She had what, one song that was mildly popular? Anyone that thinks her death is a tragedy or a sad day for music needs to wake up. I'm sad for her family but that's it. I find myself sitting here just like I did when Ryan Dunn died asking why I even known this person's fucking name. What did they do that was important, meaningful or note worthy? Jack shit. Ugh....yeah pop culture. Did anyone know that Lucian Freud, a remarkably talented and amazing painter died Wednesday? Nope. But Amy crackhead Winehouse dies and people care because she was a public train wreck.

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i agree with you, but this isnt the time to argue her value to the music industry. her death is sad, as all death is. was i fan? i dont think i ever heard a song of hers. but is her untimely, and likely self destructive death sad? yeah, it is.

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I disagree with you. Cancer is not all encompassing of illnesses out there. To me, addiction is no different than something like heart disease or type II diabetes. You can be genetically prone to either one (or both), but your lifestyle can influence how those diseases affect you. There is a lot research that an individually can be genetically predispositioned to addiction, but to become addicted comes with your choices.

She may not have been as big in the US (although she was nominated for 6 grammies and won 5 of them), but her music was very popular in the UK. It's just the fact of life. She was a well-known performer who died. I'm sure you would feel (or have felt) a little grief if one of your favorite celebrities died.

It's both a tragedy and a sad day for music because she was someone with a real talent that seems to have thrown it all away for meth or crack or heroin or whatever. Jim Morrison never wrote Doors songs, but everybody acts like he was the only musician in the band. Well, he was probably the worst musician, like Winehouse, he was really just a popular but fucked-up singer. But she doesn't even deserve to be mentioned in the company as Morrsion, Joplin, and Cobain? Sorry, but Hendrix is the only one in a class above the rest there.

Morrison was a poet...You don't need to write the melody to be involved in composition.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Which is why it's not at all like other diseases.
Not everyone with heart disease or diabetes has it because they abused their bodies...they're diseases that can also be completely indiscriminate.
That's the line I draw.
Addiction, at some point, is ALWAYS a choice.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

True, Morrison was a poet and a composer of music. I'm sort of overdoing it to make my point. But Amy Winehouse had a great voice, and a great cool musical feel. I'm no fan of most pop music, but you guys saying you've never heard more than a song don't, strictly speaking, know what the fuck you're talking about.

I understand what you are saying and yes I was upset when Layne Staley and Cobain died but I guess my opinion has changed now that I'm a bit older. I think I was wrong to put so much care into a band or person I didn't actually know back then. My main point is people shouldn't be too quick to lump her into a group like Hendrix and Morrison just because she made music, people knew her name and she was a junkie. Other than superficial similarities, Winehouse was nothing like Hendrix.

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I know some of her music...She had pipes, but I don't consider her a stand-out musician in her own right.
As a casual observer, and to most lay people, she was more famous for her addiction/antics than she was for her music.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Hey, in forty years if Winehouse is considered a musical legend, one of the greatest and is still generating millions in sales etc...then I'll eat crow. That being said, I doubt it will happen. I do however think Val Kilmer could play a convincing Amy Winehouse.

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Just saying, you guys ought to actually check some of her music. If you're open to some sexiness in your music, you might be pleasantly surprised. It could become your new bedroom soundtrack. I prefer it to Barry White personally.

ALWAYS? ALWAYS a choice? Who actually chooses to become addicted, or does something with the intent to become addicted to it? You may choose to do the drug or the activity or whatever, but you're not choosing to be addicted.

Not everyone with an addiction has one because they abused their bodies either. What about crack babies or babies born with nicotine addictions because of the poor choices their mother made to smoke while they carried? What about a patient who was taking pain medication as prescribed and got addicted?

There are plenty of people who have become type II diabetics because of their lifestyle choices and eating habits or who have heart disease for the same reason. That doesn't characterize everyone with those diseases and neither does saying that all addicts choose to become addicts. No one makes a direct choice to have those diseases, but it will be an unintended consequence in some situations

I guess you better not feel bad for those who die from type II diabetes complications who brought it upon themselves, those who got cancer who brought it upon themselves, those who developed heart disease who brought it up on themselves.

Taking the disease argument to a bit of an extreme with crack babies.
My fault for using an absolute.

99.9999% of people who use cocaine without the intent of getting addicted, know damn well that it is and that's a risk they're willing to take.
I'm think the percentage is significantly less of people who eat an extra cream puff while acknowledging the risk of getting diabetes from it.

Yes, it's a choice....almost always.
Maybe a bad one...or one made by the subconscious, but a choice nonetheless.

/and I'm a big fan of adults being allowed to do what they wish with their bodies, so I'm not taking an anti-recreational drug stance here.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Addiction is found to be genetically predispositioned in people. If a mother is addicted, she could have probably passed those genes on. The baby took those drugs and not by choice. I don't really see how it's that extreme. It doesn't change that the baby is an addict. I don't mean to only limit it to crack babies, nicotine can do the same thing. It would probably be detrimental for the child to ever touch any of those drugs again in their lifetime.

Addiction itself never really overcome, but one has the ability to control it. Diabetes isn't curable, but you can control it. Heart disease isn't curable, but it's controllable.

It's generally going to take doing coke more than once to become addicted to it just like will take eating more than one cream puff to develop type II diabetes. It's all about the lifestyle.

being addicted is not a characteristic of a gene, but the ease of being addicted is linked to a gene. however, it is still a choice. my dad is an alcoholic. not the kind that drinks a six pack every day, but the kind that is violent, has gone to jail, drinks dozens of drinks a day, etc.

i acknowledged that and realized it could be easy for me to become addicted. so i made the choice to drink safely and intelligently. anyone can do it. it's taking responsibility for yourself, your body, and your actions.

alcoholism is definitely a choice. if you can't realize it's a problem on your own, your first dwi, stomach pump, job firing, etc, can tell you. if you don't get it then, you're being an idiot.

Without your father, you wouldn't have really known about the ease of becoming addicted, though, right? I appreciate that you make an example out of him of what not to do. I'm not trying to say that you would be an alcoholic otherwise, but knowing that you have a predisposition to alcoholism makes you consciously aware to avoid it. I don't think everyone really knows what you do, but I think you're really fortunate for it.

I don't think it's fair to call people with addictions idiots, but they also shouldn't be given a free pass for their actions just because they're addict. I kinda want to clarify that because I'm not saying that they have no responsibility for their actions, I just feel that it's not easy to overcome an addiction and it's kinda hard to judge someone on that because we don't know what their struggle is like.

My friend's dad was an alcoholic when she was younger and he did get help, but there was a lot of damage caused along the way (abuse and DWIs, the stuff that generally goes along with it). He was sober for quite some time after going through treatment, but I remember when he started "casually drinking" again. It may have started out casually for a little bit, but he fell right back into old ways and hard. I think a lot of addicts generally feel like they've overcome their addiction (especially years later) and may think it's okay to just have "one" and cave in. The truth is, they can't because that addiction sticks with them for the rest of their life. I don't know what it's like to battle myself from within like an addict does.

Oh, and I want to add: I did mean up there that the ability to become addicted is genetic, not the actual addiction itself is genetic. I just meant that if the mother was addicted, perhaps she was genetically inclined to become addicted, and passed that on to her baby. Then if she was doing drugs while she was pregnant, the baby would probably become dependent, too (along with other unfortunate birth defects).

i don't either. i think people that ignore every sign (dwi, unemployment, etc) of their addictions and refuse to acknowledge they have a problem are idiots.

Some addictions start because of poor choices. That doesn't change the fact that the addiction is a physiological disease. Once a person becomes addicted to something, through poor choices or not, it takes more than willpower to break it. The body changes. The body NEEDS that thing, and not getting it causes physical changes.

A person addicted to something cannot simply wake up one day and decide that they're going to nut up and stop doing that think that's causing them problems. Sometimes people WANT to stop but don't know how to get the help they need.

We're calling these people idiots now?

I have a friend that was a pretty smart person in high school. Good guy, athlete, never messed around with drugs at all. Drank a little bit with us, but nothing major. Year after we graduated, he was in a car accident. Broke both legs, one arm, really messed up. As you would imagine, he was pumped full of pain killers. He got addicted to them. Not because he was out trying to score, but because doctors pumped him full of these things.

He's been a mess ever since. Tried to pick up college again, dropped out 3 times. Never holds a job for that long. He knows he's in a bad spot, and wants to break out of it, but can't do it. He has no health insurance because of his problems keeping a job, and the free services available to him aren't enough to help him break out.

I guess he's just another drug addicted idiot right?

Some of you guys can REALLY be ignorant fucks sometimes.

How exactly did we get from Amy Winehouse to that?

Everyone knows the score, but we're not talking about [insert heartfelt story about addiction here]. We're talking about a specific person and specific circumstances.

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Hold my beer and watch this...