I'm 32 and I play both the guitar and keyboards, guitar since I was 13 and the keyboard since I was 17. If I don't say so myself I am pretty damn good at both instruments. I've played both instruments while on a myriad of substances. Below is a list and if they adversely affected or helped with my playing
Marijuana - Helps tremendously with my creativity and makes what I create come out as an extension of myself. Also great for coming up with riffs
Alcohol - Makes me become extremely sloppy and hinders my playing. Going as far as making it worse
Opiates - Oddly this one both has positives and negatives. I have been able to come up with very melodic melodies in regards to my ambient I produce and sometimes my guitar playing is more soulful. However heavy into my heroin addiction my playing suffered greatly and I felt I regressed somewhat in both my guitar and keyboard playing,
L:SD - I've have come up with some very weird songs and sounds on while on LSD but upon listening to them sober I came to realize that what I thought sounded like the next great musical discovery was nothing more than a garbled mess while on LSD. However the one thing it did bring to me was being able to come with more abstract ideas that fit in my ambient music that I produce.
Psilocybin mushrooms - I've only ever once in my whole entire life played live with a band while on them and I can still remember doing a solo that I still to this day think is the greatest single piece of guitar playing I ever did. Sadly the only known video of me playing it was on one of my old hard drives that died. Was unable to retrieve the file. I felt as if the guitar was an extension of my own self, Was both amazing and terrifying at the same time.
I don't drink much anymore really and overcame my opiate addiction. I now just use marijuana a few times a week and use psychedelics once in a blue moon. I'm usually high while recording my music but also have come to appreciate more so now than ever that I can record music sober that I feel sounds just as good as if I recorded it high.
This quote from Maynard James Keenan of Tool sums up how I feel about drugs and especially psychedelics
“I think psychedelics play a major part in what we do, but having said that, I feel that if somebody's going to experiment with those things they really need to educate themselves about them. People just taking the chemicals and diving in without having any kind of preparation about what they're about to experience tend to have no frame of reference, so they're missing everything flying by and all these new perspectives. It's just a waste. They reach a little bit of spiritual enlightenment, but they end up going, 'Well, now I need that drug to get back there again.' The trick is to use the drugs once to get there, and maybe spend the next ten years trying to get back there without the drug."
