smelly hipster...

Here’s the thing: I don’t really care about Amy Winehouse’s death. Absolutely, it is sad to see a talented person die at an early age (also: my current age).
What has my panties in a twist is the camp of people who say, “she made the choice to die.” I don’t think these people quite have a grasp on what an addiction is.

Addiction rewires the pleasure centers of your brain. I don’t mean, “blech, chocolate is gross,” rewiring, I mean, “I can’t function without [x] and I am in physical pain to be without [x].” It isn’t always about willpower. This is why people call addictions, “diseases.” Since addiction actually changes your body chemistry, it’s just as much of a disease as diabetes or cancer are diseases. By the way, diabetes and cancer can also be the consequence of choices we make.

I may be feeling defensive because I lost a friend, Mike, to an addiction three years ago. He died of a heroin overdose. Everyone who knew Mike was shocked because we thought he had been clean. Was it his choice to do heroin? Yes. It was also an addiction that he had not fully recovered from. Was anyone any less affected by his death because it was a result of his actions? No. Did his addiction make him any less of a person? No. He was creative, funny, sweet, and thoughtful. That’s why we were all devastated to lose him. Was anyone angry over the circumstances? Yes, everyone. 

So to me, it’s fine if you weren’t a fan of Amy Winehouse. I certainly wasn’t her biggest fan. If your instinct, however, is to tell people, “don’t mourn this loss, it was her own damn fault,” then I hope you learn to be an empathetic human being in the near future. Devaluing someone’s life never makes you look like you’re making an excellent point. I hope we should all be so lucky as to die of natural causes in our sleep, but the truth is, sometimes our deaths are the result of choices we make in life.