It is now almost a year-and-a-half since Amy Winehouse was found dead at her Camden Town home. A coroner in October 2011 decided that she had died due to misadventure as she had a blood alcohol level that was five times the legal drinking limit. In December last year, it was decided to reopen the case. This new inquest was called due to concerns about the qualifications of the first coroner, but there were few people who expected the results to be much different. Yesterday (January 8th 2013) a second coroner also concluded that Amy died due to alcohol poisoning – death by misadventure.
The Life of Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse was one of the most successful British music artists of the 21st Century, but almost from the start she was as famous for her off stage antics as her on stage ones. Her debut album in 2003 was a huge hit, and here deep contralto voice and jazzy style won here plenty of adulation. Amy seemed to enjoy the attention in the beginning, but it soon became clear that she was fighting many demons in her personal life. Her relationships and problems with alcohol and drugs were talked about as much in the media as her music. She seemed to be unhappy and out of control, and unfortunately, here death did not come as that much of a surprise to many people.
Amy Winehouse and the Vicious Cycle of Addiction
Amy was known for her problems with hard drugs, but it was alcohol that led to her death. It seems that after she managed to walk away from illegal substances in 2008, she turned to alcohol. She then fell into a vicious cycle that many addicts will be familiar with – she would stop drinking for a few weeks but then relapse and go on a binge. It was while on one of these binges that she lost her life. Amy knew that her lifestyle was bringing her to destruction, and she claimed that she did not want to die, but she still was unable to leave the downward spiral of addiction.
The Lesson of Amy Winehouse’s Death
The death of Amy Winehouse was another example of how an amazing talent can be completely eradicated because of alcohol and drugs. It seems that Amy realised how much her lifestyle was leading to her destruction, but she still felt unable to break away from the behaviour. The problem seems to be that Amy was ambivalent towards recovery. She had not completely given up on the idea that she could use mind-altering substances again, and it was this lack of one hundred percent commitment to sobriety that kept causing her to relapse.
The lesson of Amy Winehouse’s death is that the only answer to addiction is lifelong abstinence of all mind-altering chemicals. She was able to walk away from hard drugs, but it was the fact that she continued to use alcohol that ended up killing her. This is because when hard drugs were removed it meant that alcohol became her drug of choice, and she was able to do as much damage to her mind and body with this as with heroin.
The death of Amy Winehouse also points out the dangers of the relapse cycle. Just because people manage to stay sober regularly for a few weeks does not mean that they will be escaping the dangers of addiction. It only takes a one night of binge drinking to cause death, and it seems now that this is what happened in this sad affair.
