In deference to Amy Winehouse

I didn't know her music very well. just enough to appreciate her talent; I liked her dressed-up image and stubbornness, and found her very attractive; but her voice was what made her kind of unique. We hear a lot that ''here goes another casualty of drugs&alcohol''....humm....no!  Amy Winehouse is dead because she abused of what became to her a self-medicated ''pain killer'' of the soul, but to be more concrete and realistic, she probably died from an untreated depression. Yes, this dreaded word and condition from which so many people suffers these days. Still consider a ''condition for the weak'' is actually a disease. It's one of the least treated disease because of the stigma that comes with the disease (although we are more and more aware and tolerant to it) too many people wait till they can't function anymore to seek help. Drugs&Alcohol exacerbate depression in a slow an insidious way as it gives an illusion of ''bien-être'' and functionality for a while. I mean after all the artists who succumbed to these habits have been productive and successful while being users, augmenting the ''Illusion'' that everything is or will be fine. The first symptoms of depression can show up at an early stage of life, often in the teen ages, and either ignored or kept secret to the entourage. When drugs and alcohol are experienced by the symptomatic person at first, it can sometimes have a soothing effect with a confidence boost, relegating the core of the problem to something that will go away. For as many people know now, the body gets more and more tolerant to the substances and the user tends to increase the doses almost inadvertently. That's when the process of self-destruction begins, while some people find solace to seek help, others don't....R.I.P Amy.