Amy Winehouse: Another Tragic Waste Of Human Potential

Amy Winehouse: Another Tragic Waste Of Human Potential

They tried to make me go to rehab, I said, “No, no, no”
Yes, I’ve been black but when I come back you’ll know, know, know
I ain’t got the time and if my daddy thinks I’m fine
He’s tried to make me go to rehab, I won’t go, go, go. — Amy Winehouse, “Rehab”

Addiction is a serious disease; it will end with jail, mental institutions or death. — Russell Brand

Amy Winehouse died this week-end at only 27 years of age and undoubtedly, she was full of music that she never got to share with the world when she passed. This was a woman who had talent, looks, success, and fame. In other words, superficially her life was the fulfillment of a dream that billions of people around the world share. Yet, she died as she lived the last few years of her life: In a drunken, drug-addled haze. She left behind a mother and dad. She left behind a boyfriend who she had once asked to marry her, who dumped her a month ago because he came to believe she wouldn’t ever get clean.

This is a woman who could have lived to a ripe old age, married and had children. She could have had a glorious career and eventually retired with a husband to a dream home and spent her days with grandchildren bouncing on her knee, wondering how she got so lucky. I wish it had finished that way for her. Instead, it’s all ending in tears and romanticized Rock’n’Roll bullsh*t about stars who died too young.

Hopefully, while people are comforting her friends and family and celebrating her music, they’ll also learn something from the way she died. Maybe there are some addicts out there who’ll be shaken enough by this to get off drugs. Maybe there’ll be some enablers out there, of the sort Amy Winehouse needed to function day-to-day, who’ll say “no more,” and try to save a life instead of helping to take it, one needle or one bottle at a time.

Life is, after all, for the living and hopefully some of them will learn something from the sad pointless way a woman, who could have had it all, surrendered the treasure life had given her.

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