Amy Jade Winehouse was my favourite singer. When she dropped her single, Rehab, from her second and final studio album Back to Black on 23 October in 2006, I went crazy. That song was her autobiography about her refusal to go to a rehabilitation clinic. In that time she was battling drug and alcohol addiction. Her addictions eventually lead to her death. She died on 23 July 2011 at the age of 27. The cause of her death was alcohol poisoning. Trust me, it’s written on her death certificate. She was laid to rest in Edgware cemetery.

I loved that girl, she made me feel free. She had that intimidating feisty look of a girl who didn’t care what others thought about her.

“I asked my dad if he thought I needed to go, he said no, but I should give it a try. So I did, or just 15 minutes. I went in, said hello and explained that I drink because I’m in love and I have screwed relationships then I walked out.” This was my favourite verse from Rehab.

There are people out there who indulge in drugs due to certain reasons. Speaking from personal experience, I indulged in drugs and deceived myself into believing that I was having fun. I was being delusional. I knew deep down in my conscience that wasn’t the real reason. I used drugs to ease my depression and soul destroying writer’s block. I’m a financially secure kid, but a mother’s love is something I never knew. There were so many deaths in my family you could swear we were cursed. It was too much for me.

Still, no one cares about what I’m going through. My outward appearance says I’m fine but inside I’m dying. I died the day my aunt, who raised me from birth after my mother abandoned me, died. I didn’t even cry at her funeral. I have a poker face, I don’t show my feelings easily. I was in shock when I was told at first that she died, I still can’t get over the agony of her death. I was raised to not show grief, it shows weakness I was told.

I began smoking marijuana to help me forget and ease the pain of losing the one woman who loved me. Even though that feeling of happiness and relief the drugs gave me was short lived, I knew it was bad for me. When I was high I hallucinated and saw zombies. I overdosed one day, which could have been the best thing to happen to me at that time. Thank God I survived as that O.D caused my old self to be resurrected again. I used to be a lively, beautiful, intelligent and ambitious young lady and the drugs subdued that part of me.

Using drugs is a suicide mission. It’s not nice to die, to have a dead certificate and grave. Drugs kill people, Michael Jackson and Prince, the hit maker of ‘Purple Rain’, are good examples. Heroin known as Diamorphine was their demise. It can be smoked and inhaled but just like any other drug, it is bad for you.

Everything has its own bad side effects; respiratory depression or blood borne infection. Pneumonia, nausea and death usually occur to lack of oxygen resulting in the absence of breathing caused by the opioid. The lack of breathing causes your heart to stop beating and kills your brain. Voila! You become a corpse.

That’s the scariest part; I don’t see myself in a body bag. If you’re going through a tough time, drugs aren’t the answer. Believe that you will be happy again. You’ll understand the misfortune you go through now someday and realise that you weren’t meant to be miserable forever. You don’t need drugs to comfort you. We all know what road that leads to.

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Tell us what you think: Have you ever been tempted to take drugs?