Amy Winehouse found dead

[RoboRiise]

Firstly, let me inform you about what heroin actually is. It's a semi-synthetic opioid (that means it binds with the opioid receptors) which comes from the chemical synthesis of morphine. It's not the same thing as opium (which contains about 12% morphine, which is then synthesised to make heroin). If you're going to imply I'm ignorant, you might want to use the correct terminology. We're talking about heroin.

 

See you have looked up the subject on Wikipedia and are now proclaiming to be an expert on the subject, yet you have no experience of the drug what so ever. And get your facts right, it binds with the opioid receptors because it is an opioid not because it is semi synthetic.

 

 

To be honest mate, you'd have a bit more credibility if you were capable of understanding the structure of a sentence. Or perhaps you're just trolling, in which case congratulations. Lets take a look at the sentence in question shall we?

 

It's a semi-synthetic opioid (that means it binds with the opioid receptors)

 

It is a semi-synthetic opioid (that [the fact that it's an opioid] means it binds with the opioid receptors).

 

Sorry if you think I'm being a cunt for pointing that out (and hey, I guess I am) but if you're going attack someone's comments you should really make sure you understand them fully first.

 

The thing that stands out about pretty much every post in this thread criticising the legalisation argument is that almost none of them are criticising the system that Número Veinticinco is talking about; instead they all seem to be based on the idea that at least one of the components of the process by which heroin users in the UK today obtain and take their drugs would remain in place.

 

There are certainly elements of the legalisation argument that bear scrutiny depending on how far down the legalisation/state supply path you want to travel but most of the objections in this thread are more akin to white van man spluttering over his tea and toast about "druggies" than any actual informed debate.

[lifetime fan]

To be honest mate, you'd have a bit more credibility if you were capable of understanding the structure of a sentence. Or perhaps you're just trolling, in which case congratulations. Lets take a look at the sentence in question shall we?

 

 

 

It is a semi-synthetic opioid (that [the fact that it's an opioid] means it binds with the opioid receptors).

 

Sorry if you think I'm being a cunt for pointing that out (and hey, I guess I am) but if you're going attack someone's comments you should really make sure you understand them fully first.

 

The thing that stands out about pretty much every post in this thread criticising the legalisation argument is that almost none of them are criticising the system that Número Veinticinco is talking about; instead they all seem to be based on the idea that at least one of the components of the process by which heroin users in the UK today obtain and take their drugs would remain in place.

 

There are certainly elements of the legalisation argument that bear scrutiny depending on how far down the legalisation/state supply path you want to travel but most of the objections in this thread are more akin to white van man spluttering over his tea and toast about "druggies" than any actual informed debate.

 

 

That's a very good post. For a cunt, like.

[Wor Horse]

Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison! All music giants & died Age 27. Anyone know when Jedwards birthday is ??

 

John's birthday is in April. Don't know about the other one though.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

To be honest mate, you'd have a bit more credibility if you were capable of understanding the structure of a sentence. Or perhaps you're just trolling, in which case congratulations. Lets take a look at the sentence in question shall we?

 

It is a semi-synthetic opioid (that [the fact that it's an opioid] means it binds with the opioid receptors).

 

Sorry if you think I'm being a cunt for pointing that out (and hey, I guess I am) but if you're going attack someone's comments you should really make sure you understand them fully first.

 

Thanks, Robo. I was going to go into it myself, but by the time I'd finished reading the post, I wasn't really arsed any more.

 

There's a couple of other things in his post which indicated he has a bit of a problem with comprehension. He seemed to think I was suggesting that we hand drugs out to anybody who wants them. He seemed to think taking all of your prescription medication, at the same time, in more doses than has been prescribed, is somehow an argument against prescription. Weird. Best left to his own devices, I reckon.

[Total Longo]

Russel Brand is a brilliant person

 

When you love someone who suffers from the disease of addiction you await the phone call. There will be a phone call. The sincere hope is that the call will be from the addict themselves, telling you they’ve had enough, that they’re ready to stop, ready to try something new. Of course though, you fear the other call, the sad nocturnal chime from a friend or relative telling you it’s too late, she’s gone.

Frustratingly it’s not a call you can ever make it must be received. It is impossible to intervene.

I’ve known Amy Winehouse for years. When I first met her around Camden she was just some twit in a pink satin jacket shuffling round bars with mutual friends, most of whom were in cool Indie bands or peripheral Camden figures Withnail-ing their way through life on impotent charisma. Carl Barrat told me that “Winehouse” (which I usually called her and got a kick out of cos it’s kind of funny to call a girl by her surname) was a jazz singer, which struck me as a bizarrely anomalous in that crowd. To me with my limited musical knowledge this information placed Amy beyond an invisible boundary of relevance; “Jazz singer? She must be some kind of eccentric” I thought. I chatted to her anyway though, she was after all, a girl, and she was sweet and peculiar but most of all vulnerable.

I was myself at that time barely out of rehab and was thirstily seeking less complicated women so I barely reflected on the now glaringly obvious fact that Winehouse and I shared an affliction, the disease of addiction. All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they’re not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but un-ignorable veil. Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pinstriped exec foaming off about his “speedboat” there is a toxic aura that prevents connection. They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they’re looking through you to somewhere else they’d rather be. And of course they are. The priority of any addict is to anaesthetise the pain of living to ease the passage of the day with some purchased relief.

From time to time I’d bump into Amy she had good banter so we could chat a bit and have a laugh, she was “a character” but that world was riddled with half cut, doped up chancers, I was one of them, even in early recovery I was kept afloat only by clinging to the bodies of strangers so Winehouse, but for her gentle quirks didn’t especially register.

Then she became massively famous and I was pleased to see her acknowledged but mostly baffled because I’d not experienced her work and this not being the 1950’s I wondered how a “jazz singer” had achieved such cultural prominence. I wasn’t curious enough to do anything so extreme as listen to her music or go to one of her gigs, I was becoming famous myself at the time and that was an all consuming experience. It was only by chance that I attended a Paul Weller gig at the Roundhouse that I ever saw her live.

I arrived late and as I made my way to the audience through the plastic smiles and plastic cups I heard the rolling, wondrous resonance of a female vocal. Entering the space I saw Amy on stage with Weller and his band; and then the awe. The awe that envelops when witnessing a genius. From her oddly dainty presence that voice, a voice that seemed not to come from her but from somewhere beyond even Billie and Ella, from the font of all greatness. A voice that was filled with such power and pain that it was at once entirely human yet laced with the divine. My ears, my mouth, my heart and mind all instantly opened. Winehouse. Winehouse? Winehouse! That twerp, all eyeliner and lager dithering up Chalk Farm Road under a back-combed barnet, the lips that I’d only seen clenching a fishwife fag and dribbling curses now a portal for this holy sound. So now I knew. She wasn’t just some hapless wannabe, yet another pissed up nit who was never gonna make it, nor was she even a ten-a-penny-chanteuse enjoying her fifteen minutes. She was a fucking genius.

Shallow fool that I am I now regarded her in a different light, the light that blazed down from heaven when she sang. That lit her up now and a new phase in our friendship began. She came on a few of my TV and radio shows, I still saw her about but now attended to her with a little more interest. Publicly though, Amy increasingly became defined by her addiction. Our media though is more interested in tragedy than talent, so the ink began to defect from praising her gift to chronicling her downfall. The destructive personal relationships, the blood soaked ballet slippers, the aborted shows, that youtube madness with the baby mice. In the public perception this ephemeral tittle-tattle replaced her timeless talent. This and her manner in our occasional meetings brought home to me the severity of her condition. Addiction is a serious disease; it will end with jail, mental institutions or death. I was 27 years old when through the friendship and help of Chip Somers of the treatment centre, Focus12 I found recovery, through Focus I was introduced to support fellowships for alcoholics and drug addicts which are very easy to find and open to anybody with a desire to stop drinking and without which I would not be alive.

Now Amy Winehouse is dead, like many others whose unnecessary deaths have been retrospectively romanticised, at 27 years old. Whether this tragedy was preventable or not is now irrelevant. It is not preventable today. We have lost a beautiful and talented woman to this disease. Not all addicts have Amy’s incredible talent. Or Kurt’s or Jimi’s or Janis’s, some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill. We need to review the way society treats addicts, not as criminals but as sick people in need of care. We need to look at the way our government funds rehabilitation. It is cheaper to rehabilitate an addict than to send them to prison, so criminalisation doesn’t even make economic sense. Not all of us know someone with the incredible talent that Amy had but we all know drunks and junkies and they all need help and the help is out there. All they have to do is pick up the phone and make the call. Or not. Either way, there will be a phone call.

 

Genius?? For fuck's sake that word is bandied about so often these days it's losing all meaning. She didn't come across as particularly intellectual, creative or even original. She just had a half decent singing voice (which did nothing for me, personally) and a penchant for hard drugs and alcohol. Hardly a genius. Is Liam Gallagher a genius? He ticks all those boxes, but i don't hear the clamour for him being labelled the same way. Probably because he isn't one.

 

And i'm still uncomfortable with people calling heroin addiction a "disease". It just doesn't sit right.

Edited July 24, 2011 by Total Longo

[VladimirIlyich]

I think he overplayed her talent but its always interesting to hear an addict speak about their and others addiction,especially as its something that's never really affected me personally.

[Hermes]

And i'm still uncomfortable with people calling heroin addiction a "disease". It just doesn't sit right.

 

The term is used as an excuse for weak minded people to hide behind, the same with alcoholics.

 

They can be free of the "disease" by their own choice - stop taking it and the "disease" miraculously goes away - which is not the case for people with a genuine disease.

[She Knows It]

The term is used as an excuse for weak minded people to hide behind, the same with alcoholics.

 

They can be free of the "disease" by their own choice - stop taking it and the "disease" miraculously goes away - which is not the case for people with a genuine disease.

 

Bollocks. The disease doesn't go away, it just becomes controlled. If it went away, an addict would never relapse.

 

Addiction is a disease with a proven, strong genetic link. Yes, it is sometimes exacerbated by poor lifestyle choices, but the same can be said for heart disease - you have a genetic predisposition to it, but it's made worse by poor diet etc.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

It's a medically defined term. The end.

[TheBitch]

Don't feed him.

[Hermes]

Bollocks. The disease doesn't go away, it just becomes controlled. If it went away, an addict would never relapse.

 

Addiction is a disease with a proven, strong genetic link. Yes, it is sometimes exacerbated by poor lifestyle choices, but the same can be said for heart disease - you have a genetic predisposition to it, but it's made worse by poor diet etc.

 

Nail on head.

 

The addict relapses because he chooses to, when he choses not to he is miraculously "cured".

[King Emlyn]

The term is used as an excuse for weak minded people to hide behind, the same with alcoholics.

 

They can be free of the "disease" by their own choice - stop taking it and the "disease" miraculously goes away - which is not the case for people with a genuine disease.

 

[Ginny]

The term is used as an excuse for weak minded people to hide behind, the same with alcoholics.

 

They can be free of the "disease" by their own choice - stop taking it and the "disease" miraculously goes away - which is not the case for people with a genuine disease.

 

Do you have any alcohilics-drug addicts in your family? I've seen my mum and brother struggle all my life with drugs and alcohol. Alcohol and drugs are are a very small part of the 'disease'. The personality of an alcoholic is very complex that can't be solved by saying 'stop drinking and it all goes away'. The term disease comes from the fact that an alcoholic is never at ease with themself and seek other substances to feel normal and safe. They lve a life of fear and pretty much all the decisions in life are based on fear. Carl Jung, one of the most important figures in Psychology said that an alcoholic cannot be cured by medicine, its a defect of character. Sure you can call them weak but the choice is not as easy for some people.

[zigackly]

It's not worth bothering with Hermes, he only does it to be controversial and is far too old to change his ways. Think of him as being like your racist granny and you won't be far wrong.

[Phoenix]

What a selfish madam...I feel sorry for the family

[Cardie]

It's too easy to lump all addicts into the tortured soul it's a disease they can't help it bracket.

 

Most are just stupid cunts.

[Anny Road]

Fucking hell. a real REAL. Musician has died.

 

if only she had won the x factor.

[Kevin D]

She's gone, get over it.

 

She has gone get over it

 

Do you write your own material?

[Skidfingers McGonical]

 

The term is used as an excuse for weak minded people to hide behind, the same with alcoholics.

 

They can be free of the "disease" by their own choice - stop taking it and the "disease" miraculously goes away - which is not the case for people with a genuine disease.

 

You ever experienced addiction yourself or even a family member or one of your best mates?

 

Judging by this post, I'd say not.

[Guest Jon Snow]

People who think this ain't a mental illness I think you should read this because a lot of better men have studied it and think you are talking shit.

 

Addictive personality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Yes I know wiki ain't 100% true but their is enough there to prove you wrong.

[Joe Le Taxi]

Even Gavin from Autoglass couldn't help Amy with her crack problem.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

People who think this ain't a mental illness I think you should read this because a lot of better men have studied it and think you are talking shit.

 

Addictive personality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Yes I know wiki ain't 100% true but their is enough there to prove you wrong.

 

It's an illness.

[barosrocks]

Hermes is addicted to posting shite.

 

Is there a cure? I doubt it.

[dennis tooth]

It's not worth bothering with Hermes, he only does it to be controversial and is far too old to change his ways. Think of him as being like your racist granny and you won't be far wrong.

 

WHEN WE START THE REVOLUTION ALL HE'LL PROBABLY DO IS SQUEAL!

[Beantown Red]

The term is used as an excuse for weak minded people to hide behind, the same with alcoholics.

 

They can be free of the "disease" by their own choice - stop taking it and the "disease" miraculously goes away - which is not the case for people with a genuine disease.

 

Whats your cure for anorexia? Let me guess, eating?