Music is a reflection of the society in which we find ourselves in. Personally, I am a fan of rap/spoken word music such as Macklemore and Watsky. However, my music taste is all over the place. What I have found interesting is that at some point in time a musician will face the inevitable question of how to take the pain away. Macklemore and Watsky specifically call out the companies that prescribe our drugs, the doctors that up our doses and the people who fell victim to a corrupt institution.
Macklemore just released a new song, “Kevin." It caught my attention because Macklemore very rarely lacks depth in his lyrics, and because the beat was strangely upbeat when the content was not. The song soon uncovered that an addiction had taken his brother, and it all started with prescription pills. Addiction is a theme that the spoken word poet-turned-rapper often talks about. His own addiction with alcohol and the struggle to stay sober even through fame is chronicled in his first album, "The Heist." These things only make Macklemore's ballad to his brother even more real.
There has been a spike in the diagnoses, but also in the people addicted to the little pills that come in orange containers. “Yeah, the, the, orange plastic with the white top they sell to you has us looking for answers.” - Macklemore
In a recent survey done by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the top reason that teenagers took prescription drugs was because they could acquire them easily. “First dealer was his mom’s medicine cabinet." Painkillers are among the most common, and from there it is a downhill slope. People who can no longer find a high within the prescriptions take to stronger opioids such as heroin, codeine and the list goes on.
“Got an issue but it’s getting bigger and bigger in the beginning it was something minor” - Watsky
What starts to cause a problem is when teenagers are given an anxiety medicine or some type of painkiller in order to help them relax. When taken in high doses, opioids can cause a high that is hard to beat and soon there is a reliance on that high. I read a column from The Guardian recently talking about how we need to treat drug addiction as we treat a learning disability because we have little control over both. The writer stated that 90 percent of all addiction begins in the teens to early 20’s, and there are a plethora of reasons for this. Mainly, addiction is formed because the brain hasn’t fully developed and it starts to associate good things with the high. “When vulnerable people – particularly those predisposed to mental illness and those who have experienced childhood trauma – reach their teens, they often learn that drugs ease their way into the social connections that are so important at this age.”
Although we always look towards the traumatized children and the ones from “broken” homes for the addiction problems, it is something that transcends race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Watsky is nearly yelling into the mic when he says,
“But I know folks who found something beautiful,
and they credit the pharmaceuticals,
for slaying the demons that they’re running from,
it might have saved their lives and I’m one of ‘em.”
Watsky, for those who don’t know, is a middle class, Jewish man who grew up in San Francisco. It is a fine line to walk between what is too much to help someone and what is not enough. At what point in time do we stop pushing pills and look for alternatives to some ailments?
