Amy Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning, according to the British coroner released Wednesday. The singer had a blood alcohol level five times the legal limit for driving at the time of his "death by misadventure", said the report. But the ultimate cause of his death have ignorance: Amy Winehouse was probably not aware of the change potentially deaths of tolerance of alcohol following a period of sobriety.
Obviously, soulful singer had been sober for about a month, before recurring in the days preceding his death. Police recovered three empty vodka bottles in the apartment in London where his body was found. Amy Winehouse had been prescribed a sedative to reduce withdrawal symptoms, but no other drugs were found in his body when she died, and the coroner found that drugs do contribute to his death.
In view of the well-known story of Amy Winehouse to excess, it is probably safe to assume that in the past that she had consumed the same amount of alcohol that killed, probably without experiencing many more pass and wake up with a hangover. Then why was it different this time?
It was perhaps because of recent abstinence from Amy Winehouse. Amy Winehouse had built almost certainly tolerance to alcohol while she was drinking, he loses then in a few weeks of sobriety. Tolerance develops in part because the brain is a very conservative body. When drugs grow some brain systems in one direction, other systems try to balance the effect by pulling back the opposite way.
This means that the same dose of a drug will be, over time, producing a smaller effect. And this increasingly unsatisfactory experience invites to take more and more addicts. Finally, users need to extreme doses to get the same high.
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This is precisely why doctors cannot always determine if any given dose of a "lethal" drug, and coroners may not be able to establish whether it was the cause of death. Heroin addicts often take doses that would kill 10 people re-engineering, and they can do without even feeling high or impaired. (Indeed, methadone treatment is based on the fact that a regular, scheduled product substance dose this predictable tolerance that it does not affect cognitive functioning or skills such as driving.)
However, important periods of abstinence, can eliminate or significantly reduce the tolerance. If you need 10 drink to get drunk before leaving alcohol, then you can slug their bottom before go you account how much stronger the effects are now. It is possible that in the case of Amy Winehouse, such an error was fatal.
Research shows that a higher overdose risk periods is in the early days of relapse, immediately after a period of abstinence. This is true if the substance is alcohol, opioids such as heroin or - as is often the case — a mixture of several drugs. This aspect of the gap of tolerance is an important cause of death by overdose.
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Obviously, it is more secure avoid becoming a drug addict or alcoholic in the first place - and if you become addicted, it is certainly preferable to avoid relapse. But the relapse is not to be fatal. Awareness of the problem of tolerance can at least give people a chance to reduce the risk of overdose, so that they can hopefully return to recovery. If you relapse, be aware that the dose that you have taken the day before leave you can now be fatal.
R.I.P., Amy Winehouse.
Maia Szalavitz, is a writer of health at TIME.com. Find him on Twitter at @ maiasz. You can also continue the discussion on the time Facebook page Healthland and on Twitter at @ TIMEHealthland.
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