Gilly wrote:
http://www.mrpaparazzi.com/post/15782/Russell-Brand-pens-a-moving-tribute-to-Amy-Winehouse.aspx
I think this sums it up nicely.
Thanks for that Gilly.
Quote:
"Now Amy Winehouse is dead, like many others whose unnecessary deaths have been retrospectively romanticised, at 27 years old. Whether this tragedy was preventable or not is now irrelevant. It is not preventable today. We have lost a beautiful and talented woman to this disease. Not all addicts have Amy’s incredible talent. Or Kurt’s or Jimi’s or Janis’s, some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill. We need to review the way society treats addicts, not as criminals but as sick people in need of care. We need to look at the way our government funds rehabilitation. It is cheaper to rehabilitate an addict than to send them to prison, so criminalisation doesn’t even make economic sense. Not all of us know someone with the incredible talent that Amy had but we all know drunks and junkies and they all need help and the help is out there. All they have to do is pick up the phone and make the call. Or not. Either way, there will be a phone call."
Looking back on my own life, my addictions could have killed me, and indeed very nearly did so. My survival in the end was down to my amazing family and a couple of very special, close friends, and most importantly in terms of my final rehabilitation, the love of my girlfriend who is now my wife.
I suppose reflecting on this thread and all that's been said the thing that vexes me the most is that some people just don't
understand what addiction is, or at least, they're not prepared to believe, or accept, or even
consider, that an addiction is a sickness, a burden, a fundamental mindfuck that drives you fucking insane, something that is not a choice and that the person in question would give anything just to be free of.
It's easy to say 'Oh just stop drinking/taking drugs/self-harming/gambling/whatever' but it absolutely isn't as easy as that.
I realise I'm disagreeing with myself from a few posts ago now, maybe on some level, you do have to have been there or have been close to someone who was for it to really make sense, and therefore for it to be impossible not to curl up a little bit inside when you see how Amy Winehouse finally succeeded in destroying herself, because ultimately, that's every addicts' destination.
Some of us just managed to get off the train before it got there.