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first meeting with Janis, when she very bluntly, almost cruelly, says ‘I cannot help Amy unless she helps herself.’ Does that have something to do with it?

    ‘Do you remember the first time you felt “Wow, something else is going on in her life?”’
    ‘Well, you know,’ Mitch replies. ‘I have to say first of all, and it is well documented, that when she was interviewed about drugs, she was anti Class A drugs.
    ‘Since the age of about 17,’ he continues, ‘she smoked weed or marijuana, or whatever you call it, but not to the extent that it would make her psychotic – to relax and whatever. I don’t personally agree with it, that is something she has done.’
    He adds that neither he nor Janis has tried it.
    ‘… Were you aware [at the time] that she was trying light drugs, like marijuana?’ I ask.
    ‘No. I think that Janis kind of kept that from me. When the first album came out, there is a picture of her [Amy] … on the album and my friend said to me, “You know she is rolling a spliff” [joint], and I said, “What are you talking about?”… I didn’t even know what a spliff was.
    ‘I said [to Amy], “Are you smoking marijuana?” And she said, “Oh, Dad, don’t be silly.”
    ‘I said, “I am not happy about that.” She said, “I am over 18, Dad. I can do what I like.”
    ‘So, what can I do?’ Mitch asks me. ‘She is over 18. I can’t lock her up.’

    During my time with the Winehouses I’m struck by the different approaches that Mitch and Janis take to their daughter’s problems. Although Mitch states that he can’t ‘lock her up’, he is always keeping an eye on Amy. Herbodyguards are constantly reporting back to Mitch on Amy’s whereabouts and he seems to devote all of his time to trying to save his daughter from her addictions. As I’ve already mentioned, Janis’s attitude is completely different – her fatalistic view and her almost cold acceptance that only Amy can help herself is the opposite of Mitch’s behaviour.
    Janis is right. Amy does need to recognize and face her own problems in order to start recovering but perhaps both these attitudes, however well-intended, are too extreme. For Amy to overcome her addictions she needs to get proper treatment. As I’ve discovered through my extensive interviews with other celebrities who suffer with addictions, rehab only works when the whole family is involved and opens up. But from what I’ve seen of the Winehouse family, it is clear that they are not ready to do this.
    Maybe they don’t understand that this is what’s needed? Or maybe they dread having to go down this route? Either way, anything less than full rehab treatment is only a quick fix for Amy.

    Mitch emphasizes the fact that at that time Amy declared publicly in several interviews that she was opposed to Class A drugs. ‘She said that “Anybody who takes Class A drugs is a ‘mug’.” Now a “mug” in English terminology is someone who is stupid – and, of course, she didn’t take Class A drugs.’
    ‘Were you convinced?’ I have to ask him.
    ‘It wasn’t a question of being convinced,’ he replies. ‘That was the truth. …’
    ‘At that point you didn’t think something was wrong?’ I persist.
    ‘There wasn’t anything wrong, apart from her smoking marijuana. It wasn’t only me saying that. People who know her. Her friends. They confirmed that she was a complete opponent of Class A drugs. She would not take Class A drugs. She regarded anyone who took [them] as a fool. She didn’t want to be in their company. Then, unfortunately she did meet somebody who did take Class A drugs.
    ‘And the rest, as they say, is history.’

you know i’m no good
    By the end of 2004, Amy should have been riding on a high. She’d seen her debut album go platinum and received critical success with nominations for the BRITs and the Ivor Novello awards, the latter of which she’d won. She’d performed at Glastonbury Festival in June on the Jazz World