Big Bertie
Familiar Face
- Messages
- 79
- Location
- Northampton, England
Many great artists, writers, musicians, thinkers etc have had what some might term a 'drink problem' (or a habit involving some other substance - opium, LSD etc), and their lives were afflicted by turmoil - Coleridge, Waugh, Hemingway, the Beatles etc etc. Even Churchill had his daily bottle of brandy. But would abstinence have made them better artists etc?That's a very good point -- the romanticisation of addiction in popular culture is not at all constructive. When we talk about great artists, great writers, great entertainers, great stars whose lives ended up in the bottle, we shouldn't be thinking "that's what made them great." Instead we should be wondering how much greater they could have been if they'd thrown the damn bottle away.