The Tragedy of Amy Winehouse...

I've written about the late Amy Winehouse before.  This week, I saw the new documentary about her life entitled "Amy".  As a supremely talented jazz singer, songwriter, and musician, Amy Winehouse was someone you couldn't ignore once you heard her voice...and listened to what she was telling us all.  It's still hard to believe that she was taken at just 27 years old (back in July of 2011) because she couldn't stay sober and decided to go back to drinking one weekend.  

As someone who has been trained on a chemical dependency unit, alcoholics and/or drug users often have no idea why suddenly stopping their drinking/drug use or starting back up again (once clean and sober) can kill them.  I've often told the story of one woman in her 40s who drank a fifth of vodka every day.  When she became sick (with the flu), she stopped drinking that particular day.  After going to bed that evening, her partner found her in the morning rigid and cold to the touch.  She had died during the night.  Just like Amy Winehouse.  (Who drank, went to bed, and died sometime during the night.) 

A brain seizure can happen anytime when an alcoholic or drug addict flips their own script and "just stops" or "just starts back up " using their drug(s) of choice.  To complicate matters, a sudden onset of "flu like" symptoms often signals withdrawal---NOT the legit flu.  As such, the 40-something woman just mentioned here was most likely experiencing withdrawal symptoms.  That's the insidiousness of alcohol and drug use and the addiction cycle;  you don't know at what point you need "more" in order to feel as good as you first did back in the day (when you started drinking and/or smoking weed, popping pills, and whatever else you do).  But every active addict eventually takes and ingests "more" in order to avoid being and feeling extremely sick.  Over time, avoiding the "sick" feelings is more of a priority than getting high or buzzed.  Yikes!  Talk about a script flip that sucks big time!  Ask any former heroin addict;  eventually the high is lame no matter how much one takes...but the "sick" is wicked and relentless when it comes...

Amy Winehouse was the product of a stay-at-home mom and a taxi-cab driver who started cheating on his wife when Amy was eighteen months old.  According to Amy in the documentary, her dad was "never home" at night and her mother was left to raise Amy and her older brother as basically a single parent.  In the documentary, it is mentioned how Amy was a difficult child and once told her mother that she shouldn't be so "soft" on Amy.  At the time, Amy was nine years old.  Amy focused on music as a way away from her difficult childhood and the ultimate divorce between her parents.  Since the documentary has been released, Amy's father has been very verbal in his disapproval of how he was portrayed in it.  Oh well.  Like I've said before, feelings come and go like traffic...but the facts stick around forever....

The documentary was actually very depressing once one realizes that no matter how talented and gifted Amy Winehouse was....there were forces working against her ability to succeed as a human being from the get go.  She was labeled "difficult" early on in her life...there was very little structure surrounding her....the lack of a sound and stable support network....too much freedom too soon after her parents' divorce...and on and on it went.  By the time she met her future husband who introduced her to heroin, it would just be a matter of time for Amy literally and figuratively.

Amy's story is worth seeing.  For me, it demonstrated how people don't merely "drink" or "do drugs" because it just tastes so good or feels so right.  There is always and I do mean ALWAYS a back story that we would rather ignore and deny.  I found it extremely disturbing when it was mentioned how Amy, in the presence of her father one famous, would sit on his lap and "turn into a seven year old".  What the...??  Just so sad and tragic.

Amy Winehouse was truly a little girl lost.  And now she is dead because...???  Because we typically don't know what we got til it's gone...

Untl next time...



 

Getting To Truthful.....

Imagine you just meeting someone at a party this weekend and finding out you share (or shared!) the same partner.  What would you want to ask or say to that person....or have them ask you?  Have you ever thought about this?  Has it ever happened to you personally?

Today's blog post is about getting to truthful.  With infidelity at record levels like no other time in history, what would you do if someone approached you at an event and announced "I've been sleeping with your man for the past six years!"  Would you do what might come naturally to you (deny it?  ignore it?  go on the attack?)...or would you actually do the "right" thing for once?  Note to readers:  Doing the "right" thing does not necessarily mean staying in your present relationship for 40 or 50 years until your head falls off your neck!

In a country where "committed" relationships end on average every 36 seconds, we can't afford to keep our heads in the sand about "What's gone wrong?" when it comes to our past and present primary love relationship(s).

There is a saying that we are doomed to repeat history when we don't allow ourselves to learn from it.  In many ways, I believe we have made a national past time of living in denial when it comes to facing our own ugly relationship truths.  "Tell me a comfortable lie instead of an uncomfortable truth" is far easier to swallow than facing what we don't want to face. 

There have been many books written on all the different ways couples put the screws to each other once the gild has come off their own relationship lily.  Barring the gory details, everyone who does NOT do their own work of healing, recovery, and/or authentic reconciliation basically chooses to make lying their lifestyle.  I've seen this over and over again with couples and families of all types. 

Even more nefarious, when these folks believe they have the power to brainwash whomever they come in contact with about their own familial reality.  We call it gaslighting in the biz...yet these gaslighters are clueless as to how they present themselves publicly.  "Oh!  No!  My daughter is REALLY happy now with this boyfriend #347 because he's absolutely and without a doubt her SOUL MATE!"  Okay.  And what happens when boyfriend #347 finds his voice and disappoints your daughter for real and for sure in some way or another?  What's your daughter gonna do then?  Oh yes...that's right!  She's going to check out of the relationship mentally and emotionally and start looking for boyfriend #347's replacement!  Because that's been her pattern for the past fifteen years!  Yet---who gets this stuff but those who have INSIGHT?!  Not everyone has insight you know!  Especially when insight requires the ability to face one's own dysfunctional patterns of behavior and try something DIFFERENT that isn't so hurtful and destructive...

Active addicts who find each other represents another whole kettle of fish...or garbage;  however you choose to view it.  And of course there is nothing more tragic and crazy-making than two active addicts who are raising children...or go ahead and have children together with or without the benefit of marriage.  Just because other family members past or present did NOT appropriately recover from their own alcohol/drug/sex/codependency/"whatever" addiction(s)---does NOT mean that you or I can get away with it too.  All that will happen is that the next generation of "messed up badly" grows up to repeat what has been sown within your own family plot.  Which is not a good thing.

To face what scares us the most in our present relationship(s) is truly a better choice than to go on lying...to ourselves...our partner...our friends...our children...and our grandchildren.  Sure, being honest can upset any proverbial house of cards...but to finally live in honesty is a whole lot better than living in the middle of (or a series of!) big fat lies.

Getting to truthful is based on fact.  The facts stick around for ever.  Feelings come and go like traffic.  Instead of spinning your wheels and working so hard to juggle all those balls you put in the air yourself...try seeking and getting some real help.  The truth really does work to set us free from those chains we have bound ourselves up in.

Until next time....