Amy Winehouse Remembered

Yesterday marked the 8th anniversary of the loss of phenomenal 27-year-old Grammy Award-winning British musician-songstress Amy Winehouse.

Her 6 awards included an ironic-now-iconic autobiographical performance of “Rehab” at the 50th annual Grammy Awards February 20, 2008 in Los Angeles, where she won an unprecedented 5 awards for her 2006 album Back to Black – making her the first British female artist to have ever won as many – including Album of The Year for “Back to Black,” Record of the Year and Song of The Year for “Rehab,” Best New Artist, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for “Rehab, and Best Pop Vocal Album for “Back to Black.”

At the time of the Grammy awards, she was in London performing at the 2008 BRIT Awards via satellite from Earls Court.

Her accomplishments were unprecedented, because she also tied the previous record for the most Grammy awards by a female artist in a single night.

The Grammys honor musical achievement in the year prior, and were for releases between October 1, 2006 through September 30, 2007.

On July 23, 2011, she was found unresponsive in her bedroom at her house in the borough of Camden, in northwest London.

Because her death was unattended, a coroner’s inquest began, which autopsy revealed

Rethinking Addiction

Perhaps you’ve studied the 12-Step program, or perhaps you’ve practiced it. I have done both. Practicing it was not as a matter of addiction, or any such thing for myself, but instead, was a part of my personal spiritual growth and development.

Over the years, I’ve heard commentary, or news features which interviewed people with divergent perspectives on 12-Step programs, most notably which were skeptical of them, and were thoughtfully seeking answers themselves for the “whys and wherefores” of substance abuse, whether it’s long-term or temporary, and whether it is a genetic fault, or if it is a personality or character flaw in response to external or internal stressors. In other words, it’s the classic “Heredity vs Environment” argument.

As I have come to view it, there is validity for both sides, but I think the stronger case is made for a combination of environment and character flaw, instead of genetic defect.

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“In his recent book, The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry, Lance Dodes, a retired psychiatry professor from Harvard Medical School, looked at Alcoholics Anonymous’s retention rates along with studies on sobriety and rates of active involvement (attending meetings regularly and working the program) among AA members. Based on these data, he put AA’s actual success rate somewhere between 5 and 8 percent. That is just a rough estimate, but it’s the most precise one I’ve been able to find.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/

The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous
By Gabrielle Glaser, April 2015 Issue
Its faith-based 12-step program dominates treatment in the United States. But researchers have debunked central tenets of AA doctrine and found