An engineer friend of mine, who is now retired from the business, started his audio career in the early 1970s and spent most 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 worked 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 30 years of nonstop 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 tales of his fantastic life of adventure. An engaging speaker, he easily enthralls his listeners with anecdotes of glamour, music and distant vistas; invariably, his tales start the same way. “OK, so there I was, all gakked up and sitting in the back of the bus…” or “OK, 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 on the theme, “OK, 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, but after hearing a few of these biographical remi-niscences, an emerging pattern becomes hard to ignore: It is evident that my friend spent most of the past three decades of his life drunk, high or “all gakked up.”
“All gakked up,” for those who do not know, is a fairly accurate way of describing the feeling in the back of one’s throat, as well as the high, that is 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 as my friend and in the same business.
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 intoxicating substances. Although this behavior was, at one time, indicative of entertainers and other people of questionable background, the playing field has opened up, and everybody has joined in. I do not mean to imply that everyone who goes out on the weekend is a hopeless drug addict or an alcoholic, but while most people are relegated to “party” when they go out once or twice a week, as touring or venue engineers, we are basically at the ball all the time.
Since we are always working in a social environment, 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. Last, 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. Even when it’s over, it’s difficult to let the good times end.
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 in our society, thereby alleviating the overcrowding of our prisons by many noncriminal types. However, drugs and drinking do change one’s perspective and can lead to impaired judgment, which can definitely be a problem in the workplace, even one as loose as ours. Gear can be damaged, people can get hurt, schedules can be ruined and, similar to a DUI charge, none of it matters until something happens or someone is caught.
It’s probably a good rule of thumb not to imbibe while loading or unloading a truck, flying an 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 again suggest it be done while sober. Speaking to the client is not advisable while under the influence, nor is being high while doing settlement for a show. 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.
So, when does substance use become substance abuse? Easy signs might be if you feel a beer with your morning cereal is a good idea, or if you’d rather skip breakfast and have a line with your coffee. Oversleeping and missing load-in might be forgiven once, but should be given a serious look if it happens again. When the phone stops ringing, and the gigs become less frequent — that’s also an indication that something is askew.
Junkie logic is something that would have to be pointed out, since impaired logic still seems logical to a junkie. A friend of mine, who is now in a program and four months sober, once told me that his plan for getting rid of his cocaine habit was to stop snorting it and start smoking it instead, because by doing this, he wouldn’t be able to afford to buy it, and he would be forced to quit. Seemed logical at the time….
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 the neurons when they (the neurons) have no place to go. However, it’s difficult to assess oneself regarding substance use and abuse, and most people claim that they can be in charge of it — even as they are careening out of control. Though not everyone has an addictive personality, it’s often difficult to recog-nize it in yourself until, one day, you realize that the drug is controlling you and not the other way around.
A good many of my friends are in recovery and doing well, while others have gone the other way and are still struggling with their habits. A few people I know with less addictive personalities, including me, have either given up most of their evil ways or transferred their addiction to some-thing 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, there are some that are more detrimental than others.
Therefore, if you suspect that your avocation is beginning to interfere with your vocation, it might be time to get into one program or another and possibly consider taking up a different pastime.
