Of Rum and Writing

So I'm really not one for sappy nonsense, you may have noticed.

Which begs the question of why the fuck I'm writing this because I think it's pretty clear to anyone with a functioning brain that this is going to be an exercise in sappy nonsense. Well the best answer I can give you is that people get sappy as they get older, and self-reflective, and with the show ending I felt it was almost a duty of mine to say something even if that something is probably fucking worthless.

So why do we write?

I don't fucking know.

I have no idea why people in general write, could be a number of reasons. I do know why I started writing though. There's two major reasons. The first was really born of an active imagination when I was a teenager, I'd read books upon books, and later fanfiction upon fanfiction, and often ask think to myself "yes but what if this happened?" Or "that's not how I would have done this."

So rather than just let those ideas sour in my brain I decided in 2012 to create an account on Fimfiction and begin writing my own story. That would come to be known as Humani Victoria. A story which continues to be written up to the time of me writing this blog and will most likely continue for some amount of time, even after the show it was based on is soon to leave us.

If you told most people who know my in real life that I, a man who has served six years in Her Majesties Navy and who often comes across as gruff and aggressive, had been writing stories about magical ponies for those six years what do you think they would say?

Anyway, the second reason I started writing. And the reason we're here right now. I'm sure I'm not the only one to seek out writing as an outlet, but I don't know how many others had it come full circle and actually become part of a self-destructive process. I won't bore you with why I needed an outlet in the first place, we'd be here all day if I recounted my bitterness towards my military experience. Nor do I feel the need to upset anyone with intimate details of what we see on the forlorn shores of Africa and other places in the world. I'm sure you can use your imagination.

Point being writing became a cathartic thing. But it would eventually morph into something else. That came with the drinking. To be perfectly honest I don't know when I started drinking heavily, it just sort of came about. And if you asked me the reason I sought out alcohol I couldn't give you an answer. I'm not depressed, this wasn't an attempt at self medication nor a way of dealing with the stress of life and while not exactly the most mentally healthy person I've never been diagnosed with any condition other than Alcoholism.

Nevertheless I very swiftly developed a problem. Said problem would come to light later on my life. Such things rarely go unnoticed by people who love you. My mother asked (ordered) me to stop, now. So I did. Cold turkey. I didn't attend any AA meetings nor seek any outside help. This was my problem and I was going to solve it myself.

Yet I was faced with something I didn't expect. Because my writing habit unnoticed by me had become connected to my drinking habit. I would drink my heaviest while trying to write, it became part of the process. Often times I would even state that I was unable to really write or create while sober and joke that when it was time to write it was time to pour a glass. I had convinced myself that my artistic talent came about purely through intoxication.

My writing and my drinking had become fused, I associated the feeling of being drunk with the excitement of cultivating a story through well-crafted words. When I quit drinking I also stopped writing, now one could chop that up to the fact that it's very hard to write while shaking violently and feeling like you're going to die, but at the time I panicked and thought that along with my addiction I was ridding myself of any talent.

So, when I sat down to write again. Now sober for a few months. What was it like? Something had changed, drastically. It wasn't a lack of passion, or a lack of anything. It was... A rebirth of sorts, not just of how I write but how I lived. The person I was during my drinking days was so fundamentally different than the sober person I am now that it was like a culture shock to try and perform the same functions as I once had.

In essence I was a new person, in so many ways. And I had to rediscover what kind of writer that person was. To this day I'm still figuring it out. To drink and just splash out mad machinations and seemingly well-thought-out ideas is easy. To soberly try and execute me ideas and not feel the constant nagging feeling of ineptitude on my back is another. That feeling I could just drink away but now it was something I had to confront and will away.

I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that suffering is not the gateway to good art. One doesn't have to destroy themselves in order to create something. Vincent Van Goph wasn't a talented artist because of his mental strife, he was just a talented artist. Not that I'm comparable to Vincent in any way shape or form. But the broader point remains the same.

In the end I don't really know how good my writing is now compared to how it was when I drank. What I do know is that I'm better off sober as is anyone. Irregardless of the fact that I'm no longer able to chemically induce self-confidence in myself or my writing.

Thusly now I'm forced to find those things the old fashioned way. Maybe I never will? Hell, maybe I was a better writer when drunk? But it doesn't matter. What I'm left with is still a hobby that at the very least I enjoy on some level and a healthier body and mind than I've ever had before. That's enough.

It occurred to me after I finished this that this whole thing may come off as a teary-eyed sort of self-fallacio. A "look how damaged I am" sort of thing. That's really not my intention. This is more of a venting rant that I'm only really putting out here on the off chance that it may be insightful to other people.

Anyway, until next time. Fair winds and following seas.