<SMALL>Our law enforcement personnel are now prosecuting and jailing some of those same individuals for using the same substances that the government condoned and issued during war-time eras</SMALL>
Ah yes, there was a time not so long ago when guns were good, drugs were legal and gambling was the devil's tool. Now I understand that guns are bad, drugs are illegal and we now pay our schoolteachers with state-run gambling proceeds. What a world.
Fine thread you got going here, Eric, it's honesty time and with a lifetime of self-medication behind me I guess it's time to spill the beans....
When I was a very young kid the docs said I was "hyperactive" and put me on dexedrine to "calm me down" - I liked myself far better the way I was without their "help" and refused to take the stuff. That was before tags such as "ADD (Authentically Destined for Divinity) and other acronyms inferring that the "deficit" and the "disorder" was somehow attached to the subject individuals to cover the flaws in the societal paradigm - parents and teachers whose lives were so "disodered" that they could not give their children the proper "attention" - so we give the kids bad television and worse drugs to make them behave "appropriately."
After that experience I have never been attracted to speed of any kind and what I watched happen to many good friends kept me away from barbs and cocaine when they were considered popular recreational therapies. Sloppy drunk has never been sexy to me so I tend to keep that to a minimum as well.
As for "finding my muse" if I smoke a bowl before I play I have no problem getting in touch with my muse and being fabulously entertained by what I PLAY, but the recorder does not lie, inevitably what the rest of the world actually HEARS me play really sucks. I will often have a glass of wine or beer at a gig and it seems to settle my nerves and stop my hands from shaking (that would be the shakiness that comes from smoking a bowl to get in touch with the muse...).
Playing clean and sober I find myself executing very cleanly but all night I'm sitting there and wondering when the great ideas will start coming. When I go back and listen to the recording I usually find that they were there all night, I just didn't notice them as they went by.
As for the prescription stuff, after tobacco, alcohol and "workplace hazards and toxins" one of the biggest causes of pre-natural death in the USA is what is politely known as "medical misadventures" or basically, "the doc screwed up and the patient died." The docs kill many times more folks than guns or cars do...and let's not forget that the FBI has determined that over 90% of school shootings involve kids who were put on Prozac or similar substances by the family doc and have gone tragically haywire when they stopped taking it.
I do a lot of work with pro athletes as well as musicians and when all is said and done, the whole world has been trying to figure out the same performance puzzle for years - you can eat the same, sleep the same, practice the same, meditate, pray, whatever you do, the same every day, but from day to day and moment to moment it seems we can NEVER play the same - one moment we're fabulously brilliant and the next we're face down on the floor. I imagine that if one were to question the legendary players they would concur that none of us ever gets it 100% no matter what our habits or intentions.<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Dave Grafe on 17 March 2006 at 11:26 AM.]</p></FONT>