Can you play guitar inebriated?

Not anymore, but I took great pride in my ability to do so from ages 15-25. I was so enamored with Dimebag/Pantera when I was 15, along with being raised by alcoholics who supplied me with all the booze I wanted, it all just made sense.

Now I have two beers and I can’t play for shit. It’s like my motor functions just disconnect from my brain.
 
Not anymore, but I took great pride in my ability to do so from ages 15-25. I was so enamored with Dimebag/Pantera when I was 15, along with being raised by alcoholics who supplied me with all the booze I wanted, it all just made sense.

Now I have two beers and I can’t play for shit. It’s like my motor functions just disconnect from my brain.

I have a haunting memory of being on a first or second date, and after a number of drinks we went back to my place and she saw my guitar and asked that I play her something.

Cue the most humiliating performance with the worst guitar playing you’ve ever seen combined with pure delusional drunken enthusiasm.

Thankfully she is my fiancé now, but has been known to threaten me with the video she took of this event.
 
Which you obviously will post for us to enjoy!

Scared Oh No GIF by Film Riot
 
I play in a Grateful Dead tribute, so yeah...

I usually have one beer per set to keep my whistle wet, but definitely not drinking to get smashed. IME, the beer window where you've got your swagger going is great, till the window slams shut and your fingers no longer work. :)
 
Never been an heavy drinker and never smoked at gigs, basically never smoked outside my house.

I loved smoking and listening to good music or watching movies. That was what I loved about smoking the most.

I don't think I ever played a gig while being drunk even when I was a teenager. Never liked being drunk at all.

A beer before a gig is ok but the idea of playing inebriated doesn't belong to me, honestly.

Nowadays I don't drink (aside from the occasional beer or glass of wine on special occasions) or smoke because I have kids.
 
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These days I won't even take pain killers.
In my extreme days that lasted 4+ decades I could play what I needed in any condition. Or so I thought.
Let's leave it at that.
 
As for being stoned, I’ve had some pretty big shifts in that regard.

Being stoned used to be a prerequisite for taking a piss, never mind doing anything else, but once that period started where weed was giving me anxiety and I started smoking far less, I wasn’t find any lack of creativity like I thought I’d have. More often than not, I’d have a few hours where I’d start writing and recording then think “Oh, I should smoke and really get into it!” and then totally get taken out of the mind frame I was in where I was already being creative.

Big lesson for me there; if I’m already being creative, just run with it and don’t interject my idiot brain into it in an attempt to control the creativity.

So I stopped looking at it as a “use this to be more creative’ thing because it stopped working for me in that direction. Now that I’m taking it medicinally I’m using it even less to get baked and am finding I don’t actually like being stoned out of my mind and likely what I’ve been chasing this whole time is THC’s effectiveness in combatting ADHD.
 
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