In Defense of Intoxication
Let’s not forget the positive side of getting drunk
Hold my drink: I’m going to make the case for intoxication.
There’s a significant historical precedent for the use of mind-altering substances. While the use of mushrooms by the druids of pre-Roman Europe is debated, although not implausible, there’s solid evidence of the use of all manner of psychedelics in the Americas dating as far back as 1500 B.C. There are even those who have argued that our religious impulses stem from prehistorical tripping.
Outside of ritual and medicinal use of substances, alcohol emerged as a way of allowing ordinary people some kind of release from their daily drudgery, and as a social lubricant. Five thousand years ago, Mesopotamian laborers were paid in beer, while halfway across the world, saliva-fermented drink chicha straddled both ritual and drink-of-the-people roles in South American cultures.
We have long associated various degrees of intoxication with creativity. While something of a cliché, there’s no denying the intertwined histories of altered mind states and artistic endeavor — no Apollonian without the Dionysian, and all that. Names like Baudelaire, Coleridge, or Poe possess almost narcotic qualities, evoking the mystic and visionary elements of their work.
