What would you have done?.....

[ELVIS68]

Amy Winehouse`s dad Mitch has often been quoted as saying she was always "Daddies little girl", do you think he could or should have done more to help her beat her demons?

[237SJ]

The Amy Winehouse saga reminds me of the Michael Jackson case. Everybody blamed the record company and the `yes men` that were around but where were the family? At the very least her father could have taken her passport away so that she couldn`t go to St Lucia where she spent large tracts of time during her downfall, getting drunk, crawling around restaurants trying to snatch drinks off tables. I`ve heard many a story from there and she was left to her own devices. She came back a worse drunk than when she was when she went.

[ummmm]

237....she was an adult! It was her money.....you can't go round taking peoples passports off them because you don't agree with the lifestyle.

[jno]

andy - I wonder how true that is. I didn't follow her music closely at all but the impression I got was that a lot of it was personal, if not totally autobiographical, and that 'authenticity' is actually important to the way we see blues singers especially. Nobody cared whether the Monkees or the Spice Girls were singing about their own lives, but at the blues end of the spectrum, honesty of emotion is taken seriously.

[milly143]

How, exactly do you know what he did or didn't do to help her?

[ummmm]

She said in an interview that she only writes autobiographical...

[ummmm]

Milly....no one does.

[jno]

thanks, ummmm. I realise this does muddy the waters somewhat, because it suggests you can't easily distinguish between her music and her life in saying why people admired her. But to suggest she was famous as a junkie rather than as a singer is missing the point spectacularly.

As for whether her parents should have done more... good grief, no. jno jnr is about Amy's age, and no way am I involved in running his life any more. He's a grown up. If he asks for help he'll get it but I have long since stopped considering it my *duty* to do anything for him.

[milly143]

Exactly Ummmm. I'm a bit fed up of seeing people asking why nobody helped her more.

In my experience the loved ones of people with addictions do not happily sit by and watch them kill themselves.

Saying people should have done more is very naive.

[nellypope]

jno: I do agree, but I felt that I "disliked" her because she was a junkie! And unfortunately society in general does find it hard to distinguish between the two, (this may make me fickle . . . but hey what you gonna do????)

I don't think her father could have done anything, by the age of 25 what can you do? It is down to the individual to realise what a state their life is in and adjust accordingly.

[ladybirder]

He moved in and lived with her for a while to try and help her. Flew to St Lucia or wherever it was a few times to try and sort her out. I think he tried his best but she was impossible to help.

[ladybirder]

Doh - her dad I mean of course.