Polar Bear

The first time I heard this, I was positive it was in reference to someone who had just begun to re-develop physical addiction to heroin or another injectable opiate.

from Urban Dictionary: "chipping:
To occaisonally or recreationally use heroin without becoming trully addicted.

I've been chipping for years, but I'm lucky I've never got hooked and had to experience withdrawl symptoms. "

"Icicle island" refers to piles of used syringes in the place the subject shoots up.

"Howling alone, the lies and the bone Hoping to fade and disappear into the white"

refers to the desperation and motivations behind getting to the point where the subject feels it necessary to start shooting up again, "the bone" I interpret as day to day pain and fatigue, "disappear into the white" is to get high on "china white" which is either fentanyl - an extremely powerful sythetic pharmaceutical opiate - or it can also be in reference to high quality, high potency heroin in lighter brown or white powder form as opposed black tar.

in the second stanza, the first person, the "I," can either refer to a "friend" who provides the drug, or abstractly, the subconscious voice given to the drug by the subject of the song, the "you." The moat of icy water can either refer to the barrier around the self-imposed isolation that the addict creates around themselves due to the stigma and shame of being an addict and the lies and deceptions they use to score, get money, and keep those that care about the addict oblivious to their situation, or it could refer to the chills and sweating that announce a coming wave of dope sickness (opiate withdrawal).

"No end in sight save your own I know that look of fear, I'm well-aware"

the first line refers to the mental place an addict arives at once they realize that they're physically hooked again - they realize they'll either have to go through withdrawal (the pain of death,) or suicide in order to get out of the vicious cycle of maintaining their habit. The second line goes back to the voice of either the drug itself or the "friend" & dealer, that now knows they've got their hooks in the subject again, and the last line is of the stanza - "I'll be there," is the only voice of solace the subject can hear at this point. It placates them, letting them know that they'll always have the drug to fall back on to feel better, but the tone of the song and the repetition of the line imply that it just compounds that self imposed isolation on their icicle island by widening the moat.

now the "polar bear" basically exists the cold reality of their situation (the icy water) with occasional respites of the island (the relief that the drugs provide.) Hoping to fade and disappear into the white - hoping that they won't ever retun from the respite provided by the high.

I don't mean to down-play the interpretations of those that saw the metaphor of deression here, as depression is certainly a regular emotion experienced by addicts, I just think this song was written with a more specific set of circumstances in mind. The words are too specifically chosen for it to be anything else, IMHO.