Hong Kong at night. Photography by Nathaniel Parker.

Whether it’shard-drinking writerslike Capote, Kerouac, and Cheever,over-caffeinated creativeslike Bach, Beethoven, and Balzac, ordrug-addled rockerslike Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain, the figure of the intoxicated artist remains a powerful motif in the mythology of the creative class.

Now, we could debate if the taste for mind-altering substances among high-achieving creatives is a cause or...