“Excessive substance abuse can make you ill mentally and physically.”

Excessive substance abuse as a musician can make mental health issues worse. Prolonged substance abuse as a musician that is well known can make the artist more ill mentally and physically. It is common for artist’s to use substances to stay awake and work. Some are able to handle this fine while other’s make this a habit that becomes very unhealthy. Artist’s who may be involved with owning a record label,music company, ect. tend to get caught up in an unhealthy environment and tend to more likely to get caught up in unhealthy substance abuse. Taking the time to approach this subject healthy and avoiding this lifestyle, and not getting caught up in this unhealthy habit of the so called night life can be very helpful to any musician and/or artist. Substance abuse has ruined many musician’s career’s for decade’s. Music is nothing more than a business. So avoiding getting caught up in substance abuse because of stress will help the success of a musician and artist. Substance abuse causes many health problem’s and fracture’s many artist’s career’s. It has been known that many musicians who have sought addiction treatment have gone on to release more music, reinvent their careers and live healthy lives. Genetic’s can play a huge role in an artist’s life with substance abuse, many artist’s can get caught up in excessive substance abuse by using drug’s to create there music and many artist’s can get stuck in the habit. Living a sober lifestyle can greatly benefit a musical artist and help with one’s success. Also creating a plan ahead of time may help an artist succeed and avoid getting caught off guard or caught up in the habit of substance abuse and may even help one to prolong their success. Studies show that if a person has low functioning dopamine, they may be more likely to be risk takers, novelty seeking and compulsive in behavior, which tend to lead to more creativity and thinking outside of the box. So why is it some musicians abuse substances?

1. Environment is a Key Factor:

A lot of times people abuse substances because they are there. It’s common sense but of course but one is a lot more likely to abuse drugs and to take alcohol when one is surrounded by such substances. Being that musicians are always playing at night, surrounded by the drunk and high, this environment does not promote a culture of abstinence and makes it very easy to give in to temptation.

2. Wealth, Fame, and Image Promote Substance Abuse:

Most well-known and popular musicians are relatively rich by modern standards, and the wealthier and wealthier they get and they are, the more sustainable their bad habits are too. It is expensive to abuse drugs, but musicians can afford it. Drug dealers are essential salesmen at heart and they, as any other salesman would be, prefer to target the rich. The rich can afford more drugs and higher quality drugs, so dealers tend to target them. The result is that musicians are exposed to drugs more often than the average Joe.

3. Benefits For the Dealer:

The social and status-related benefits of being around musicians are very high indeed. For one to be the guy to supply a musician of any caliber or genre with his or her favorite fix would mean entrance into their inner circle of friends and connection. Drug dealers will work a lot harder to get in good with a musician than they would with an average, middle class American individual, as they have so much more to gain from this endeavor. Honestly, this is actually what led to the downfall of legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday and her sad story was begun with drug abuse.

4. Youth:

The vast majority of incredibly successful musicians are under the age of 35. They are young, and they often became famous at a very, very young age. Because of this musicians can sometimes be immature and inexperienced, and thus make stupid decisions without really thinking them through that are then magnified on a 10X scale by their money and their fame.

5. Peer Pressure:

Peer pressure is probably the biggest factor in musicians abusing drugs and alcohol. To be a musician is to be cool. To abuse drugs and alcohol is also to be, “cool”, or so the dealers, pushers, and traffickers would have everyone think. The resultant qualities and characteristics of many drug users and abusers, such as taking risks and being fearless, are celebrated among the young and are admired and looked up to. A lot of times musicians, especially when they are very young, are duped into the thought that, without taking drugs, they will not be perceived as cool.

Drugs contain chemicals that tap into the brain’s communication system and disrupt the way nerve cells normally send, receive, and process information… The result is a brain awash in dopamine, a neurotransmitter present in brain regions that control movement, emotion, motivation, and feelings of pleasure. The over stimulation of this reward system, which normally responds to natural behaviors linked to survival (eating, spending time with loved ones, etc.), produces euphoric effects in response to psychoactive drugs.”

This means, of course, that when one is doing something pleasurable, the brain will respond with more requests for more pleasurable things. Pleasure equals pleasure which equals more pleasure. Music is a very pleasurable thing, and when a musician is engaging in this activity all the time he or she is generating pleasure to one degree or another. On a chemical and deeply physiological as well as spiritual level the musician will also be craving other forms of pleasure while doing this, and when drugs are offered to him or her, the temptation often takes over.

So what can a musician do if they abuse substances?

1.  Seek addiction classes or rehabilitation.
2. Get involved with counseling or program’s designed to help with substance abuse.
3. Take classes or courses designed to help with addiction and one’s which may be career based.

It is all-way’s very helpful to have a plan ahead of time and to know as a musician how to deal with this on the road well ahead of time.

During the 1960’s the Hippie’s and celebrities where known to publicize the use of marijuana and LSD. The drug war known as the war on drugs began in 1971. In 2019 we are seeing some similar scenarios in the drug war as when president Nixon was in office. Guy’s like I said music is a business and substance abuse hardly helps sell and the business world is strict. So if one remain’s sober as a musician it will be far more easier for them to succeed and make sales in 2019 and beyond.