I saw a TV news story that claimed she had decided a few years that rehab was not for her. So I don't know how hard she actually tried to get off the drugs.
I know from first-hand experience that addiction is a manageable disease. So is diabetes. And if you don't take your insulin properly, you're not managing your disease. Same goes for rehab. Winehouse had a responsibility (and lots of opportunity) to manage her addiction. She had a responsibility to do so. She chose not to. Now she's dead.
Some people would call that a form of suicide. Tragic. And avoidable.
You may have firsthand experience, but it sounds like you are lacking some basic information. I have no idea whether, or to what extent, Amy Winehouse actually got treatment for her chemical problems, but rehab is no panacea.
The success rate of rehab programs is extremely low. I've heard the figure 20 percent bandied about -- as in, 20 percent of people who go through rehab programs succeed in permanently kicking their addiction. I think the success rate for diabetes treatment is considerably higher. Drug use may seem like a choice that people make, but addiction is not about people being lazy or undisciplined or making a "choice" not to quit using.
If you or someone you know has made their addictions "manageable" through rehab, good for you or them. I know people who've been successful, too. But I also know people who haven't. If rehab doesn't work 80 percent of the time, it doesn't mean 80 percent of the people who go through it "choose" not to manage their disease. It means the treatment usually isn't effective.
Here's a NYT story on the subject:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/health/23reha.html Yet very few rehabilitation programs have the evidence to show that they are effective. The resort-and-spa private clinics generally do not allow outside researchers to verify their published success rates. The publicly supported programs spend their scarce resources on patient care, not costly studies.
And the field has no standard guidelines. Each program has its own philosophy; so, for that matter, do individual counselors. No one knows which approach is best for which patient, because these programs rarely if ever track clients closely after they graduate. Even Alcoholics Anonymous, the best known of all the substance-abuse programs, does not publish data on its participants’ success rate.