The Problems Alcohol Can Help You Solve

For wine and beer lovers, the headlines might be a bit intoxicating.

A paper titled “Uncorking the muse: Alcohol intoxication facilitates creative problem solving” was the focus of a flurry of coverage on Thursday. In short, the study lends long-awaited credence to the idea that, when faced with certain creative tasks, a bit of alcohol might not be a bad idea.

Specifically, the study, published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition earlier this year, suggests that a certain amount of alcohol — enough to make you blow a 0.075 on a breathalyzer, to be exact — could nudge your mind just enough out of focus to be able to explore unorthodox solutions to a problem. Whether this nudge is helpful or detrimental depends on the problem at hand.