The singer Amy Winehouse died from alcohol poisoning after a drinking binge following a period of abstinence, an inquest has heard.
The 27-year-old Grammy award-winner was more than five times over the legal drink-drive limit when she was found dead at her home in Camden, north London, on 23 July.
She had 416mg of alcohol per decilitre in her blood, enough to make her comatose and depress her respiratory system. Police recovered three vodka bottles – two large and one small – from her room.
Recording a verdict of misadventure, the St Pancras coroner, Suzanne Greenway, said: "The unintended consequences of such potentially fatal levels was her sudden death."
Winehouse's parents, Mitch and Janis, heard her GP, Dr Christina Romete, describe the singer as intelligent and determined, and said she had been warned of the dangers of alcohol abuse. Her parents said it was a "source of great pain" that she had lost her battle with alcohol.
Drink became a problem after Winehouse kicked a drug habit in 2008. She fell into a pattern of abstaining from drink for a few weeks, then lapsing, said Romete.
She was taking medication, Librium, to cope with alcohol withdrawal and anxiety, and had been reviewed by a psychologist and a psychiatrist last year.
But Winehouse was "opposed to any sort of psychological therapy", said Romete.
"She was one of the most intelligent young women I've ever met," she added. "She was very determined to do everything her way, including her therapy. She had very strict views on that."
She had seen Winehouse on the evening of Friday 22 July, the day before her death, and described her as "tipsy". Winehouse had told her she had not had a drink since 3 July, but had started again on 20 July. "She was calm, she was coherent; tipsy, I would say. She didn't slur. She was able to hold a conversation."
When Romete asked Winehouse if she was going to stop drinking: "She said she didn't know. She was going to call me that weekend." Though concerned that she was drinking, Romete was not worried about a risk of suicide. Winehouse had told her: "I do not want to die".
Winehouse had talked to Romete about looking forward to "future things" and said: "I have not achieved a lot of the things I want to." She had discussed plans for her birthday party.
Winehouse had made "tremendous" efforts to stop drinking, and in the last month of her life had discussed "how to make positive changes".
Andrew Morris, Winehouse's bodyguard, who lived at her home, said he had returned from leave three days before her death, and knew she had been drinking "because of the way she spoke to me".
Over the next two days, he said, she drank moderately. "She didn't over-drink. She wasn't drinking to get drunk," he said. He described her as being alert and calm during her meeting with Romete at about 7pm on the Friday.
Winehouse had "big plans for the weekend," said Morris. On Friday night he could hear her "laughing, listening to music and watching TV" in her room, and he last spoke to her at 2am on the Saturday.
At 10am, he checked on her. "She was lying on her bed. I didn't try to speak to her," he said. "I called her, knocked on the door, opened it and she was on the bed. I thought she was sleeping because she had been up late into the night. It was usual for her to sleep late into the morning."
Some time after 3pm, he checked her again. "She was lying on the bed in the same position I left her. I became concerned. I went over to her to check if she was OK. I realised she wasn't breathing, and there was no pulse." He called the emergency services.
A Home Office pathologist Professor Suhail Baithun said people began to lose their faculties at 200mg of alcohol per decilitre. "When you have levels of 350mg, it is associated with fatalities," he said.
He said an external and internal examination of Winehouse's body had not shown an immediate cause of death. Her liver was normal, with a little fatty tissue, and her lungs were a little congested, but nothing that would indicate cause of death.
Recording her verdict, the coroner said Winehouse was "an intelligent and determined young woman who at times had managed to abstain from alcohol. Such periods of abstinence were regularly punctuated with periods of alcohol abuse."
In a statement issued later, Winehouse's parents said: "It is some relief to finally find out what happened to Amy. We understand there was alcohol in her system when she passed away; it is likely a build-up over a number of days.
"The court heard that Amy was battling hard to conquer her problems with alcohol, and it is a source of great pain to us that she could not win in time. She had started drinking again that week after a period of abstinence.
"It underlines how important our work with the Amy Winehouse Foundation is to us, to help as many young people and children as we can in her name. It means a lot to us, and from the overwhelming messages of support we have had since Amy died, we know she meant a great deal to people all over the world. We want to thank everyone for that and for their continuing enthusiasm for the foundation."
Caroline Davies @'The Guardian'
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