Drunkenness is a temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness

Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness, 1930

Introduction

Just as syphilis has been over-diagnosed, we come to alcohol, another perceived result of over-indulgence. Of Breitenfeld's seventy- seven ‘substance abusers’ amongst composers, the major culprit was alcohol. So we see reputations inaccurately disfigured in musical pathography. An even more vital question is whether alcohol fuels creativity. Alcoholism is a disease and not a crime, although sadly either may lead to the other. There are good basic definitions of alcoholism. Pragmatically, the wisest one is possibly that the sufferer is a person who apprehends that he or she has a problem but is incapable of doing anything about it. The World Health Organization categorises criteria, but Kessell and Walton stressed the importance of a diagnostic gradient; this is difficult with today's national obsession with tick-boxes. They also highlighted the permanent physical damage that is a consequence of chronic alcoholism. That the social drinker, who deliberately and enjoyably gets tipsy occasionally, is not an alcoholic has been a comfort for many of us. More importantly, the excessive drinker is not necessarily an alcoholic, being separated from the latter by the absence of an inexorable deterioration over the years. The key is decline and dependence, and in 2001 there were said to be 2.8 million dependent drinkers in the UK.

With some alcoholics the condition initially is a pleasure; they are usually the self-indulgent type. For most it is a condition from which the patient would dearly love to be free. One day an inborn error of metabolism may be discovered with, hopefully, cures structured thereupon. Reformed alcoholics have to remain teetotal because drinking any alcohol may trigger their illness. Such self-discipline is admirable. Meanwhile, there are identifiable psychological, social and geographical factors predisposing to alcoholism. What is striking is the paucity of true alcoholics amongst composers. There is one simple reason for composers being so relatively free of this disease: established alcoholism is inconsistent with sustained, serious musical composition. That novelists and poets may have been apparently more susceptible is beyond the scope of this book.