Alcohol & Drug Addiction Treatment

In her 20’s, with a successful singing/songwriting career in the 1930s and 40s and nicknamed “Lady Day”, Billie Holiday was a highly influential and important artist as she contributed to the beginning of a new genre of music – jazz. She is recognized by her deep, sultry and vibrant voice, dissonant notes and her emotionally impacting songs such as “Strange Fruit” and “Lover Man”.

But, like other artists in her time, drug abuse and alcohol were prominent. She started using hard drugs in the early 1940s when she was in her mid-20s. This only led to a down trend in her life outside of song, and eventually her death. Arrested several times, Holiday was convicted in 1947 for possession of opium and had her New York City Cabaret Card revoked, meaning she could no longer perform or work in any club for the remaining 12 years of her life. By the late 40s/early 50s her health was noticeably deteriorating. The drug and alcohol abuse had adversely affected her voice and it was heard in her performances as it didn’t have that same vibrant beauty it once did. Lady Day, once a lady of beauty, art and genuine emotion, was now a physically and mentally wasted fragile form of herself.

Weakened by hard drug and alcohol abuse and liver and heart disease, she was taken into the hospital in May of 1959 with only $0.70 in her bank account and $750 on her person. Police were at the doors waiting to arrest her for possession of drugs even as she lay dying in her hospital bed, when only a month before she had been arrested for possession of narcotics. She died two months later the day after the police were instructed to leave.

This is a sad ending for the story of such an influential and beautiful singer! She really should’ve been helped much, much earlier.

Artists play an important role in the world – to create futures. Holiday played a big role in the creation of jazz – which had a large impact of change in society as well as influence over other genres of music, but she was stopped short at a young age. I, for one, am glad to have long term drug rehab programs today where artists like Billie Holiday can go to help themselves dig out of the dark, downward spiral of drug and alcohol abuse so they can live to contribute their aesthetic pieces of art to society and create hope for the future.