A British coroner has finally announced what killed singer Amy Winehouse. Apparently the bisexual crooner had “more than five times the legal driving limit of alcohol in her body at the time of her death.” The official cause of death is listed as “death by misadventure”, something that sounds a hell of a lot more fun that it probably was.
We’ll miss you Ms. Winehouse. At least we can still enjoy her duet with Tony Bennett from beyond the grave. This one’s for you, crazy diamond.
Michael
Its so sad the life Amy lived she always seemed like such a nice person too genuine I loved her bluntness and how she was not the stereotypical cookie cutter female singer.Her songs resonated so much pain and emotion you could always sense that with her music.Ive only heard a few of her songs but her personality was lovely from what ive heard .RIP Amy it saddens me that you were never able to truly find peace in your life I hope you have it now though.
Zen
So much for her family saying she was finally off the booze and that she died from intense cold turkey withdrawal…
Dodgy
For the sake of perspective, the alcohol limit for driving in the UK is 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.
For a very slight woman like Amy Winehouse this would mean at the most 2-3 drinks in a pub. Anyone who has visited England will tell you that the measures in british pubs are very mean. They are regulated by law. In my experience, a standard cocktail in the US would contain at least the equivalent of a double in England. To be 5 times over the legal limit would mean that, in the USA, she would probably had about 5 cocktails. You can judge whether this is excessive yourself, but it’s hardly extreme binge drinking…probably far less than she was used to…
kylew
@Michael: I could hardly care less that a loud mouthed, abrasive, offensive embarrassment to Britain drank herself to death. She did NOT have a lovely personality. She was a thug. She died like she lived. The only thing that ever bothered me was the fact that she was ever given the recognition she received.
Yeah, she had a nice voice, but if she behaved like that but couldn’t sing, she’d have been doing time.
And she wasn’t even loyal to her fans.
James
Queerty, showing it’s usual tact.
Michael
@kylew:
Uhh that was solely my opinion no need to attack it for having a different one then you have though dude. I did not know the girl personally so you are probably correct I have no idea either way my comments just came from how I was raised it was just compassion and understanding nothing more nothing less.
Cam
@Dodgy:
This is ridiculous. You are trying to claim that she didn’t drink a lot. Remember, she was at home. So by that time her levels would have gone down, including the time where she was unconscious and dying.
So if the legal limit for somebody her size is 2 or 3 drinks that would mean that even after some time away from the pub she had the equivalent of 10 to 15 drinks in her.
So her blood levels after all that time were still .4
j
At first I found it hilarious how you all act like you know her, then the reality kicked in and I’ve realized its really quite sad…
And anyone who thinks she had a “nice voice” needs to watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97o9Cr8u2PA .She had an incredible voice.
TomMc
Winehouse quit drinking, in fact she was sober for three weeks, and then drank too much:
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uk/amy-winehouse-poisoned-by-alcohol-16068862.html
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
See also…
1 – Wikipedia article on Blood Alcohol Content:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content#cite_note-extremedrunk-33
2 – A non-wiki article on Blood Alcohol Level:
http://www.csub.edu/counselingcenter/mentalhealth/bloodalcohol.shtml
3 – A do-it-yourself Blood Alcohol Calculator:
http://celtickane.com/projects/blood-alcohol-content-bac-calculator/
AND FINALLY;
4 – Finally, an article about others who’ve surpassed those limits and yet (somehow) lived to tell about it:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5436334&page=1
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Moral of the story: If you ‘fall off the wagon’, don’t have 10 drinks in one hour.
Cam
@TomMc:
You nailed it, they say that many drug addicts die because the get sober, then when they fall off the wagon they think they can take the same dose of drugs they were used to and end up overdosing.
It’s a shame, this woman definitely had a long road to climb and it’s just too bad that she didn’t make it.
CBRad
Aren’t those kinds of deaths (we could name a lot of people) always sort of from the cumulative effect of drug/alcohol abuse over time?
Dodgy
@Cam: No, I claimed absolutely nothing of the sort. I merely pointed out that the levels of alcohol in her blood at the time that her liver ceased to process the stuff was not astronomical.
In fact I was very careful, in writing the comment, not to make the statements as you claim. Not having been presant in the hours before her death, I am not able to speculate accurately on the amount that she drank, nor how of the alcohol that she drank had been metabolised. All that I state is that, from the information given in the article above, then it is not possible to draw any conclusions other than to state that the amount of alcohol that she drank could have been as few as 5 drinks.
Anything else is idle speculation
the crustybastard
Her dirtbag husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, killed Amy by getting her addicted to very hard drugs like heroin and crack.
Her family knows it, and he admits it.
And because the world is a very unjust place, she dies while he reproduces.
TomMc
@Dodgy: Dodgy, I know you were replying to Cam – sorry ’bout that, both of you – but it seems that I might be misinformed about how Blood Alcohol Level(s)/Content is calculated.
Could you explain to me how you arrived at the conclusion that Ms Winehouse could have only had, at most, five standard drinks in her system at the time of her untimely demise?
Thanks.
TomMc
Er, retract that “at most” from my question Dodgy,
I realize that you didn’t say that exactly. ‘pologies.
Then, just how is it – and I’ll quote what you wrote this time, so as not to screw up again – “not possible to draw any conclusions other than to state that the amount of alcohol that she drank could have been as few as 5 drinks”?
Do you mean five standard drinks within half an hour?
Cam
@Dodgy: you said…
“For the sake of perspective, the alcohol limit for driving in the UK is 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.
For a very slight woman like Amy Winehouse this would mean at the most 2-3 drinks in a pub.”
_________________________
If 2-3 drinks would be the legal limit…then 5 times that would be 10-15 drinks in her system at the time of death. Depending on how long she had been passed out etc… it could have meant she could have had many more drinks than that before passing out.
Spike
Yet another insensitive and tactless post by Queerty.
How sad that you people take such joy making light of the no doubt very serious problems of a very talented person.
Rob
Rest in Peace Amy. 🙁 I’ll miss your music and voice.
ChrisC
@kylew: Is it hard to breath up there on that pedestal you put yourself on?
kylew
@Michael: I wasn’t attacking you Michael. I was clarifying for anyone who thought that she was some delicate but tortured soul that she was absolutely the architect of her own demose and she died like she lived – drunk and annoying.
I think queerty gave her more respect than she deserved, and certainly more than she gave anyone else.
Riker
@kylew: Have you ever listened to her music, I mean really really listened? The lyrics, the tempo, key, her voice. She poured her heart into her music. Every time she got up on stage, it was like she was ripping open her chest and showing the audience her soul. Music that brave and honest doesn’t come around more than once or twice in a generation, and the comparisons to Joplin were well deserved.
Writing and performing music like that takes a toll on a person. Artists that burn the brightest also burn out quickly, which is why Britney is able to give us a decade and a half of vapid bubblegum pop (most of which she didn’t even write herself).
I’m not saying she was an angel, she sure as hell wasn’t. But she had a hell of a lot of talent, and artists like that are rare. Delicate? no. Tortured? Of course.
The purpose of life isn’t to preserve your body and mind so you can age gracefully and die at a ripe old age, never having really lived. Everyone dies. Not everyone truly lives.
Allen D.
@Riker: 100% agreed. “Back to Black” is a flawless album. People that don’t understand that are just used to soulless, stupid electronica with mediocre-at-best, auto-tuned vocals.
Riker
@Allen D.: Back to Black does have a few flaws. For example, that last song? Where did that come from? It doesn’t fit in thematically with the rest of the album at all.
That said, it is still one of the very very few albums not written by Pink Floyd or the Beatles that I can bear to listen to from beginning to end, with no skipping tracks, over and over.
Mav
I think this is a case of live like a chav, die like a chav.
I do really like that Rehab song. Guess she should have said “yes, yes yes” though.
Riker
@Mav: Rehab isn’t even the best of her songs, its just the one that got the most airplay. Back to Black, in my opinion, is her most heart-wrenchingly inspired pieces.
Mav
@Riker: Thanks for the tip-off, I’ll have to pull her up on Grooveshark and listen to some of her other stuff. I honestly never understood the fascination with her (other than her scandalous personal life) but as far as that goes, I never looked further into her than catching her on the radio occasionally (or, when “Rehab” was popular, approximately every five minutes).
Riker
@Mav: You’re welcome.
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6607247/Amy_Winehouse_-_Back_To_Black_%5BDeluxe%5D_%5B2006_-_MP3_-_320_kbps%5D_%5B
Not that I condone piracy, but in this case the artist can’t really benefit from her album sales anymore, so I’ll make an exception.