Everyday Canvas

That Rock-Bottom Thing!

"People say I got a drinkin' problem, But I got no problem drinkin' at all, They keep on talkin', Drawing conclusions, They call it a problem, I call it a solution." ~ Midland
Your thoughts on this lyric. How do you help someone with a problem? Can they be helped or do they have to hit rock bottom?


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I can see how, in the song, a drinking problem is called a solution. It is because a person feels himself to be in such dire straits that he or she sees no other solution. So, to dull the pain and the annoyance of it, he resorts to drinking a few times too many until his or her body is hooked chemically.

Yet, we all know a problem drinker’s solution is no solution even if it feels like that to her or him at the moment. If anything, it is like being at the bottom of an abyss. I think these people can be helped before they hit rock bottom through psychiatric therapy plus intervention that targets the physical addiction.

This is because of that ‘rock bottom’ place. It is true that some stronger ones can kick themselves out of that place once they hit it, but then, there are those who can’t because they are weaker and they don’t possess a powerful enough kick to rise to the surface. Those either die of a physical disease or continue on for a long time.

I know this to be true because I had a cousin I liked very much who had this problem. He had a wife and two sons in their teens. The thing with him was that he could work at his job very well and responsibly, and he could even go without drinking a month or two; thus, he fooled himself that he didn’t have a drinking problem, although when he was drunk, he always turned into a monster, which he always blacked out afterward.

His wife begged his doctor to scare him, as she believed he needed scaring, but the doctor said all his medical tests were perfect and he had nothing to present to him for scaring him, and the doctor had already talked to him and advised him on his wife's insistence. A psychologist she consulted told her to wait until he hit rock bottom.

Well, he didn’t make it. At the age of 39, during a drunken fit, his heart suddenly gave out. He was dead before the ambulance made it to the house.

Coming back to the lyrics, I don’t know the song in the quote at all and I am not putting down that group, but if that song in its totality is showing drinking as a desirable thing, that group has something on their conscience, and this goes not only for song lyrics but for all arts and all people who promote and publicize drinking in excess as a desirable thing.