Amy Decline-house: Why is no one acting to stop the headlong rush into oblivion?

11 April 2012
The Weekender

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Amy Winehouse, I feel sorry for you, I really do.

There she was, pictured in the early hours of Sunday morning, wandering the streets of East London dressed only in a pink bra, jeans, and numerous tattoos.

She'd lost the trademark heavy eye make-up and the elaborate beehive, and in their place was the pale moon face of a frightened, lonely little girl who had everything - looks, talent, money, love - and now has nothing.

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The curvaceous Amy wowing them at the V festival in 2004 (left), a far cry from the half-dressed singer who seemed to be making a plea for help last Sunday (right)

Her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, is in Pentonville Prison awaiting trial on a charge of grievous bodily harm.

Her career is now on hold - having been booed off stage last month for being incoherent and hostile towards the audience, she has cancelled the remainder of her UK tour.

Her skin has the texture of rice pudding, she has no flesh on her bones to speak of and even her teeth have started to fall out because of the abuse - she is, according to her mother-in-law, back on cocaine and heroin - she has been inflicting on her body.

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January: Nominated at the Brit awards 2004 (left) but the singer was soon looking gaunt in July

Let me say immediately that I deplore this infuriatingly talented singer's selfish weakness, her suicidal self-obsession.

Pity should be reserved for those who have tragedy inflicted upon them, like young cancer victims, not self-destructive junkies such as Amy.

She is, godammit, a role model who influences the thinking of countless impressionable teenagers and her behaviour deserves our scornful condemnation.

At the same time it is possible to ask: why isn't anybody helping Amy?

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April: Cuts on her arm betray self-harm after a concert in Dublin in 2007(left), March: With drug-addict beau Blake this year (right)

Why hasn't her record company, which must have made a fortune from her multi-platinum-selling albums, booked her into a secure rehab facility?

Why has her family not taken control, locked her up, talked sense into that mixed-up, supertalented head?

Why, on Sunday morning, was there nobody around who could coax her back inside, wrap her up in a blanket and rock her in their arms until her demons abated?

You might wonder, on the other hand, whether the constant attention from the media, the fascination with her decline, is somehow fuelling her desire to be, ooh, I don't know, the next Janis Joplin.

That she feels her >behaviour is only vindicated if it is seen.

June: The toast of the town, singling live at the MTV awards in the US earlier this year

That perhaps the exposed pink push-up bra and washboard stomach in those photographs was a little too contrived?

Perhaps you wonder if, because she is famous, her pain isn't real? That because her photo appears in a magazine or newspaper, it somehow diffuses what is happening to her?

Well, neither way of thinking is particularly helpful.

What is important to understand about an addict is that they cannot be helped, not even by those closest to them; they have to decide to help themselves.

And fame doesn't act as a buffer when it comes to pain.

I wouldn't say that being famous causes these problems, but I would wager that those who struggle with inner demons are more likely to enter a profession that is out of the ordinary.

I kept my own self-destructive addiction, anorexia, secret from my parents for decades and now run eating disorder self-help groups.

As the dad of a budding actress who attends one of these confided to me the other day: "I just wish she was a bit more ordinary. That she didn't rail against the world, and was happy to plod along."

Amy is a textbook candidate for addiction.

Like many bright young women who didn't feel attractive or confident as a little girl, she developed an inner fantasy life that was much more interesting than reality: very useful if you are a songwriter; very unhelpful if you are trying to grow up.

These introverted young women are hard to fathom: on the one hand, they need an artificial prop to face the world; on the other, they secretly feel too "special" to act like everyone else.

They think they deserve an interesting life and will go to great lengths to get it.

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November: Falling apart last month following Blake's arrest (left) August: Nursing a bruised and cut face after leaving rehab this summer (right)

A friend of mine has a daughter who became addicted to heroin at the age of 16. The girl was bright and thought she was destined for great things.

She would write poems and songs, and at a very young age told her parents she wished they would get divorced so they wouldn't be so "mind-numbingly boring".

These young women can be incredibly powerful.

I have a friend with an addict daughter who is now severely braindamaged due to an overdose she took when she was 19.

But before that, my friend was often afraid of her, and seemed not to want to interfere or ask prying questions for fear of her child flying into a rage.

Addicts are also extremely secretive.

My friend had no idea her daughter was on heroin until it was far too late.

She thought her daughter was pale and thin because she had an eating disorder (for many women, and I'm sure this is the case for Amy Winehouse, drugs have the side-effect of keeping you "interestingly" cadaverous).

Female addicts will often seek weak, co-dependent men who do what they are told.

When my friend's daughter's boyfriend decided to get clean, she just ditched him for another who would steal for her, deal for her and take heroin with her.

The family of an addict are not only often the last to know something is wrong, they are often helpless to do anything about it once they do know.

My brother's wife, the vibrant and beautiful mother of his two daughters, slowly and at first imperceptibly became an alcoholic.

Only when his daughters finally confessed they often came home from school to find her unconscious on the floor surrounded by empty bottles did he realise something was wrong.

But, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't force her to stop drinking.

In the end, she lost her job, her husband, her children, her looks and her home.

Like Amy she had everything to live for, but deep down she thought she wasn't worth saving.

My friend frogmarched her heroin-addicted daughter to rehab, but said: "I knew there was no hope for her when she just rolled her eyes as if to say: 'What the hell am I doing here?'"

It's so easy to lose patience with addicts.

They become ugly, difficult and (the Amys of this world will hate this) ultimately incredibly boring.

I remember meeting my sister-in-law for lunch, and she was so inebriated she couldn't accurately put food in her mouth, instead spilling it all down her front. She had nothing interesting to say.

It is the banality of addicts we need to emphasise when we are warning children off drugs and drink.

Pete Doherty might seem thin, dangerous and anti-Establishment, but if you have seen him, as I have, attack a young, female photographer, his face contorted with rage, you would just think, how revolting.

I remember talking to Pattie Boyd about what it had been like to be married to Eric Clapton, himself a one-time heroin addict, and she said that in the end the last thing she saw was glamour or excitement.

Drugs made him incredibly selfish.

Yes, he wrote great songs, and I suppose that fact will make Amy take solace. But I can't see her reaching the age of 25.

She needs something to happen that will shock her so badly that she will seek help. Let's hope that happens soon.

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