Writers and Drink

I'm out with members of the oldest and most esteemed angling club ... which would have me for a member. I'm rather like Groucho in my selection of organizations which I'll join.

I am an MWA member - associate member - and I endorse any organization that allows murders, liars, and those who lie about murders to join.

I don't know what to think about drink.

I have drunks in my family. I say that in the best Irish-American tradition. Ruined marriages. Some that should have been ruined and were not. I've lived with drunks. I've impersonated one.

A great many writer's I've admired had problems with drink.

I've never found alcohol to be helpful in my composition efforts. I've never made notes while drinking which I found later and thought "brilliant!"  I seldom had new or wild ideas.

Now, I have sat in bars with a beer waiting on something - friend, lunch - and wrote something wonderful or new in a notebook. I've done that at 2 AM in a Canadian fishing cabin. I've done it on a Saturday morning on my deck. The drink didn't do much for it in my estimation.

I can't write from inside a bottle. For now, that's a good enough reason to lay off it. I can't contribute to the legend of scotch soaked writers.

Your take on ink and alcohol?