>>alcohol may at times loosen up some of what you have in your head

There was a lot of discussion about that around the end of the 19th century.

One of the most informative is a book by John Livingston Lowes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Livingston_Lowes
that tried find the sources Coleridge used for his two masterpieces- Kubla Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - both of which contain seemingly bizarre but powerful and beautiful images.
Coleridge himself promoted the idea that some of them came to him in a opium dream.
In fact, Lowes shows pretty convincingly that Coleridge was one the most informed natural scientists of his time and all of the images could be traced to events reported in contemporary scientific journals that Coleridge was know to have read.

One writer said of Lowes' book:
"Its argument, that Coleridge had one of the most extraordinary minds the world has ever seen, is there on every page"; it "is one of the books which helped me understand what writing is."

So, was it the opium, or was it Coleridge?

Similar questions remain unanswered about some of Poe's poetry.

I lean toward the idea that it was the talent, not the drug.