Amy Winehouse

[Mutagen]

When her death was announced, out of curiosity I clicked the "Amy Winehouse" tag on ONTD. The last story posted about her before she died (only a few weeks earlier) was about how much better she was looking lately. Not great, but she had gained some weight and wasn't looking so emaciated. A lot of the comments at the time were remarking how great it was that she seemed to have possibly turned a corner.

I don't know if that makes her family correct to say she died of withdrawal, but I don't think they're completely coming out of left field with that theory.

[NappingAthena]

Jul 28, 2011 10:16:58 GMT -4 Mutagen said:

When her death was announced, out of curiosity I clicked the "Amy Winehouse" tag on ONTD. The last story posted about her before she died (only a few weeks earlier) was about how much better she was looking lately. Not great, but she had gained some weight and wasn't looking so emaciated. A lot of the comments at the time were remarking how great it was that she seemed to have possibly turned a corner.

I don't know if that makes her family correct to say she died of withdrawal, but I don't think they're completely coming out of left field with that theory.

Either withdrawal or as someone said up thread-if she wasn't using for a while and then slipped again maybe her body chemistry had changed and couldn't handle what she had been used to?

[divasahm]

I'm thinking her parents are grasping for an answer to her death, and the idea that she might have gone back to drugs or alcohol would just break their hearts.

[Deleted]

Exactly. Denial is an incredibly powerful coping mechanism.

[iClaudia]

Great post GirlyGhoul!

I dated a guy who seemed to have everything going for him. <snip> He was a raging alcholic, but actually hid it pretty well (I didn't even notice for most of our relationship) I finally left him because he was turning that self loathing onto me and I didn't want to get pulled under. He did the rehab thing a couple times but nothing stuck. He wound up blowing his brains out a year and a half after we'd split. And at his funeral... I mean, it was standing room only. There were SOOO many people who loved him. He just didn't, couldn't love himself.

<snip>

Most of us get broken down by life, but some of us are strong in the broken places. And sadly, the man who said that, Ernest Hemingway, still wasn't as strong as his own demons.

I think you really hit on the crux of the issue. I cannot relate to the addiction issues of Amy and others but I can relate to feelings of self-loathing and the difficulty of battling mental illness. There are people who break more easily than others, people who bend but don't break, people who break but are able to mend what's been broken and people who break and are never able to heal. In the darkest times of my life, I've had people in my life (generally the ones that bend but don't break) trying to give me advice and comfort from their perspective. It was rarely helpful because "bouncing back" and "picking up the pieces" doesn't really come naturally to me. This is the reason why I do believe there are some people who can never (and that is a hard word to use) go down certain paths. I've known those people... I know those people and when I discuss life with them, I realize that my experience of life is fundamentally different. For whatever reason, I've never been attracted to drugs or alcohol beyond mild social drinking and experimenting with pot and LSD but if I had a propensity towards addiction, I know that I would not be alive today. There have been many days in my life where I have barely made it through them and that is without addiction issues. So, as a completely non-religious person, Amy Winehouse's story is truly one that makes me think, "there but for the grace of God go I".

[light post]

Really sweet article about one of Amy's friends from her time in St. Lucia.

“I am a simple person,” she admitted. “Our relationship started because she began to love me and she told me that I made her understand life. I used to tell her that she is beautiful and that she should not listen to what people are saying. Amy came here to get better and be happy in St Lucia.” Lambert admits she was not happy when Winehouse was approached to perform at the St Lucia Jazz Festival in 2009. This is the kind of thing Amy wanted to stay away from. They kept pushing and pushing. Amy needed a long break from that world to let her take care of herself. I think she was never given time to recover.”

[danadel]

Jul 28, 2011 10:41:43 GMT -4 divasahm said:

I'm thinking her parents are grasping for an answer to her death, and the idea that she might have gone back to drugs or alcohol would just break their hearts.

I don't know. I think her parents have seem pretty realistic about her drug use. They apparently gave up on her getting better and her mom had asked her where she wanted to be buried. If they had their heads in the sand about her drug use during her life, I can see them still denying it in death....

[discoprincess]

Wow. Someone actually won an iPod Touch for accurately predicting when Amy would die.

ETA: The last picture of this slide show contains the last known photo of her alive.

[Ginger]

I don't know. I think her parents have seem pretty realistic about her drug use. They apparently gave up on her getting better and her mom had asked her where she wanted to be buried. If they had their heads in the sand about her drug use during her life, I can see them still denying it in death....

Yeah, but you never REALLY give up hope, and it seems they had their hopes up again in the last few months because she seemed to be getting better. I think they're looking for a silver lining in that she was at least trying to get better when she died, and the idea of her taking a crapload of drugs ruins it.

[comfortablynumb]

My thoughts exactly, Ginger.