As someone who comes from two generations of addicts as well as some family members who managed to escape those choices despite their background, I think the position this documentary takes is bullshit. Amy had far more resources available to her than most addicts. She had money, she had access to fancy rehab facilities and the best counselors. She was an adult woman who chose not to take advantage of any of them.

I'm tired of people treating addicts as though they are helpless babies who should expect others to care for them. That attitude does nothing but enable these users to act as such. Blaming the family members is unfair. Any family member of an addict will tell you how pointless it is trying to help someone who doesn't want to do their part.

@1 Amen. I'm pretty disgusted by the attitude of the author, who so enthusiastically blames "everyone else" besides the precious Ms. Winehouse.

Look, Ian Curtis was a brilliant artist who left us far too soon. But it is a travesty to his memory to look for blame in his death, beyond Ian's own responsibility. Honor Amy W, accept what she did to herself, and live your life without blame. You'll enjoy the music better, I can tell you that much.

I'm guilty of murder of innocent men
Innocent women, innocent children, thousands of them
My planes, my guns, my money, my soul,
My blood on my hands, it's all my fault
I must not think bad thoughts
I must not think bad thoughts

Who'd I kill today?

Amy Winehouse killed Amy Winehouse...

@7 you're a spambot, and yet you have most compassion of anyone on this thread so far.

@1 Addiction is a disease. The problem is that addiction is a tough disease to treat.. As much as we want to pass moral judgement on loved one who are addicts. It is tough disease to treat, with a chronic long term side effects..

I didn’t really like going on the roller coaster ride that addicts take their loved ones on... 24/7. However it should be looked upon first as a medical problem..

Never mind, the spambot comment was deleted. Enjoy kicking her corpse around, everyone - it definitely beats thinking about your own faults, amirite?

@10 What is your problem? My faults didn’t kill me at 27, besides getting me Emphysema by age 24.. (Yes Amy Winehouse had emphysema for three years before she died, way to burn both candles at both ends)

No one is kicking around her corpse. She died. It is final, it is painful, and it very painful in pointing fingers to others in her death, when there is one person to blame: Amy Winehouse

collective guilt is a tricky thing. i'm not paparazzi, i'm not her stupid parents, i'm not her last manager, i'm not her husband, i'm not a girl who dressed up as her on halloween.

i'm a person who liked back to black well enough, not a ton, but thought "that girl is going to get herself killed". every time i saw her after that record came out, it made me sad. her death is another predictable tragedy that i had no power to prevent.

Don't be naive. Bill Clinton killed Amy Winehouse, just like he killed Kurt Cobain.

@7, True Dat!

I think the point's pretty clear. Her management pressured and coerced her into tours she didn't want to do, because money, which exacerbated her isolation and addiction. And then the media exploited the fall out and everyone else laughed. I'd OD too. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to get fucked over by addicts in my personal life. But she never did anything to hurt me, and I think this reaction is sad and mean, where I'd hope people might reflect on what we consider entertainment instead.

Everybody on this planet has a choice about whether or not they take up smack or coke or booze. Everyone on this planet knows the risks involved with taking up same, particularly smack. I feel no pity for people who - SURPRISE!! - 1) become addicts and 2) die either directly or indirectly from their addiction/inability or unwillingness to get help. Calling this shit a 'disease' is an insult to people with actual diseases.

If you stick needles in your eyes, because you fall for the notion that doing so is hip or glamorous or edgy, and you end up blind, do not blame others when you are forced to go around with a white cane and a seeing eye dog. And for fuck's sake, don't cry "help me! I have a DISEASE!"

@16 It is a disease. Drug Addiction has to be treated a medical way, rather than a tough love, a paradigm of moral judgment/moral failure of the addict. Drug Addictions has horrible recidivism rates. It needs to be treated as a long term chronic disease.

Much like with alcoholism, there is no cure, but the one big part of the treatment is abstinence, and therapy to make the addict feel comfortable without the drug. Easier said than done...

Again, calling drug addiction a "disease" is an insult to people like my mother who died of cancer. She never smoked, ate sensibly, was slim, healthy and active her whole life, and we had no family history of the disease that we were aware of.

Dead within 11 months.

THAT is a fucking disease. People shooting smack because it's cool and edgy and oh ya, didn't Keith Richards shoot it at one point too? Ray Charles? Kurt Cobain? So hip, man. And oh no, now I'm an addict just like my idols!! Help me! I'm a completely helpless infant! I'm DISEASED! Total and utter bullshit.

Is smoking a disease too? No. It's a fucking addiction. Nobody forced that first cigarette on you, or the 2nd, 3rd and 18th. Nobody stuck the needle in a heroin addict's arm the first time. They did it to themselves, assuming the risk that EVERYONE knows is there. NOT a fucking disease.

And btw nothing in what I've said suggests people shouldn't be treated. Of course they should. Yes, the recidivism rate for addicts sucks. Neither of which are the point. The point is that some things are diseases and some are addictions, the latter being the a risk you take when engaging in stupid behavior like smoking cigarettes or crack, snorting coke, and/or shooting heroin. Opting to do this shit and ending up an addict because you chose to take such an idiotic risk does not equal 'disease'. This is like politically correct-speak gone nutso, which I can only imagine, allows the addict to avoid accepting responsibility for his or her own behavior.

Tell people with ALS, spina bifida, cystic fibrosis - actual diseases - that Amy Winehouse died of a 'disease'.

“ calling drug addiction a “disease" is an insult to people like my mother who died of cancer."

No, it fucking isn’t an insult. Any definition of a disease, has the term “affliction”. Diseases, can be fatal, acute, chronic, etc. Hence why “Crohn’s Disease”, isn’t downplayed as a disease like cancer..

Addiction is a serious problem, and it has to be looked at and treated medically, as a fuckin disease.

I am sorry for your mother’s lost. We all have family, and the Buddha has stated that life is suffering. My brother has ependymoma which has metastasize, so I don’t think I am debasing ependymomas by stating that addiction is a disease.. Grow up...

“Opting to do this shit and ending up an addict because you chose to take such an idiotic risk does not equal ‘disease'."

If you are going to treat any disease, casting moral judgment and moral blame on the person, is not the way for the person with substance abuse to say, I need help and I want to get better. This has to be looked upon as a medical problem, and treated as medically as possible..

Sadly, Tough Love, Boot Camps, Support Groups, 28 day rehabs, all pretty much has the same horrible recidivism rates, around 90 percent...

I don't think we should be trying to assign blame to anyone, but instead trying to understand. Amy Winehouse's death was probably caused by a number of factors. She could have done more to address her substance abuse. At the same time, the media, her family and her managers didn't take her personal struggles as seriously as they should have.

The things she was battling with - addiction, self-harm, depression, eating disorders - become so much harder to handle when you don't have people to support you. If her family and managers weren't offering her support, or if the media was vilifying her and treating her substance abuse flippantly, then that could very well have exacerbated the situation. People with addiction or mental health issues often don't accept help from the people around them. But that doesn't excuse the people around them from trying to help.

The takeaway this author came away with is a total croc of shit. To imply 'the public' are complicit in her death because her life foibles played out in tabloid pages not only defies logic, its plain lazy. Amy Winehouse, like everyone else, wasn't (isn't) owed shit, and there were no promises broken in her death (as in 'life promises you nothing'). As Clint once said to Gene Hackman...."Deserve has got nothing to do with it...."