Something queer has happened to Amy Winehouse in the six weeks since her death: she has been turned from an anti-rehab rebel into the poster girl for rehab. The tragic Camden songstress was famous for singing ‘They tried to make me go to rehab, but I said no, no, no’. Yet now her demise is being held up as a sign that all troubled folk should seek expert rehabilitation as soon as they can.
Her deeply distraught father, Mitch, is having meetings with Home Office ministers to discuss setting up more rehab centres. There’s even talk of opening something called the Amy Winehouse Rehabilitation Centre. It’s a bit like making Princess Di the patron saint of landmines.
The central tenet of the newspaper commentary on Winehouse’s death is that she should have said ‘yes, yes, yes’ to rehab — and so should the rest of us, apparently. Although no traces of illegal substances were found in her body, it is widely assumed that Winehouse’s reckless lifestyle — which involved dalliances with heroin and downing copious amounts of vodka — contributed to her death at just 27. So now, in the name of Amy, Britain must get serious about rolling out rehab services.
Last week the tabloids delighted in telling us that ‘soaring numbers’ of people have been rushing to rehab since Winehouse died. Apparently, hundreds more have been checking into the Priory chain of clinics, which help to tackle all kinds of addictions and emotional problems. Meanwhile, drug experts have informed us that Winehouse’s death shows the dangers of going ‘cold turkey’, of trying to get clean all on your lonesome. It seems you can only successfully ditch drugs and heal yourself with the guiding hand of someone with a PhD.
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