Amy Winehouse was No Victim, Amy Winehouse was No Hero

Amy Winehouse's death evoked a chorus from two sides of the simmering debate as to whether or not addiction is a "disease" which addicts cannot control. Now, before anything else is said (because most of you are not going to like what I say, but then few ever do), let me offer Winehouse's friends and family my sincerest condolences. I'm not familiar with her body of work, but "Rehab" is a fantastic song which proves her talent. The music world lost a great artist, and many people lost a great friend and family member.

Like Kurt Cobain -- the easiest and most direct comparison -- Amy Winehouse was a talented junkie. Like Cobain, Winehouse was poised on superstardom and, just like Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse died at 27. There have been so many who shared this fate (Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and others) that it has given rise to the pop-cultural legend of "The 27 Club." This concept has become almost as legendary as its members - so much so, it has even spawned a best-selling comic book series.

There is an undeniable Romantic quality to The 27 Club, but (with few exceptions) these artists' lives were tragic -- their deaths were not. The members of The 27 Club were, like Amy Winehouse, out-of-control addicts whose substance abuse finally caught-up with them, yet they have been lionized as geniuses in their passing. Some of them were brilliant, while others were merely popular musicians -- but whichever camp they fall into, none of them died from disease.

Addiction is not a disease and it's extremely offensive to people suffering from actual diseases to argue that it is. If you ever tell someone with ALS, AIDS, or cancer, "You know, addiction is a disease just like yours," I hope they beat the ever-living shit out of you. I hope they beat you so badly that they cripple you, then they visit you in the hospital and say, "You know, addicts are crippled just like you." Addiction, for the most part, can be cured -- at the very least, it can be treated, regardless of the substance or its hold on the person.

Addiction is something that can be controlled and even avoided entirely, unlike many real diseases. Make no mistake about it: Addiction is powerful and substances like heroin, nicotine, alcohol, and Prozac are physically addictive, as well as mentally and emotionally habit-forming. These kinds of substances are never easy to quit and can actually be deadly to stop taking without treatment. However, addiction is a lifestyle and -- until it spirals out of control -- a choice.

Many opponents of addiction as a disease will say flippant things like, "Just don't do drugs" or "[Drug addicts] shouldn't have started in the first place," but that's a gross oversimplification. Still, no substance known to man is truly addictive right out of the gates. It may affect some people that way, but only a very few, and those people are psychologically affected; there is no drug that makes a user physically dependent upon it after a single use. This means that, in order to become addicted, the user must consciously choose to consume the drug numerous times before addiction sets in. Users who claim to be addicted after "the first hit/dose" can only claim a psychological urge to use again, not an actual need to do so.

Addiction can easily creep-up on a person -- that's where the classic line, "I can stop whenever I want to stop" line comes from -- and long-time users can suddenly discover that no, they cannot just quit whenever they want, but short-time users do not face this problem despite what some insist (both drug-users and "professionals" who deal with them). Some say that methamphetamine can be addictive on the first try, but that has never been proven and is basically a scare tactic and/or "victim" rhetoric. Hard drugs like meth, crack cocaine, and heroin can be physically addictive after relatively few uses, though. 'Relatively few uses' still requires more than one or two uses, and every time someone decides to use, s/he is making a choice.

Don't forget that I'm a smoker. I've smoked cigarettes for 20 years and, despite the occasional chest pains and cough, I've no desire to quit. I know it would be good for me, I know cigarettes are detrimental to my health, and I know that I could at least smoke less were I to honestly try harder, but the truth is that I don't try as hard as I should because I enjoy smoking.

I've never tried to hide the fact that I'm addicted to nicotine, because I am and I know it. And while I can't just "choose" to stop smoking, I'm sure as hell not suffering from some crippling disease! In fact, I'm offended that anyone would even suggest that; I know people who have real diseases -- and you probably do too -- and not being able to quit smoking is nothing compared to what they face.

I would quit, or at least cut-back, if I could afford nicotine patches, which cost more than an entire month's worth of cigarettes. I've tried them before (on a very short-term basis) and they really did kill the cravings, so the only thing preventing me from quitting is the cost. However, I would stop smoking only because I know it's bad for me and not because I want to -- because I don't want to quit smoking! I enjoy smoking and it's one of my few real vices. Regardless, I'd be more than willing to try if I could afford to.

Amy Winehouse was worth something like $13 million -- she could have afforded the best medical care and support available, around the clock -- but she didn't even try. Hell, her only hit single was explicitly about how she refused to go to rehab! Our circumstances are worlds apart, and she looked like she might have had a disease or three, but addiction wasn't one of them; neither of us are/were so diseased.

Winehouse was considered a jazz singer, and jazz and junk go hand-in-hand. Her song "Rehab" was a semi-satirical, largely autobiographical, rock n roll rebel anthem. But Amy Winehouse was a real human being, not the caricature both she and the media portrayed her as. Maybe she lost sight of that somewhere along the way, and the drugs definitely played a big role in that (as did the constant public scrutiny engendered and fueled by the media), but she wasn't so far gone that she didn't realize she was circling the drain, she simply did not stop -- she didn't even try.

She canceled her European tour just a few weeks prior to her death after botching a performance in Serbia, yet she checked-out of a rehab clinic after only seven days. It's clear that Winehouse was troubled and this probably lead to her problems with drugs and alcohol, but she may well just have been a "party girl" who enjoyed insobriety until it became a way of life. She may not have tried because she she truly wanted to die, or she simply didn't care if she did. Whatever the case may be, she wasn't enthralled by some disease. Because addiction is not a disease!

Addiction is a mindset, a lifestyle, and largely a choice (or series of choices, if you prefer).

Do not idolize Amy Winehouse; she was no martyr and she sure as hell wasn't a role model. Neither was Kurt Cobain or Janis Joplin or Jim Morrison; those people were selfish junkies, and Amy Winehouse may well have been, too. Some of them, like Winehouse, were wildly talented and their passing left the world a poorer place, but none of them had a disease called addiction that robbed them of their lives; they all had some very bad habits and none of them sought help to control those habits.

Amy Winehouse was no hero and Amy Winehouse was no victim; she was a talented, troubled artist who lost her life to continually making bad choices -- the worst of which was not trying to stop.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011