Aside from the drug aspect, I am very leery of the proposition that neurosis and creativity are somehow necessary to each other. Sure, you see them appearing side by side in some great creative minds. Maybe for some, internal pain and confusion is a stimulating challenge.

But there is no (to my mind) inherent natural law that being creative requires being neurotic.

I think two things that contribute to this insidious notion are that creativity generates new views ofthings, and new views often get branded as being mad when they are not. And second, it is a pretty well known pattern that creativity can trigger past suppression, just like returning to the site of a major injury can trigger memories of the emotion and pain experienced there.

Since most people have their share of suppressed confusions and times of heavy emotion and embattlement (or whatever) it is understandable that in many cases these could become associated with times of creativity, but this happens in totally different dgrees and ways from individual to individual and there are plenty of highly creative people who aren't hit in the head by old baggage and neurosis everytimne they get creative, quite the contrary -- it engenders higher states of well-being and rationality and clear insight.

The assertion that great art or creativity and madness are somehow necessarily linked is really a toxic meme, in my view.