like an awesome party!)
and then had to answer a series of word-association problems. The drunk
guys--who had blood alcohol contents of 0.075 (just under the legal
limit)--solved the problems more quickly
and correctly than the sober guys.
Plus, the vodka-swilling men solved the problems more intuitively, reporting that the answers just "came to them," instead of thinking them out in specific ways.
The researchers say that, because alcohol impairs "executive
function," it may help free up parts of the mind to deal with problems
in a more creative way. This opens up other questions, according to TIME's Healthland:
"Perhaps creative people are more likely than others to be attracted to
drugs in the first place, as a possible source of inspiration. And
then, if reduced executive function is responsible in part for their
initial talent, this, too, could make them more susceptible to addiction
once they start using. Having less executive control before you even
take drugs means you'll have less ability to stop once you start."
Naturally, the findings come with a word of caution: "We tested what
happens when people are tipsy--not when people drank to extreme. There
could be no argument from these findings that drinking excessively would
have the same effects," said study co-author Jennifer Wiley.