It is asked because people don't really believe that alcohol is deadly to the addict. But I lost count of the intelligent friends who asked him in those difficult early years: "Still not drinking?" Such a stupid, insensitive question.
When my husband accepted his addiction and gave up drugs and alcohol 12 years ago, no one ever suggested to him that just one little line of coke would do no harm. The misunderstanding of addictive illness can nevertheless sometimes seem willful. It's all a threat to those who are susceptible, a threat to quality of life if not to life itself. Other people can build addictive behaviour around the food that they eat, or the idea that they might not have switched off the gas ring before leaving the house. Mind-altering substances are no more dangerous to some people than flower arrangements.
But I am against the distinction between legal and illegal, safe and unsafe, when it clouds the real message: that addictive substance abuse is addictive substance abuse, whether it's legal or illegal, or even if, in the case of Michael Jackson among many others, a doctor is prescribing it.
Who can blame them, when the wider culture is so geared to believing that drugs are killers, to be banned, while alcohol is a necessity at any social gathering? Though worried by her less decisive break with alcohol, they did not seem aware that continued use was every bit as perilous as her use of drugs had been before she accepted the need for intervention. Winehouse's parents, in the wake of her death, said how proud they had been that she had beaten drugs. The problem is addiction, and the idea that an abusive relationship with legal alcohol is of a lesser order than an abusive relationship with illegal drugs, is one of those fake distinctions that would be pitiful if it wasn't so dangerous. It's a silly idea, that "drug addiction" is somehow a different thing to "alcohol addiction". So it is no surprise that alcohol binges still featured in her life after a "successful" stint being treated for "drug addiction". Winehouse's last concert before her death had been a shambling and shameful affair, which saw her step onto a stage too drunk to stand. Today, however, it was confirmed that Winehouse's death was caused by the vast amount of vodka she had consumed. What pernicious lies people make up and peddle there were no illegal substances in the singer's body that night.
But she was also, more simply, a victim of a not-uncommon mental illness – addiction – that is poorly understood and claims many non-celebrity victims, too.Įven before Winehouse had been buried, there were tabloid reports of a trip to a drug dealer on the evening that she died. She was certainly a victim of her fame, which attracted both oppressive media attention and "hangers-on" who told her what she wanted to hear. Her family is now awaiting the outcome of an inquest due on October 26th.P oor Amy Winehouse. The report did show that alcohol was present, though it has not been determined whether that contributed to her death.Īn initial post-mortem conducted two days after the singer was found dead in her London home yielded no definitive cause of death. Amy Winehouse‘s family has revealed that toxicology tests indicate there were no illegal drugs in the singer’s system at the time of her death on July 23rd.
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