Songfacts®:

• "Hate To Feel" is about Layne Staley's heroin addiction. It's a song of torment and regret.
  
  Used to be curious
  Now the s--t's sustenance
  
  The essential meaning of the song is in those two lines. By the time Alice in Chains were recording their 1992 album Dirt, Staley was addicted to smack. It's believed he started messing with the drug while touring with Van Halen shortly before the November 1991 making of Sap. So, his descent into the drug's clutches was pretty fast, which is something he'd appreciate being noted, as he wanted the horrible truth of the drug to be known.
• Alice in Chains built their brand around authenticity, and belived that autobiographical songs were best at drawing out their most passionate performances. That's the spirit from which Staley wrote this intensely personal song.
  
  All this time I swore I'd never
  Be like my old man
  What the hey, it's time to face
  Exactly what I am
  
  Staley's biological father divorced his mother when Layne was seven. The divorce devastated Staley. He got into music in hopes that becoming a rock star might draw his father back into his life. When he was 16 he managed to find some information about his father but decided to stay away.
  
  As Alice In Chains were taking off, Staley's father, a recovering addict, found him. They struck up a relationship that later turned to shared heroin use. While Layne was trying to quit, his father (according to Layne) kept coming to him for drugs. Feeling like he'd been used by his father sent him even further into an emotional hole. Sadly, he never found his way back out and died in 2002 at the age of 34 from a "speedball" (mixture of heroin and cocaine) overdose.
• In the December 1992 issue of the Canadian heavy metal magazine M.E.A.T., Staley explained that Dirt was loosely conceptual, meaning it tells a narrative. The first half of the story is the central character, which seems to be a fictionalized version of Staley, experimenting with drugs to ease his inner turmoil. The second half is his descent into hell. Being the third-to-last track on the album, that puts "Hate To Feel" close to the final fires.
• This and "Angry Chair" are the only two Dirt songs credited entirely to Staley.
• The "Angry Chair" single has a live version of "Hate To Feel" on the B-side.
• Jerry Cantrell surprised fans on the opening night of his I Want Blood tour in Niagara Falls, Ontario, on January 31, 2025, by performing "Hate To Feel" live for the first time in over three decades. The grunge icon hadn't played the song live since November 1993.