I was preparing for a wedding in Wisconsin when my husband texted me about Amy Winehouse's death on Saturday. I didn't discover Winehouse until just about a year ago when I stumbled across some of her music while burning CDs one night for a road trip. Her voice, in my opinion, was incredible. Her rendition of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" was one of the songs I burned for this road trip to Wisconsin.
When I returned home, I got caught up on one of my new favorite series on Showtime: Nurse Jackie. In the series, Edie Falco plays Nurse Jackie who happens to be an excellent nurse as well as a drug addict (to pain meds). At the end of Season Two, Jackie is confronted by her husband and best friend about her drug addiction. As Jackie runs into the bathroom and looks into the mirror at herself, she imagines walking along a beach and saying out loud, "Hello my name is Jackie and I'm a drug addict." The image then cuts back to Jackie looking at herself in the mirror. Her last words before Season Two ends are as follows: "Blow me."...as she looks skyward and laughs out loud.
Amy Winehouse and Nurse Jackie had/have way too much in common. Yet Nurse Jackie is a fictional character and Amy Winehouse was not. Amy Winehouse had her own way of saying "Blow me" to anyone and everyone who cared about her and wanted to see her get and remain sober. Her way was through her hit song "Rehab". The first few opening lines of Rehab are as follows:
"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"
Of course Amy Winehouse is never coming back...not ever.
Addicts are an interesting bunch. They are, in my professional opinion, much more sensitive generally speaking to the "crap" of living life in our world. They feel pain more acutely in whatever form it takes be it emotionally, physically, and/or spiritually. Before becoming addicted, many of these individuals functioned as five-star level enablers; whatever "pain" was happening to whomever and whenever---they'd "take the shirt off their backs" to help. Sounds good in theory...but not in practice. People who become addicts are overloaded and overwhelmed by all the pain that surrounds them---and might I add their inability to "fix" everything in a timely manner.
Active addicts, on the other hand, become all about their own pain. Except for now, they aren't including everyone else who they "tried" to fix in the past who also was hurting. Instead, their focus becomes making themselves feel better fast no matter what. No matter who else is "hurt" in the process. No matter what it costs them literally. No matter what the risk to themselves or others. No matter if it kills them...like Amy Winehouse.
With the active addict, their families...their significant others...their children...no one is exempt from being exploited, lied to, or abused when they get in the way of the addict and their "fix". This is made abundantly clear in the series "Nurse Jackie". I have a very strong feeling the same was made abundantly clear to those who loved and cared for Amy Winehouse as well.
I don't know if Amy Winehouse was clean or not clean or sober or not sober in the hours, days, weeks, or months preceding her death. A photo was taken of her walking down a street in London just eleven days before she died. She looked the best to me she's ever looked in that photograph. But looks can be deceiving of course. Whatever demons plagued Winehouse, this poor young woman didn't understand that surrendering herself and her pride to the help that was available to her was the key to getting better. Really and truly.
But you know what they say about pride right? Pride does come before the fall. It's just too bad and beyond tragic that the fall came on Saturday to yet another misguided and phenomenal talent---Amy Winehouse. R.I.P.
