I come from a family that was overdependent on prescription medication. My teeth are gray from the antibiotics I had too much of as a kid. By the time I was in 10th grade, I was taking all kinds of stuff for allergies and my stomach.

One day, I looked at all the pills in my hand and told myself it was time to stop the madness. I just said no. Unfortunately, I didn't get healthy by doing that. My body had never learned how to fend for itself, and I had no idea how to adapt to a drug-less life.

Still, my distaste for drugs persisted, and protected me through my years of working in the music industry. I vowed to never get into recreational drugs, and I stuck by that vow. During those years, I saw it all, and it was rarely pretty. I can say I don't mind people on pot, and some of them seem to do fine on it. I've also known a few who overdid it on even that, and became paranoid and out of touch.

I tried pot once. It did nothing for me, though it did make the person I was with melt right in front of me. She hadn't smoked it in about 10 years, and during that time it had gotten a lot more potent. So that was that for me.

More recently, having been quite ill, I've mellowed out on my stance. Having two major surgeries, I learned the joy of painkillers. I found I like Vicodin a little too much, and I was stuck on it for 2 ½ months after surgery number 2. It was really hard to withdraw from, and I have to face the fact that I still want more.

Even though I still have pain sometimes, I realize, and my doctor realizes even more, that I need to stay away from it. So I'm on a steady diet of Advil, Aleve and Tylenol. That's not that good for this long either. I'm actually thinking of trying pot again. It would be better for my stomach, and maybe it would ease that desire for the vicodin. Of course, then maybe I'd get hooked on pot.

A general poll of my friends has it going those in favor of Kevin joining a pot club: Kevin. Those against: everyone else. So for now, I'm sticking with the over the counter stuff.

My mom relied heavily on prescription drugs all her life. I watched it keep her from learning how to be healthy, and at times it could be pretty sad to be witness to. The last few years of mom's life I drove her around a lot, taking her to all kinds of doctors appointments. At one point, she started wanting a morphine patch to help her with her chronic pain.

I knew from the past that morphine made her sick, but she refused to remember that. A string of doctors refused her request, but eventually someone broke down and said yes. I was pretty frustrated, and it was hard to watch the inevitable progression. At first, the pain went away. Mom was exultant and beyond herself, in a kind of scary way. Then, it stopped working so much after a few days. And then, the terrible nausea came on, and after a week, mom had to go off that patch.

During that week, my really smart mom became this drugged out, slurry speech ridden half version of herself, and half some drug addict we all fear people we know will become. In the midst of that, I wrote this song out of my fear and frustration.

It's been about 8 years since I wrote it. I recorded it a few months ago, and I was struck by the underlying anger I had. Most of that period I spent with mom I look back at pretty fondly. We got to know each other quite a bit more, and I got to learn things about her that let me be much more at peace with her then I had thought I would be.
But it is what it is, and I could never resist a good title.