An Open Letter To Mama Winehouse

Dear Janis, (in response to an open letter written in 2007)

Normally when I write my letters, I address them directly to the person intended. But I wanted to write this letter to you because I know that your daughter is not listening.........to anyone. How do I know? Because she hasn’t reached out to the people who she SHOULD trust the most to ask for help.........yet. One thing you have already worked out for yourself is that this is not your daughter Amy. As a certified coach and NLP practitioner, we regularly use mind altering techniques that create new characters and brand new, positive personas. Drugs do exactly the same thing only it creates or reinforces destructive characters. Therefore trying to rationalize with what you think is the Amy of five years ago will not help the Amy of today. Try not to take it to heart that she doesn’ t want to communicate. Part of it is her knowledge that drug taking is basically stupid. She will feel embarrassed and cannot mix motherly concern and family stability with the drugged out chaos in her head right now. Drug addicts always adopt new ‘family’. Their drug enablers. And they have only one friend. The drug. 

I remember the Amy of some five years ago. She was introduced to me by my friend as we both know her A&R chappie Darcus. He was very excited and confident about his new signing. When she sung and played her guitar, as she often did back then, she came across as a bright eyed, natural talent, even a bit shy. Today she sings with the dimmed, over relaxed insouciance of a woman 40 years in the biz. In other words, she turns up for the gig physically (sometimes), but the mind is completely elsewhere.

Many folks have tried to make excuses for her. “Her boyfriend got her into it” or “her dad left when she was young.......” Unfortunately, she doesn’t need anyone’s help on this one. She will have plenty of excuses of her own. These are not reasons in of themselves to start taking drugs. Neither is, as you suggested, her inability to cope with a million selling album while she is young. If that were the case, Katie Melua who has sold probably eight times more would be dead already. Some years ago I spent time at the same record label. I experienced the temptations, the loneliness, the parasites, the insecurities and as a release I also played with fire. Everyone copes differently and there are so many reasons I could give you to try and explain why she got hooked and I didn’t. She has done a stupid thing, but this girl is not stupid. Her sharp lyrics show she has pin prick observational skills and would have entered into this lifestyle with a large degree of free choice.

The truth is, whether she had valid reasons or not, she herself made this DECISION to take drugs. Noone brings drugs round door to door on the offchance, like Avon. You have to have invited them into your life. Amy therefore needs to be allowed to take full responsibility for her decisions. It reinforces the fact that it will also be Amy’s DECISION to stop taking the drugs. Something has clicked off in that tortured, creative mind and something needs to click right back on again. Only Amy has the switch. This switch or awakening usually happens via a mental, spiritual or physical event, but only she can begin that process. 

I have worked with some very well known names who CHOSE the same path as your daughter. One experience involved someone famous whose folks took it upon themselves to kidnap her in desperation to get her to go cold turkey. It rarely works longterm. This person was kidnapped, held for days and forced to stop when she was not ready i.e the decision was not her own. She did stop, for a while, but without her own reasons to stay clean she quickly fell back into self destruction.

The truth is, there is little you, (or a thousand rehab centres) can do if Amy won’t help herself. At this point Amy will be as addicted to the attention she is creating as the drugs themselves! You can do nothing but be right there when she switches back on and CHOOSES to leave her parasitic drug enablers. Maybe for now you could leave it to her brother to keep the communication lines open, youthful and non judgmental. You can only hope that she chooses to make this decision to save herself in time. Then, you must forget the hurtful crap that may have come out of her mouth and just rush to her rescue. Because if you don’t, her enablers will. You and she will know when that time comes, if it does.

Rosie Jones.