Amy Winehouse proved she was no good
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Global Times, July 26, 2011
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Amy Winehouse [File Photo] |
I opened my eyes and saw the flash of a red light illuminate the road in front of me. Where was I? I looked around, dazed. My hands were on a steering wheel. My car was not moving. I was on an unfamiliar suburban street. The red light kept flashing, pulsating like my heartbeat. I was frightened by what I would see if I looked behind me. Police? Or worse, an ambulance? I was intoxicated. Had I blacked out and hurt or killed someone?
Some people are lucky. They have moments like this one, and pull back from the brink. But the lure of escape that drugs and alcohol offer can last a lot longer that our memories of hitting rock bottom.
The other night, I received a phone call from a childhood friend I had not seen for years. We loved to get high and falling down drunk together in high school and university. He quit drinking after making an ass of himself after his mother-in-law's funeral. But he found that without booze, his wife was unbearable, and they separated. During the phone call, my friend told me that his second wife was ticked off because he had started drinking again. I should be annoyed when people from home get sentimental and drink and dial, but frankly it's often the only time I hear from them.
A notable exception to this is my mother, who recently called to invite me to a party to celebrate her first year with the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program.
She abused alcohol and prescription drugs at the cost of her marriage and relationship with her family. Her daughter and sisters still won't talk to her.
My Mom's alcohol abuse was under control until about seven years ago, when she started taking painkillers for a broken bone. She became a different person. My sister and I started referring to her as Amy Winehouse-Mom, as opposed to our "real" mom we had grown up with.
I felt sad but did not cry when I heard Amy Winehouse died. Her main claim to fame was a tongue-in-cheek song about someone who refused to go to rehab. Except Winehouse seemed to miss the joke. And like other members of the 27-Club, the famous group of musicians that self destruct at age 27 including bluesman Robert Johnson, Janis Joplin, and Kurt Cobain, Winehouse seemed to glorify substance abuse as something romantic, a byproduct of being a suffering artist. Maybe she took her name, Winehouse, too seriously. I think she was a loser who will hopefully serve as a negative example for the rest of us.
In Western countries right now, alcoholism and drug addiction are frequently thought of as diseases, not moral failings. But I think this ignores the fact that kicking these habits requires a spiritual, not medical, solution. Willpower and a turn to spirituality, not medicine, is what helped my mother, my friend, and me kick our substance abuse habits. Willpower has also failed us, but because of a focus on something greater than ourselves, we've picked ourselves up and tried again.
That night I awoke from a stupor in the suburbs, before turning my head around to see what was causing the flashing light, I feared seeing the body of someone I had run over. What I saw was the flashing red light atop a stop sign. I was relieved, but knew only good luck separated me from somebody guilty of vehicular manslaughter. I drove home. In the morning, my roommates irately pointed out I had driven the car into the side of our house. That day changed me, and a few months later, I packed my things and moved to the West Coast to start a new, clean life.
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