An interesting review of the psychological and biographical background to the drug and alcohol addictions of musicians can be found at the BPS Research digest blog. Like many with a liberal bent to their social attitudes, I've always instinctually revolted against the idea that a substance (be it alcohol or cocaine) should be treated as bad per se. I don't believe there are immoral molecules out there, waiting to pollute the otherwise virgin terrain of our psyches with their wickedness, and I certainly don't believe that the existing laws on these matters are either consistent or especially righteous.
But there's also a temptation to be driven by the fervour of public debate along an opposed pathway: to feel that studied neutrality isn't enough, and you should stand up and tell a self-righteous world that, actually, drugs are an enhancement of life and an inspiration. And then you might be tempted to say something like "just look at jazz" (or any other creative fields, which is many of them, in which much drug-taking went on) for evidence. Who would you rather be stuck in a lift with, the thesis runs: five clean-cut teetotallers, or Mick Jagger, Jimi Hendrix, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday and John Coltrane?
All fine. Except that, as the BPS digest suggest, the real stories of musicians' involvement with drugs have largely been squalid and unromantic:
A survey conducted in 1957 by Nat Hentoff of 409 New York City jazz musicians confirmed the extent of the problem: More than half had tried heroin, with 16 per cent being regular users. Over half used marijuana. . . The musicians of the 40's and 60's spent much of their lives in nightclubs where drug use was rife. They further had to contend with racism, often being required to arrive through the service entrance of clubs and were often forbidden from mingling with the patrons, many of whom were white . . . Yet tragically, for many of the jazz stars, their addictions invited trouble with the law, and led ultimately to poor health and early death. Saxophonist Charlie Parker, for example, died age 34 and Billie Holiday age 44. . . Indeed, book critic Jonathan Yardley, said reading Jazz Anecdotes led him to feel that "alcohol has been in jazz an instrument of distraction and debilitation masquerading as inspiration."Addiction, of course, is by definition a pathological relationship with a substance, whether legal or illegal. And, as Bill Hicks noted, many people have had a great time on drugs and come to no harm. But it's important to look at the evidence honestly rather than reaching for myths; and to note that, under pressures like poverty, depression, isolation, exclusion and alienation, most of our urges to escape from the world have a way of turning pathological.
And it's worth remembering that, of the five names I listed above, only one is now able to share a lift with anyone: teetotal, lights-out-at-eight Mick Jagger.
