Amy Winehouse ODs on Alcohol

by: Mike Miller
11/1/2016

As a big fan of her music, I was deeply saddened by the death of Amy Winehouse. I was not surprised at the news.  The coroner’s findings, however, did surprise me.

How much alcohol does it take to kill someone?  It depends from person-to-person.  The general point where the liver can no longer detoxify alcohol’s poisonous attributes is generally about .25.  

Amy Winehouse’s BAC was over 0.40.

As a counselor for both in class and online alcohol classes I have yet to have a student ever report a BAC that high.  Holy cow that is a lot of booze!

Amy Winehouse's coroner inquest found that the singer drank too much alcohol that led to her death according to the verdict issued by Suzanne Greenaway Wednesday, 10-26-2011.

At the singers inquest the pathologist stated Amy drank a "very large quantity of alcohol." The indication is that she was over five times the legal limit for drunk-driving when she died.

What do you call drinking yourself to death?  The British pathologist gave "...a verdict of "death by misadventure," saying the singer had voluntarily consumed alcohol and risked the consequences.”

Amy Winehouse had battled drug and alcohol addiction for many years, and was found dead in her Camden Square London home on July 23, 2011. She was 27 years old.

It is unfortunate that we have lost yet another young person to the ravages of substance abuse. Amy was a very talented person, but whatever she was running from, or trying to suppress just kept eating at her until it ended up destroying her.

Sadly, drug and alcohol abuse are prominent problems, especially with younger persons. Right now we have an epidemic of prescription drug abuse, and addiction that is ravaging our kids, and killing them far too often. It is something the "war on drugs" has never been able to reverse, or slow down for over 40 years.

All that wasted money should have gone to prevention, education, treatment, intervention, and dealt with under public health rather than leaning more toward strictly a law enforcement perspective. It is one of the reasons we have 2.2 million persons locked up in this country, and an additional 800,000 + people arrested each year in the U.S. for some type of marijuana possession.

There are far too many Amy's past and present. Hopefully, Amy is at peace now and others will take her passing as a wake-up call about how dangerous these substances can be.