An engineer friend of mine (now retired from the business) started his audio career in the early 1970s and spent the most part of the ensuing 30 years traveling throughout the world, mixing front of house and monitors. As well as being an excellent engineer, he is endowed with a charismatic charm, wit and a talent for networking. He was in with the Rock ‘n’ Roll elite and always had work with top-name acts in the business. In the latter part of the last century, he navigated a glamorous course that took him on an odyssey via the world of towering platform boots, big hair and colossal snare drum sounds to the north country of plaid shirts and ripped jeans. After a final bit of touring — which took him across an ocean of lip-synching divas to the lucrative strip-mined fields of boy-bands — he finally hung up his shoes and decided to settle down.
Settling down turned out to be a bit of a challenge and, as most people who have tried know, the party never ends and the road goes on forever. It’s not easy to bring three decades of non-stop motion to a seemingly grinding halt, but he had made up his mind and was attempting to give it his best shot. Part of the therapy in adapting to his new life was to regale anyone within earshot with his fantastic life of adventure.
All Gakked Up
An engaging speaker, our friend easily enthralls his listeners with anecdotes of glamour, music and distant vistas, with his tales invariably starting the same way. “Okay, so there I was — all gakked-up and sitting in the back of the bus…,” or “Okay, so we were all in the bar, drinking and all gakked-up….” Once in a while, he may start a road saga with a slight variation in the theme. “Okay, so there I was. I just had a big hit of some amazing weed…. which was nice, because we had been gakked-up all day….”
The narrative that follows his opening sentences is always interesting, informative and amusing. Yet after hearing a few of these biographical reminiscences, an emerging pattern becomes hard to ignore: It’s evident that my friend had spent most of the past 30 years of his life drunk, high or “all gakked-up.” For those not in the know, “all gakked-up” is a fairly accurate means of describing the feeling in the back of one’s throat as well as the high that’s associated with snorting a white powdery substance. Believe me, I know of what I speak. I came of age in a world that was “tuning in, turning on and dropping out,” and I lived and worked through the same three decades and in the same business as my friend.
Our Dangerous Profession
Drugs and alcohol have been prevalent in our society for many years, and their seductive attraction is not unique to our chosen field of work. Many people snort, drink, smoke and inject all sorts of intoxicating substances and, though at one time in history, this behavior was indicative of entertainers and people of questionable background, the playing field has opened up and everybody has joined in.
I don’t mean to imply that everyone who goes out on the weekend is a hopeless drug addict or an alcoholic. However, while most people are relegated to “party” when they go out once or twice a week, touring or venue engineers are basically at the ball all the time. We are always working in a social environment, where the opportunities to imbibe are countless.
Various reasons can be given for traveling down the not-so straight and narrow path. As a touring engineer, it can be the excitement of the show or the numbing monotony of travel that leads us to the bottle, pipe or spoon. As a club or venue engineer, the long hours and late nights — not to mention the easy access to a multitude of spirits — can lead us down the sobriety-challenged trail. Lastly, there is the event itself, which is most always a soiree, regardless of its nature, and, again, we — the engineers — are right there in the middle of it all, working the party to the very end and beyond. Even when it’s over, it can be difficult to let the good times come to a halt.
I am not against alcohol or drugs; nor do I think of them as “evil.” I am in favor of drug law reform and propose that all substances should be as legal as liquor is in our society, thereby alleviating the overcrowding of our prisons by many non-criminal types. That said, drugs and drinking do change one’s perspective and can lead to impaired judgment, which can definitely be a problem in the workplace, even in a business as loose and party-like as ours. Gear can be damaged, people can get hurt, schedules can be ruined, and — in a manner similar to a DUI charge — none of it matters until something happens or someone is caught.
A good rule of thumb is to avoid imbibing while loading or unloading a truck, flying a FOH rig or while hunting quail with good friends. Mixing a show or doing monitors should be done as soberly as possible, and if one is responsible for the power tie-in, I would strongly suggest the procedure be performed while in a non-inebriated state. Similarly inadvisable is speaking to the client while under the influence. And being high while doing settlement for a show is not particularly wise, yet, that said, I am sure that many of us have done all of the above (plus more) while “all gakked up,” or something like it.
Signs of Your Times
So, when does substance use become substance abuse? Easy signs might be if you feel having a beer with your morning cereal is a good idea, or if you rather skip breakfast and have a line with your coffee. Oversleeping and missing a load-in might be forgiven once, but it should be given serious attention if it happens again. One clear indication that something is askew might be when the phone stops ringing and the gigs are less frequent.
Junkie logic is something that must be pointed out, as one’s impaired logic still seems logical to habitual users. A friend of mine, who has now been in a program for a couple of years, once told me that his plan for getting rid of his cocaine habit was to stop snorting it and start smoking it. His reasoning behind this seemingly illogical statement was that, since it would be more expensive to smoke the drug than to snort it, he would soon not be able to afford the habit and would be forced to quit. Ha-ha — well, it made sense at the time, but then again, that was when he was high.
Cocaine is not a musical drug! It doesn’t have rhythm, melody or nuance, and when one takes cocaine, it is akin to dressing up their neurons when they (the neurons) have no place to go. From my experience, once that line is laid out on the mirror, it’s extremely difficult to assess one’s own level of substance use/abuse. It’s also not uncommon for most people to claim they are in charge of their consumption — even as they careen out of control. Not everyone has an addictive personality, yet it’s often difficult for someone to recognize they have a problem until the day they realize that the drug is controlling them — and not the other way around.
A good many of my friends are in A.A. and N.A. and doing really well, while others have gone the other way and still struggle with their habits. A few people I know with less addictive personalities — including myself — have either given up most of their evil ways or transferred their addiction to something more socially acceptable, such as chocolate or fast food. Many things about a life in audio can lead one to seek a diversion, and while it’s nice to have hobbies, some of these are more detrimental than others.
So if you suspect that your avocation is beginning to interfere with your vocation, then it might be time to get into one program or another and possibly consider taking up a different pastime.
