NCJ Number
155056
Journal
Deviant Behavior: An Interdisciplinary Journal Volume: 12 Dated: (1991) Pages: 361-384
Date Published
1991
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This descriptive study uses the author's personal experience as a musician and interviews with 35 local-level musicians to explore relationships between the social organization of musicians' workplaces, the nature of their work, and the meanings and uses of various mood-altering drugs.
Abstract
The analysis illustrates how musicians use alcohol and other drugs for a variety of purposes, including relaxing, achieving the proper mood, heightening musical creativity, and relieving boredom. These musicians were also fully aware of the negative aspects of drug use, particularly as it related to their musical performance. The findings suggested an important association between the meanings and uses of various substances and group characteristics, such as cohesiveness and ideology. The data suggest a correlation between substance abuse, micro-level problems of individual and collective presentation of self, and macro-level constraints of the social organization of the popular music industry. The result is that musicians' definitions and uses of various drugs are not fixed in time or space, but shift as individuals and groups move to different points in their professional socialization. This study demonstrates the idea that the definition and use of alcohol and other drugs by people in so-called marginal professions is connected to the clash of other social products and forces. 4 notes and 49 references