Now that the dust has settled

The inquest about Amy Winehouse has been held. The verdict misadventure.

My question is why misadventure?

Put simply consuming the amount of alcohol that she did would not as the papers would have you believe automatically led to death. There are far greater complexities than that, The record for someone caught for drinking and driving on one of my courses is a reading over double of that of Amy Winehouse and according to the police report on that person they were driving normally down the road! So the mad press headlines that we have seen are exactly that - mad!

Now that doesn't mean I advise people that it's OK to drink a couple of litres of vodka but it does lead me back to my favourite old adage

Educate people now, not when it's too late

I've listened to addiction expert after addiction expert pop their heads out of their ivory towers and glittering spires and talk about cross addiction this and human frailty that, quoting some fantastic theorists and academic studies to sound grand for their Andy Warhol moment, and I am fed up.

I am fed up because none of this public fetish with celebrity and it's ups and downs will actually help young and old alike understand and deal with alcohol from an informed position.

There are solutions there is a better way, but the politicians are too scared, the alcohol industry has an obvious vested interest and the so called abolitionists would have no reason to exist if they didn't have the fight.

Let's get real let's do it now