Musicians and their constant battle with substance abuse: A [thread] of studies & findings on the subject 👇

45% of UK musicians reported issues with alcohol. "Entertainers experienced performance-related incentives to drink before, during and/or after a show; including anxiety, matching their intoxication level to the audience’s, and ‘reward-drinking’"

(Forsyth, et. al. 2016)
One study of 226 musicians in New York State found that substance use was “markedly elevated compared to general population samples”

(Miller & Quigley, 2011, p. 401)
One study of 168 significant and famous jazz musicians found that their mean age at death was only 57.2 years.

(Patalano, 2000)
One study of the autobiographies of rock musicians reported that 62% contained a description of the artist’s personal addiction story. (Oksanen, 2013)

Also, the confessional recovery memoir is now an established and popular genre. (Oksanen, 2013; Forsyth, Lennox & Emslie, 2016)
In one study of established European and North American pop and rock stars, they experienced double the mortality rates of the average population and over one quarter of the sample died from drug and alcohol problems. (Bellis, et al. 2007)
A study of top 10 singles across various years in 1981-2011 showed that 18.5% referred to alcohol within the song and 12% referred to heavy drinking. Up to 3.0% of songs contained *branded alcohol references*. (Bellis, et al. 2007)
Drugs have been employed in a number of ways by musicians to assist creativity and imagination: cocaine and amphetamines have been employed to increase energy levels, creativity and focus. (Groce, 1991; Trynka, 2011)
Heroin was the drug of choice for creative inspiration by bebop musicians (Spunt, 2014; Tolson & Cuyjet, 2007)

Alcohol and marijuana have been employed to relieve creative anxiety or lack of confidence (Belli, 2009; Groce, 1991)

BUT 👇
Most scientific experiments into drugs and alcohol have found that in large doses it generally has a NEGATIVE IMPACT on creative productivity. So the belief that substance abuse helps or increases creativity is unscientific and mistaken. (O’Dair, 2016)
Artists usually believe that they get one shot at realising their dreams, they’re going to give it a damn good shot, and if drugs and alcohol are going to help them get there, then that’s what they’re going to do. (Just et al., 2016)
In certain professional groups of classical musicians, approximately one quarter use beta blockers to control their performance anxiety (Lehmann, Sloboda & Woody, 2007).

Some are known to self-medicate using marijuana and alcohol (Roland, 1994)
Long term, heavy drug use can result in artists becoming more and more isolated and antisocial. (Knafo, 2008)
Over many decades, record companies have routinely facilitated drug use among artists as part of their artist relations support. Some examples 👇:

Atlantic Records in the late 1960s was supplying marijuana and cocaine to artists, disc jockeys and journalists (Goodman, 1997)
A&M supplied hash brownies, alcohol, marijuana and mescaline to artists (Goodman, 1997)

Casablanca Records, LA had a large drug budget, the office was filled with people chopping cocaine. with visits from a woman who took their drug order for the next day (Dannen, 1990)
The subcultural identity involving drugs and alcohol that musicians are forced to embrace & espouse when in public eye (Ward & Burns, 2000)👇

Hip hop subcultural identity brought a harder, rougher, more criminal edge, with street drug dealing a big fixture (Singer & Mirhej 2006)
“Heroin was our badge….the thing that made us different from the rest of the world. It [said], ‘We know. You don’t know.’ It [gave] us membership in a unique club, and [for which] we gave up everything else in the world.” — Bebop trumpeter Red Rodney (Ward & Burns 2000, p. 358)
Are you really sure you want to support an industry that FORCES people working in it to make their lives revolve around alcohol and drugs, causing numerous diseases & lowering of avg. life expectancy of the musicians themselves? Just for your entertainment?

Think well. ✌️

/fin

More from Culture

@bellingcat's attempt in their new book, published by
@BloomsburyBooks, to coverup the @OPCW #Douma controversy, promote US and UK gov. war narratives, and whitewash fraudulent conduct within the OPCW, is an exercise in deception through omission. @BloomsburyPub @Tim_Hayward_


1) 2000 words are devoted to the OPCW controversy regarding the alleged chemical weapon attack in #Douma, Syria in 2018 but critical material is omitted from the book. Reading it, one would never know the following:

2) That the controversy started when the original interim report, drafted and agreed by Douma inspection team members, was secretly modified by an unknown OPCW person who had manipulated the findings to suggest an attack had occurred. https://t.co/QtAAyH9WyX… @RobertF40396660


3) This act of attempted deception was only derailed because an inspector discovered the secret changes. The manipulations were reported by @ClarkeMicah
and can be readily observed in documents now available https://t.co/2BUNlD8ZUv….

4) @bellingcat's book also makes no mention of the @couragefoundation panel, attended by the @opcw's first Director General, Jose Bustani, at which an OPCW official detailed key procedural irregularities and scientific flaws with the Final Douma Report:

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Хајде да направимо мали осврт на случај Мика Алексић .

Алексић је жртва енглеске освете преко Оливере Иванчић .
Мика је одбио да снима филм о блаћењу Срба и мењању историје Срба , иза целокупног пројекта стоји дипломатски кор Британаца у Београду и Оливера Иванчић


Оливера Илинчић је иначе мајка једне од његових ученица .
Која је претила да ће се осветити .

Мика се налази у притвору због наводних оптужби глумице Милене Радуловић да ју је наводно силовао човек од 70 година , са три бајпаса и извађеном простатом пре пет година

Иста персона је и обезбедила финансије за филм преко Беча а филм је требао да се бави животом Десанке Максимовић .
А сетите се и ко је иницирао да се Десанка Максимовић избаци из уџбеника и школства у Србији .

И тако уместо романсиране верзије Десанке Максимовић утицај Британаца

У Србији стави на пиједестал и да се Британци у Србији позитивно афирмишу како би се на тај начин усмерила будућност али и мењао ток историје .
Зато Мика са гнушањем и поносно одбија да снима такав филм тада и почиње хајка и претње која потиче из британских дипломатских кругова

Најгоре од свега што је то Мика Алексић изговорио у присуству високих дипломатских представника , а одговор је био да се све неће на томе завршити и да ће га то скупо коштати .
Нашта им је Мика рекао да је он свој живот проживео и да могу да му раде шта хоће и силно их извређао
1/“What would need to be true for you to….X”

Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?

A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody:


2/ First, “X” could be lots of things. Examples: What would need to be true for you to

- “Feel it's in our best interest for me to be CMO"
- “Feel that we’re in a good place as a company”
- “Feel that we’re on the same page”
- “Feel that we both got what we wanted from this deal

3/ Normally, we aren’t that direct. Example from startup/VC land:

Founders leave VC meetings thinking that every VC will invest, but they rarely do.

Worse over, the founders don’t know what they need to do in order to be fundable.

4/ So why should you ask the magic Q?

To get clarity.

You want to know where you stand, and what it takes to get what you want in a way that also gets them what they want.

It also holds them (mentally) accountable once the thing they need becomes true.

5/ Staying in the context of soliciting investors, the question is “what would need to be true for you to want to invest (or partner with us on this journey, etc)?”

Multiple responses to this question are likely to deliver a positive result.