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If you, like me, enjoy listening to other white women sing songs about how depressing it is to be a white woman, then you’ve probably noticed how many right now are about a female protagonist doing a ton of drugs. Not for fun, per se, but because her life sucks so much and drugs are the only way she can cope.

Let me tune you into this very depressing mixtape:

Lana Del Rey — High on the Beach

In “High by the Beach” Lana Del Rey wants to get high by the beach because she can’t stand being sober around a boyfriend she knows doesn’t love her while dealing with the nihilistic dread of existence:

Loving you is hard, being here is harder

You take the wheel

I don’t wanna do this anymore, it’s so surreal

I can’t survive if this is all that’s real All I wanna do is get high by the beach

Get high by the beach, get high

All I wanna do is get by by the beach

Get by baby, baby, bye bye

The truth is I never bought into your bullshit

When you would pay tribute to me cause I know that

All I wanted to do was get high by the beach

Get high baby, baby, bye bye

Sia — Chandelier

Sia’s “Chandelier” admits openly that she’s binge-drinking because she can’t handle how much it hurts being conscious:

Party girls don’t get hurt

Can’t feel anything, when will I learn

I push it down, push it down … I’m gonna swing from the chandelier, from the chandelier

I’m gonna live like tomorrow doesn’t exist

Like it doesn’t exist

I’m gonna fly like a bird through the night, feel my tears as they dry

I’m gonna swing from the chandelier, from the chandelier … But I’m holding on for dear life, won’t look down, won’t open my eyes

Keep my glass full until morning light, ’cause I’m just holding on for tonight

Help me, I’m holding on for dear life, won’t look down, won’t open my eyes

Keep my glass full until morning light, ’cause I’m just holding on for tonight

On for tonight

Phantogram — You Don’t Get Me High Anymore

In “You Don’t Get Me High Anymore,” the singer is complaining that her repeated efforts to obliterate her feelings with drugs have left her with such a high tolerance, she can’t get high anymore.

Cut it up, cut it up, yeah

Everybody’s on something here

My godsend chemical best friend

Skeleton whispering in my ear Walk with me to the end

Stare with me into the abyss

Do you feel like letting go?

I wonder how far down it is Nothing is fun

Not like before

You don’t get me high anymore

Used to take one

Now it’s takes four

You don’t get me high anymore

Tove Lo — Habits

And, oh my, in “Habits,” Tove Lo describes not just one addiction, but an apparent check list:

I get home, I got the munchies

Binge on all my Twinkies

Throw up in the tub, then I go to sleep

And I drank up all my money

Days kind of lonely You’re gone and I got to stay high

All the time to keep you off my mind, ooh ooh

High all the time to keep you off my mind, ooh ooh

Spend my days locked in a haze

Trying to forget you babe, I fall back down

Gotta stay high all my life to forget I’m missing you Pick up daddies at the playground

How I spend my day time

Loosen up the frown, make them feel alive

I make it fast and greasy

I know my way too easy … Staying in my play pretend

Where the fun ain’t got no end

Oh, can’t go home alone again

Need someone to numb the pain

Oh, staying in my play pretend

Where the fun ain’t got no end

Oh oh can’t go home alone again

Need someone to numb the pain

And of course, Lily Allen just comes out and say it in “Everyone’s At It:”

I’m not trying to say that I’m smelling of roses

But when will we tire of putting shit up our noses

I don’t like staying up, staying up past the sunlight

It’s meant to be fun and this just doesn’t feel right Why can’t we all, all just be honest

Admit to ourselves that everyone’s on it

From grown politicians to young adolescents

Prescribing themselves anti-depressants

Now how can we start to tackle the problem

If you don’t put your hands up and admit that you’re on them

The kids are in danger, they’re all getting habits

From what I can see everyone’s at it

So where are we to take this? While I’m sure depressed people have been abusing drugs since time immemorial, what I think is interesting about this trend is what women are saying openly about their drug use. There is no literary allusion to Alice in Wonderland. There’s no fun symbolism wrapped around this pain.

These lyrics demonstrate extreme self-awareness. They say quite articulately that women are using drugs as a coping mechanism so that they might numb or blot out completely the pain of everyday life.

That’s some take for pop music.

I’m not passing moral judgment on addicts here. I generally reject personal accountability explanations for the pandemic of addiction since I think, ironically enough, the sobering personal accountability narrative is why so many middle-class women are turning to drugs.

Why?

Well, here’s my thinking. Little girls of my generation were born post-liberation. That means that girls my age were told that they would enjoy sexual freedom and get to make their own choices with their bodies. Once offered this choice, society up and absolved itself of accountability. Women, we’re now fully accountable for everything that ever happens to us and whatever messes we find ourselves in.

While there may be no one around to help, there will always be someone available after bad shit happens to audit our biographies and ask:

“Well, why didn’t you say ‘no’ then?”

“Why didn’t you know the bad shit would happen?”

“You should have known better that bad shit always happens.”

It’s enough to — hey! — drive someone to drugs.