RIP Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse at 27 died, she left behind her voice. For her parents, family, friends and fans, her voice is enough to transport us to a place where she sang how she felt. Her voice for some will bring back memories good and bad. Her voice for some will be a constant reminder of the devastation, the impact that drugs have in our society. The fact that she was 27, the same age as some other talents, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, serves as some sort of Holy Grail to what some believe you can accomplish while high on drugs and alcohol, to others it will be a learning tool as to why you should say no.

I will try to be as sensitive as possible; in the end someone died and left the world to mourn. Whether it was drugs, violence or natural causes, the fact remains that Amy Winehouse along with many others are no longer with us. Reading blogs, posts etc. I have come across many people that have expressed that she deserved her demise. Since when did this world become so inhumane that a person could be so severely disregarded? Now don't get me wrong there are some people in my opinion that deserve a fate based on the life they lived. Unjustifiable Murderers, child molesters, rapists, mass murdering terrorist. I say this because the devastation, monstrous acts and destruction they've left behind is usually beyond self-infliction. Though drug use and people that over-dose touch more than their own lives when they are using and in their death, it is usually limited to a destruction of self.

In exploring why people use drugs and where their addiction stems from, if we ask the right questions we can usually find that most if not all addicts use stem from a pain, a misunderstanding of self, a need to fit in, a desire to be something, somewhere else. As much as the initial use of a drug or alcohol may have been voluntary, the disease is not in its initial act, it's in the inability to stop. This is what some do not understand. Why are rapists, serial killers, etc. seen as sick but an addict not? Is it possible that some people have the ability to stop and not the desire? Or the desire and not the ability? At what point then is it considered a disease, a sickness. When we label anything as a disease we offer the person afflicted with the disease an excuse to continue with such negative acts. Point well taken. At the same time what is the problem? What can cause a person to continuously hurt themselves, cause others to look at them negatively, ridicule and degrade them if not for some sort of sickness? How and why would someone make a conscious effort to have someone else treat them with disrespect or disdain and in turn feed their need to continue with their addiction if again not for some sort of sickness?

We fail to understand what drives some people to continue to use drugs despite warnings and death from its use. I in fact don't understand, but I also know that if not for my strong nature, my children and God being present in my life, I could have been addicted to something as much as the next person. I don't know if my desire to not do drugs or not to drink myself into a stupor drove my ability or if my ability to stop myself from not doing drugs and abusing alcohol controlled my desire. I do know that some people don't have strength in both and if they do it never seems to surface at the same time, this is perhaps the root of the disease. Those that I have spoken to over the years when asked how they were successful in staying clean, their response; the desire is always there, always.

I honestly believe that we all have addictions, it's just that some manifest in a way that can be well hidden. The need to have to take a shower at a specific time, order, etc. The need to keep and collect certain objects. The need to always chew gum, have a cup of coffee, watch a certain TV program. When it becomes obsessive it's called OCD rather than an addiction though to some it's the same. See we are all prone to the possibility of becoming an addict if science would back my theory it would be fact that we all are addicts, the label we wear is determined by our drug of choice. Now it doesn't matter much that she didn't say no that first time, she's gone. What does matter now is using this and all the unfortunate deaths, whether it is a 27 group of talented stars or a 57 year-old homeless man. A teen or a teacher, a politician or a grandmother, what does matter is that we find out why a person becomes and addict and what keeps them that way that will be the only way to combat drug, alcohol and even sex abuse. It's unfortunate because sometimes it doesn't matter if you find the pain, the reason they started the abuse in the first place it's their own desire and/or ability they need to channel to stop.