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Amy Winehouse having 'best time' before death

Jun 26, 2012, 15:02 GMT

Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse was having the 'best months of her life' before she died.

The tragic 'Back to Black' star died from accidental alcohol poisoning last July, and her father Mitch found her passing all the more tragic as she had beaten her drug addiction and was working her way to giving up alcohol too with the support of partner Reg Traviss.

He said: 'It's true she was drinking to seek oblivion. I don't know what she was trying to escape from. She had a great new boyfriend, a great relationship with her family.

'The last six weeks of her life - five and half of them were spent not drinking. Her last 18 months were the best of her life. If you take the bit out where she died, everything was better.'

Mitch also told how Amy nearly died one night four years before her passing after she had an adverse reaction to the sedative temazepam.

He added to The Guardian newspaper: 'Amy would have died four years ago. There was one particular incident four years ago when, by a complete fluke, I went into her room five minutes after someone else had checked on her, and had I not been there, she'd have died.

'Had she died at that point, I'd have held my hands up and said, 'Well, listen, she's very ill and...' But she didn't. Somehow, she got herself out of that. She was drug-free for three years. And that's what makes it so hard when she did pass away; she was doing so well.'

Mitch has written a book, 'Amy, My Daughter', all proceeds from which will go to the Amy Winehouse Foundation, a charity he set up after her death to help young people.