Popular music is an artifact of folklore that can provide a keen insight in
to societal complexity. As a window with minimal censorship, it allows acce
ss to a subgroup whose motifs are often obfuscated from within and without
by defensive and self righteous distortions. Music is a primary source depi
cting the strivings and failings of a culture or its tributaries. An overvi
ew is offered of the American social historical context of substance abuse,
as it informs the theory of ego atrophy to conceptualize addiction. In thi
s study, it is appealed to as an aid in the elaboration of addictive behavi
or. Adjunctively, major themes in movie pictures are referenced as parallel
, albeit less refined, indices of stereotype in the culture. Together with
societal laws and mores, these markers point to a specific behavioral and v
alue system that typifies the ego of the substance abuser.