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I just saw Asif Kapadia’s documentary about Amy Winehouse’s life and death, Amy, at BAM, nearby to me in Brooklyn. Afterwards, I went to a bar (a chocolate bar), and a Winehouse song was playing on the sound system. One of the customers said, “She died of a drug overdose because she wouldn’t get treatment.” (This man had not seen the film.)
None of that was true. Winehouse had given up drugs, and died in 2011, age 27, due to extreme alcohol intoxication.
Winehouse had been treated, even gone to rehab. One reason for the patron’s claim that Amy was never treated was due to her 2008 Grammy-winning song, “Rehab”: “They tried to make me go to rehab, I said, ’no, no, no’."
At the time Winehouse wrote “Rehab,” she was deep into drugs with her husband. As Amy makes clear, she had quit drugs for several years at the time of her death. According to her physician, Winehouse quit illegal substances in 2008. In an October 2010 interview, speaking of her decision, Winehouse said, "I literally woke up one day and was like, 'I don't want to do this any more'."
Which left her binge drinking.* By July 2011, Amy Winehouse was dead. Director Kapadia interviewed Winehouse’s treating physician at the time of her death, and a drug counselor she saw. Both repeatedly told her, they say, that if she kept drinking like she was that she’d die.
But telling someone that is not actually a counseling strategy—unless you believe in scaring people straight. In fact, going back to the song “Rehab,” which was released in 2007, Winehouse penned these words:
I don't ever want to drink again
I just, oh, I just need a friend
I'm not gonna spend ten weeks
Have everyone think I'm on the mend
Her goal was already abstinence, without attending rehab. And she succeeded at abstaining for weeks at a time.
But, then, she engaged in all-out drinking bouts. Which, for her tiny 5’3” frame, and often in bad health, proved fatal.
And nothing she learned in rehab, from her treating doctor, or from the drug counselor she consulted, offered her any alternative.
Can you think of any? Would teaching her controlled-drinking techniques, or at least relapse prevention, have offered her alternative options? The movie has actual footage of Amy entering a bar, taking a large drink, and pouring it into her mouth. Could she have learned to sip or limit her drinks, or else to be sure to only drink around others?
Well, we know that these approaches couldn’t have been worse than what actually occurred.
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*It also left her smoking cigarettes, although the documentary didn't note this. Winehouse was hospitalized for emphyzema in 2008, extremely unusual for someone her age (24 at the time). The coroner's report didn't note failure of respiration as the cause of death. But heavy smoking would definitely make her more susceptible to sudden death.
Stanton's new book, with Ilse Thompson, Recover! Stop Thinking Like an Addict and Reclaim Your Life with The PERFECT Program, is available here. His Life Process Program for addictions is available on-line.
