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Why do so many musicians get hooked on drugs, etc.?

#21
My experience has shown me that many musicians are searching for meaning their whole lives.

I would also say that the mainstream, safe, (American?), culture most of us were raised in does not provide as many outlets for that as the drug counter-culture does.

If a musician discovers some of the answers they've been looking while using drugs or while spending time with people who do, it can be pretty easy for them to start to believe that's where all the answers are even though that is not the case.
 
#22
I'd say that many musicians probably started doing drugs before they really became musicians.

Time for an anecdote:

I go ridiculously high once, plugged in my guitar, hit record, and just got lost in the music...for 2 hours.

From those recordings, I extrapolated riffs that have been used and combined to form 3 songs. Drugs, to an extent, have allowed me to break free of rational, left-brain thought ("I like these chords...which key is this? A mixolydian mode might work...") into my creative right-brain thought and even further into my subconscious. The guitar almost felt as if it were playing itself.

That being said, I do not use anything anymore and I would NEVER condone drugs (ESPECIALLY the man-made ones). If you were to listen to those recordings, you'd see that they are horribly sloppy and out-of-time, so there aren't any playing benefits to them either IMO.
 
#24
Joe Nerve said:
I don't think musicians are any more prone to drug and alcohol abuse than anyone else.
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I'd be inclined to say the same, since they suffer from the same problems as everybody else only they have more money to drown them (sadly) in substances. And the greater publicity, etc.

Another factor could be insecurity. I could see how an insecure person might want fame for the attention and unquestioning love of fans.
 
#25
Why? Because it's there.....

Drugs are reality in just about all professional fields. Sports, politics, arts, business, etc. As pertaining to music and art, it seems there is an element of creativity that results from drug use in some respects. However the price paid over the long term is high and I'm not just refering to money spent on drugs. Just look at the survivors today in their 60's who all attest to the physical, mental, and personal sacrifices endured while living the HIGH life. Most of us reading this have partaken up to a point in one way or another however I would think we should know the limit of this partaking. Invincibility when your 22 and on top of your game is pretty much the norm but all that arogant thinking changes over time, should you survive it. The addicted have the hardest road and the highest mortality rate. Had Charlie Parker not left us when he did would he have made a difference? Miles Davis could have bought the farm on several occasions but surviving his addictions we all saw and heard how his music evolved over the decades. On the other hand being that some very tallented and inovative musicians died early, it may have opened the door for others to study then add their spin to that unfinished business and create most of what we hear today. When you get to the top there's no place to go but down but not all buy into that. This subject is wide open however the bottom line is.... 'if you're going to jump in the pool, know how deep it is and have the common sense to get out before you drown'.

Tiger Woods is another story, an addiction of another kind.
 
#26
David Lee Roth

"I used to have a drug problem, now I make enough money"


imho, certain substances alter your perception of yourself and reality. I would say that most "musicians" get into music for it's power and acknowledge the effect it has on people. Ultimately it wouldn't be hard to argue that in fact, music can be considered a drug itself. Artists like to explore the infinite possibilities that our existence gives us, with drugs being a very powerful (and readily available) example of possibilities.

the abuse is just where the problem lies. Drugs can be used as a tool to leearn from and explore, but when it becomes used out of habit or desperation, you've given up your own control and can quickly spiral down.
 
#27
JustOpenYourMind said:
Music is pretty much the only buisness where substance abuse can be marketed as an image,

I'm pretty sure that there's a lot of drugs, alchool and sex abuse in every sphere where there's money and fame, it's just not public...
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I think this hits the nail on the head.

It has nothing to do with this nonsense about "weak minds". That's a childish oversimplification of what is a complex phenomenon.
 
#28
Unlike we were thought in school. Drug use is not the same as drug abuse. I don't think that drug abuse is more prevalent in musicians/artists, but I would expect drug use to higher.

I think there are some very legitimate answers here, but I think that the fact that drug use & abuse is an acceptable, almost expected part of being a "musician".

And for professional musicians, they CAN do it. They don't have to pee in a cup when they show up for a gig or a A&R meeting. And younger, up and coming musicians see this when they start playing out and they think "hey I love this guitar player, he's drinking half a liter of jack before each show..."

Also no one has mentioned the drags of actually being on the road. Sleeping on a bus with nothing to do, only having real personal interaction with the same 5-15 people day in and day out. Playing a show and loading out at 3am then grabbing some food and then a quick 'paper rock scissors' to see who drives first. Then you get to next venue and you have to go promote your show. Either go out and shake hands, hand out flyers and kiss a lot of butt or they do radio or meet and greet with a bunch of people who just want something from them. The drummer is being a jerk and the guitar player whining about the last show and you just want to them all to shut the hell up.

Musicians do tend to have an addictive personalities. A lot of them are great musicians because of that. They get addicted to their instrument and that's what they do. How many great musicians that end up junkies were already jerks that with relationship issues before they started getting high.

just my $.02
 
#30
slyderhodge said:
Unlike we were thought in school. Drug use is not the same as drug abuse. I don't think that drug abuse is more prevalent in musicians/artists, but I would expect drug use to higher.

I think there are some very legitimate answers here, but I think that the fact that drug use & abuse is an acceptable, almost expected part of being a "musician".

And for professional musicians, they CAN do it. They don't have to pee in a cup when they show up for a gig or a A&R meeting. And younger, up and coming musicians see this when they start playing out and they think "hey I love this guitar player, he's drinking half a liter of jack before each show..."

Also no one has mentioned the drags of actually being on the road. Sleeping on a bus with nothing to do, only having real personal interaction with the same 5-15 people day in and day out. Playing a show and loading out at 3am then grabbing some food and then a quick 'paper rock scissors' to see who drives first. Then you get to next venue and you have to go promote your show. Either go out and shake hands, hand out flyers and kiss a lot of butt or they do radio or meet and greet with a bunch of people who just want something from them. The drummer is being a jerk and the guitar player whining about the last show and you just want to them all to shut the hell up.

Musicians do tend to have an addictive personalities. A lot of them are great musicians because of that. They get addicted to their instrument and that's what they do. How many great musicians that end up junkies were already jerks that with relationship issues before they started getting high.

just my $.02
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Wow.....well said.
 
#31
I am sure that there are many, many reasons why. Here is one reason drawn from my own experience. I was in a professional outfit back in the '70's. Our repertoire consisted of 95% original material with four part vocal harmonies. By the time we had a song written, arranged and polished enough for performing we had played it hundreds of times in practice. We performed the songs in concert or club settings as often as seven times a week; sometimes twice a day. We recorded the material after a year or so of performing it. To promote the album we toured and performed that same material again and again. For each audience it was new and fresh; for us it was getting old and stale. How would you like to be "America" and play "Horse With No Name" a gazillion times? You are also tired and bored from traveling, setting up, playing, tearing down every day. I began taking drugs to pep myself up so i could give the audience the performance they deserved; to add energy to the show. If you continue to do this you will eventually need something to bring you down so you can to sleep; drugs, sex or alcohol. That's why so many painters back in the day of oil based paint were drunkards; they needed alcohol to offset the high they were getting from paint and solvent fumes.
 
#32
roysloco said:
I think the bottom line is: Because they can get away with it.

If there's no consequence, then a weak-minded person will probably end up a mess.

If I turned up to work stoned or drunk, I'd be unemployed.
If a musician turns up to 'work' stoned or drunk ... :hmm:
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this, and...

Joe Nerve said:
I don't think musicians are any more prone to drug and alcohol abuse than anyone else.
Click to expand...

this.

the average auto mechanic or paper pusher doesn't have a tour manager or assistant to sober them up every morning(afternoon) and make sure they're on stage every night performing 110%. but there's plenty of former mechanics and paper pushers, and yes, musicians, living on the street because they couldnt hack it.
 
#36
Because musicians are humans and many times we'd like to be in a different state of mind, be it just grabbing a beer, taking pills or by consuming illicit substances.

Illegal drugs are easy to get, most of them are affordable and believe me, they can be really funny.

The problem is, some people can take drugs (licit or not), but some other people don't.

How does people gets addicted and why? It varies so much that's almost impossible to answer, most reasons are: environment and natural psychic tendencies (some people could get compulsive with virtually everything).

I my opinion addiction is a matter of public health, not a crime.
 
#40
It's part of the cultivated mythology of rock music. We're told that the musician life style lends itself to more drug use so that we'll spend more money on music. Not necessarily how the myth arose in the first place, but the main reason it's perpetuated. All IMO of course.

I've known plenty of musicians that use controlled substances and I've known plenty of non-musicians who do the same. I can't say the ration is particularly skewed from my personal experience.
 

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