I Never Want to Drink Again Amy Winehouse

This is an extract from 'My Amy' past Tyler James.

Friday, 22 July 2011, 1 p.thou. The telephone rang and her name came up.

'AMY.'

Her vocalisation said, similar it ever did: 'You alright darlin'?'

I wasn't alright. Because she wasn't alright. Cipher was alright. Last night I'd walked out of our home in Camden Square, the last of countless homes we'd lived in together since Amy was 18 years old.

We'd been best mates since she was twelve and I was thirteen, inseparable soulmates forever. Walking out was a new tactic for me. I'd tried everything else.

After years of trauma, of trying to relieve Amy, I was running out of ideas. So at present, every fourth dimension she relapsed, I'd leave because I wouldn't support her drinking.

'If you're drinking, I won't exist here.'

Sentry the trailer for Amy. Postal service continues below.

Sometimes I was at that place but she wouldn't know it.

I'd sleep under a coating on the treadmill in the gym downstairs to get away from the noise: she'd scream my name, blare music, play the zombie moving-picture show Planet Terroron a loop all night long, diggings it out of her speakers.

But generally I'd go to my mum's in Essex for ii, 3, 4 days. Then Amy would ring.

'T, please come abode.' And we'd make a deal.

'I'll come dwelling house. Nosotros'll beginning the process again, withdrawal, stopping drinking tomorrow.'

And it worked. It was working. She was getting better.

She went three weeks without a potable, four days back on information technology, three weeks off over again. Every day she was sober she was in the gym, on the treadmill, rebuilding herself.

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Information technology was a blueprint but she was close. So close. She was even writing music once again. She hadn't touched hard drugs, despite what the tabloids said, for three years.

And then I'd walked out of Camden Square, again, at ten at nighttime.

I sat, exhausted, outside a local pub and was about to call an Addison Lee taxi to my mum's. But this item time I had a feeling that I shouldn't just leave like I usually did.

Something in that moment was unlike; there was some awareness that wasn't on the surface.

I was usually at-home with Amy, I never wanted to make her feel bad because I knew that didn't work with alcoholics – dorsum in the day, if someone screamed at me when I relapsed, it would only brand me want to beverage more.

Simply this fourth dimension? I thought f**k it. I need to be something else: hardcore.

I opened the door with my keys, went upstairs to her bedchamber on the superlative floor and she was doing all the stuff she ordinarily did when she relapsed: listening to music really, really loudly from speakers linked to her laptop.

It was usually Mos Def; right now it was The Specials' 'Ghost Boondocks' blaring out. I stood at her open up door; she was pottering around, drinking wine, going in and out of her en suite bathroom, singing, patently feeling normal and adept over again considering that's what booze does when y'all've been peckish information technology. I just lost it. I flipped. 'None of this is normal, none of this is good, none of this is funny, information technology's all bollocks!'

I knew I'd piss her off. I was never really aroused with Amy, I ever supported her, helped her, loved her – but I'd had plenty. I went over to her laptop and slammed the superlative downward, close everything off.

'What the f**k are you doing?' she yelled. 'I was listening to my music!'

I sat on the stop of her bed and this time I was screaming. 'You can't drinkable, this can't happen anymore! Nosotros can't but keep going through this process! Relapsing, relapsing, relapsing, we've been in and out of hospital so many times, the doctors have said you can't drink anymore or you'll die. They've sent you messages telling you that. This is no longer an option! Do you realise what yous're doing to me?'

I was the only friend she had left by then, the only person around her all the time who wasn't paid to be around her.

Everyone else in her life had bailed out. Even so much they loved her they couldn't deal with her. No one else was in that location every day supporting her. I went to a level I'd never been to before.

'Forget you for a infinitesimal, do you ever contemplate what will happen to me and my head and my life if you're non here anymore? If you dice? You dearest me, your all-time friend in the world. But you'll blow me to pieces. You may as well go a fucking shotgun.'

She had a piddling living room off her sleeping accommodation where I was pacing round, pulling my own hair out the back of my head.

'I dunno what to do with y'all anymore! I'one thousand out of ideas, you don't seem to get it!'

She tried to convince me everything was alright.

'Just T, I'1000 in the studio downstairs, I'm doing music over again.'

She was always trying to exist the person she thought she had to be: this character called 'Amy Winehouse'. And by now I had a mantra: 'It's better to be live existence Amy than to die trying to be "Amy Winehouse". F**one thousand Amy Winehouse, it's a character, f**k that persona!'

And so she said what she ever said: 'T, I'yard not going anywhere.'

All I had left was my new tactic: 'Unless you finish drinking right at present, I'grand going.'

'Well,' she snapped, 'f**k off then.' 'Well, f**yard you lot.'

It was all and so routine. I simply picked up my case and left. I had to. I couldn't let her think whatever of this was OK or just put up with it and do nothing. Like some people around her oftentimes seemed to.

The next day at that place was the call. 'You alright darlin'?' I knew it would be a long conversation, so I walked down to the terminate of the road at my mum's where there's an enclosed field surrounded by bushes.

There was no ane there but me. I could tell she'd only had a couple of drinks. It was lunchtime.

It was a weird conversation. She talked to me nigh me. I think she was trying to say sorry. She knew how much I gave to her. I gave her my life. She was grateful and role of her felt guilty. She was telling me again, 'I'm non going anywhere T, I'm gonna exist alright.' But this time she was besides saying, 'But this is what I want for you.' She wanted me to make music again and I wasn't interested. I'd no want to be famous after everything I'd seen. She'd said herself for years, anyone who wants to be famous must exist mad. She always used to say: 'Fame is like terminal cancer; I wouldn't wish it on anyone.'

Amy had never wanted to be famous. She wanted to be a jazz singer. More annihilation else she wanted a family unit, to be a wife and take kids. All Amy ever wanted was normality.

And she wanted that for me also. She wanted someone to love me. She said, 'T, I want you lot to autumn in beloved.' She'd never seen that happen for me because I was always looking after her. I was twenty-nine and I'd never had a proper relationship – when would I have had time to meet anyone? I barely had whatever other friends because Amy always came showtime.

'T,' she said. 'Come habitation.'

'Well I'one thousand not coming home now. I'll come dwelling tomorrow.' There was no point going back that night – I could tell she was just going to bear on drinking. She rang me again much later very boozer, perhaps eleven o'clock, chatting nonsense.

I fell asleep on my mum's couch.

Around ii.thirty a.m. she rang again. I was exhausted and just didn't respond. Pointless, she wouldn't fifty-fifty remember it. I went dorsum to slumber.

The next 24-hour interval, I went home to Camden Square. Before I went in, I sat on a bench in the square for ages, preparing myself for the days ahead. I rang my friend Chantelle and all we talked about was Amy. I was exhausted and she was trying to aid me.

'You need to showtime looking subsequently yourself,' she kept saying, 'I honey Amy to bits too just y'all tin't exercise this anymore.' But this was what I did. And I'd go along doing it until Amy had cracked information technology.

I got upwards, keys in manus, and walked upward the steps to the front end door. This hadn't been any unlike to any other relapse and I knew what was coming next: she'd wake up, she'd want to be sober, I'd take her to hospital for alcohol withdrawal and nosotros'd beginning the whole process once more.

Amy rebuilding herself for weeks, on the treadmill, being healthy once again, beingness funny over again, back to her bright self.

And possibly this time would be the time she stayed sober forever. It would happen to her like it had happened to me, that was her goal, she said it a million times: 'If Tyler tin practise it, I tin can do it.' Our lives were parallel like that, they always had been, since we were kids. We did everything together, me and her. Information technology was always me and her. So I knew she'd get in that location eventually.

I knew information technology.

I turned the key in the door and stepped inside. It was Sabbatum, 23 July 2011.

My Amy past Tyler James, published by Macmillan. RRP $34.99. Available at present .

Feature Image: Supplied.

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Source: https://www.mamamia.com.au/amy-winehouse-best-friend/

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