The effect of alcohol on a musician’s progress

Positions & oppositions
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I’d like to raise an issue that I think concerns quite a few people.

My personal view is that although alcohol has some positive benefits in our lives, its negative impact, beyond the obvious, is also real when it comes to playing an instrument.
I had been drinking a little ouzo three to five times a week for the past few years. I had associated it with my mood and enjoyment. At the same time, though, I was strongly drawn to other things as well, such as reading and the oud. Although I have little time available, I have been playing for years, yet my progress was disappointing. One time I would experience mood swings, another my finger joints would hurt, another my fingers would be stiff, another I would be unable to concentrate or memorise things, and so on.

A few months ago, I happened to see a video that made me think deeply. I thought: could that really be it? Its subject was the effect of alcohol on a musician’s progress:

Since then I have stopped drinking alcohol—it has been months now—and the difference in my playing is plainly obvious. My mood is stable, all the pain has disappeared, and my fingers have become free.
I play and can’t believe that it’s me playing, but someone else.
I hear sounds from the instrument that I didn’t even recognise before.

So there you have the cause: ALCOHOL. This insidious substance, which, in order to give us a momentary pleasure, steals so many other things from our lives.

It’s something I would like to bring to people’s attention, and perhaps it may prove helpful to others too. It isn’t difficult to achieve. It’s just a switch. You simply turn it off for the sake of a higher purpose—for me, the oud—and change your state.

It would be very interesting if you shared any effects of alcohol that you have noticed on your progress in your (never-ending) learning.

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Very interesting topic, @anon22110369, although the effect of an addictive substance such as alcohol on the human body is a complex subject, and perhaps the knowledge of non-specialists (such as myself, at least) may be insufficient and, above all, not entirely accurate.

My experience with alcohol is neither extensive nor negligible. I have been making wine for 26 years (home winemaking), although I have never had much of a preference for spirits (whisky, tsipouro and ouzo). So we always drank a little wine, especially when we were playing.
I agree with you about the instant pleasure, but only once a certain threshold has been exceeded. Two or three glasses did not have any obvious effect on my enjoyment, at least as far as I was concerned. In other words, I cannot separate the pleasure caused by the alcohol from the pleasure of being with my friends. On the rare occasions when I reached and exceeded that threshold of enjoyment, my playing was all over the place. Essentially, alcohol changed the way I communicated with the instrument. My focus shifted from the instrument and my interaction with it to how what I was playing would sound to the people around me, which distorted my playing. I am not saying that the latter does not also occur in many situations, but when I had had a bit too much to drink, it was amplified.

As for the other issues, such as pain in my fingers and so on, I did not notice any obvious effects, at least not in my case. I was not a regular drinker, though. I never drank every day. I was more of a Saturday “user”.
In recent years I have barely drunk at all. I certainly do not drink when I play, partly because I drive when we go to the taverna, and partly because it takes a toll on my body and I feel that it takes two or three days for the alcohol to leave my system. Hangovers at my current age (60) last longer and occur after a much smaller amount of alcohol than they did in the past. I am in a good mood anyway when I go out with my friends, so I do not need alcohol to lift my spirits.

For regular drinkers (not those who are addicted), alcohol is a habit that can certainly be reduced, if not stopped altogether, with some effort. First, however, it must be understood that any amount of alcohol has a negative effect on the body’s vital organs. That is the first step. The next, of course, is changing the habit, which also has its difficulties, depending on what else that habit has become associated with.

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I’ll just add that during certain periods when I was completely abstaining from alcohol, because of some medication or something like that, I’d sometimes find myself in a group where the natural thing was to drink, and I’d get by with alcohol-free beer or an alcohol-free cocktail, and it all went perfectly smoothly. Of course, you won’t get drunk on alcohol-free drinks (or on loukoumades!), but when the aim isn’t intoxication but relaxation and shared enjoyment, those happen on their own too.

So, I imagine they’d work just as well on stage.

Of course, I’m fully aware that what’s easy or difficult for me isn’t the same for everyone. At the moment I’m giving up coffee and I find it unbelievably easy, whereas I’ve struggled so much with cigarettes that other former smokers find it unbelievable.

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At that frequency—once a week—the body may have time to recover over two or three days, whereas with my own frequency there was no such recovery time, so I was accumulating the strain. That’s important. Of course, everyone’s body has different levels of resilience. Many years ago, I heard that alcoholism isn’t about quantity but frequency. And as soon as I realised it, I said to myself: “Yes, mate, you’re an alcoholic.” You don’t drink a lot (although you drink that much because that’s all you can handle; otherwise, you’d drink more), but you drink almost every day. And you recognise it easily in others, but you find it difficult to admit it about yourself. “Yes,” I said, “you’re an alcoholic.”

Well done! I gave that up at the same time as alcohol. It’s a major factor too, with a significant effect on the nervous system, which is reflected both in the everyday quality of our lives and in our playing.

Of course, someone might now say: “Are we going to give everything up? And what will be left?” I don’t know. Perhaps occasional consumption. Not frequent consumption. I couldn’t impose moderation on myself, but I have managed (so far) to stop them altogether.

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He’s a guy I’m evenly matched with at chess: sometimes I win, sometimes he wins, and sometimes we draw. But if I have even one beer, he’ll beat me for sure, despite the fact that subjectively I don’t feel the alcohol’s effects at all.

Now, giving up coffee and cigarettes would be unthinkable for me, but I’m seriously considering replacing Marlboro with a hookah filled with plain tombak tobacco, at least at home. Still, let’s not demonise them: the regular use of small amounts of alcohol (e.g. with a meal in villages) or plant toxins (nicotine, caffeine, etc.) is very common among humans and serves a purpose: it helps combat certain parasites and pathogens.

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I understand how difficult it is to give up cigarettes and coffee. The two combined create a habit that’s even harder to change. According to James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits, habits have four stages that act in a cycle. The first is the cue — the stimulus (cue), that is, whatever activates the habit. For example, the smell of coffee stimulates your desire for a cigarette, or it’s the company you keep — a colleague who goes out for a cigarette. Then comes the craving. With a cigarette, you crave a change: you feel that it relaxes you, that the tension goes away, that it rounds off the meal with something enjoyable, and you crave that. Next comes the response itself — lighting the cigarette. Naturally, the more available it is (for example, if you always have cigarettes somewhere), the more likely you are to smoke. The fourth stage is the reward. Nicotine reaches the brain very quickly, bringing a feeling of relief and relaxation, along with other social benefits (e.g. five moments of relaxation and a relaxed chat with friends). The reward teaches the brain that this activity is worth continuing. And, of course, every repetition of the cycle strengthens the connection even further — for example, between coffee and cigarettes, or between a cigarette and the end of a meal. If you drink coffee without a cigarette, it will seem incomplete.

If you want to break a habit, you need to intervene at all four stages. For example, with the stimulus, you need to make it invisible (no lighters in the house, no ashtrays, going for a walk after a meal, etc.). With the craving, you need to make it unattractive (change your interpretation — cigarettes don’t relax you). With the response, you need to make it difficult (don’t keep a packet on you; tell your friends that you’ve quit smoking). Finally, with the reward, you need to make it unsatisfying (ask your partner what your breath smells like when you smoke; look at how much money you’ve spent while putting your health at risk).
There is also the practice of substitution: you keep the stimulus and the reward, but change the response. For example, if your colleague goes out for a cigarette, you go for a five-minute walk instead of smoking.

All right, there are good and bad sides to everything we do. But if you add it all up over time, both alcohol and cigarettes are harmful. The statistics say so. And they are merciless. Don’t look at one old man in the village who lived to a ripe old age while smoking. The statistics say that you risk dying prematurely. If that doesn’t bother you, fair enough.

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Daily use is bound to cause problems in the long term. At first, it may be as you said — just minor discomfort, a bit of energy and so on — but at some point, it will take its toll somewhere. Everything is manageable in moderation. It’s just that your idea of “moderation” is different when you’re younger compared with when you get older.

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Of course, I’m not disputing that smoking and alcoholism are harmful, or that today’s ready availability encourages abuse; Native Americans smoked the pipe once or twice a day, while the ancients (and villagers until fairly recently) typically drank watered-down wine with their meals. I’m pointing out that the fact our nervous system is wired to find this mild intoxication rewarding in the first place is probably due to the poisoning it inflicts on unwanted passengers.

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Absolutely. At 25 I could drink 2 litres of beer in one night; now that I’m in my forties and something, I have one glass and still don’t sleep well.

And northern Europeans are said to have drunk weak beer instead of water, which was probably full of germs and the like.

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I agree. Alcohol in particular.

As for smoking, I don’t think there is any amount that could be considered harmless or beneficial, but alcohol isn’t the same. A glass of wine or a beer each day with a meal can even be beneficial, and beyond purely physical health, it can also contribute to quality of life. Wine (or other drinks in other cultures) is part of civilisation.

Daily use can, by some definition, be considered alcoholism. But that means alcoholism is not synonymous with drunkenness and degeneration.

The fact that it may reduce your abilities in certain activities, such as chess or, to return to our subject, music, is a separate matter that each person can manage as they see fit.

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