Lyric discussion by razzell2 

Cover art for Real Thing lyrics by Alice in Chains

"I messed around as a little boy. I grew up, made the blade my new toy." Meaning: Used lesser drugs, graduated to heroin. The blade is a syringe.

"I grew up, went into rehab. Doctors did me no good. Gonna be a new man. Can I borrow $50 bucks." Meaning: Sarcastic verse. Rehab wont work if your not ready to quit. Doctor is just another person to hit up for some $ for a fix.

"Under the hill with just a few notches on my belt. Take it away, dont want no more Even if you say just one more I wont leave you alone" Meaning: Gonna die with nothing accomplished in my life. There is no "just one more". Hooked, dependent, its always just one more, and then one more... etc.

"Goin' down the steps on a white line. Straight to nowhere." Meaning: Sinking, dying, (down the steps).. because of heroin use. I cannot recall any rock song about heroin using the lyric "brown line" to reference heroin. In the 50's and 60's when heroin was prevelant in rock music, it was white. (China white, for example). Even today the best heroin, if you can afford it, is white. The brown heroin from mexico is incomplete in the process of making it street ready. Uncleaned and unwashed, it is brown in color, (and not as potent.)

"Sexual chocolate, baby" (Possible) Meaning: A sarcastic, humorous, ironic toss off lyric. In 1988 Eddie Murphy made a movie called Coming to America. In the movie, Eddie plays the lead singer of a band called Sexual Chocolate. The song Black Chocolate sings is Whitney Houston's "The Greatest Love of All".

Of course, the lyric might be comparing a good heroin high to sex. And as mentioned above, there is brown heroin out there. Another more simple meaning might be that, to an addict, heroin is sex and chocolate rolled up into one. "Heroin is better than chocolate or sex"!

And finally, the demo song for Real Thing was orignally called Heroin. That is the best indicator of that this song is about I would think?

My Interpretation