Addiction treatment can end in triumph or tragedy.

The latter is evident in all too common stories of young people lost to alcohol and drugs. One case in point was Thursday's headline: "Coroner: Amy Winehouse drank herself to death." It confirmed what many people long assumed - that the 27-year-old British singer, who died in July, had fatally relapsed after multiple attempts to overcome substance abuse.

Whether such senseless waste of life leaves you sad, angry or apathetic, it's important to recognize that for each failure, there are many successes.

I saw some of these last Saturday, at a concert sponsored by Reach Out Recovery, founded by Sarasotan Leslie Glass.

On stage were young musicians, self-described drug and alcohol addicts who all appeared to be in recovery. They sang "Bye, Bye, Bye to Misery" - a joyful anthem, of sorts, for people who manage to break the chains of chemical enslavement and maintain that freedom. Day by day, month by month, year by year.

That's hard, and it often requires them to confront underlying emotional problems that fed the addiction in the first place.

Anybody who makes this rehabilitative effort deserves a hand, but society too often fails to offer one.

I don't speak from personal experience on this issue and, frankly, I don't understand addiction all that well. I'm one of the lucky majority who's never had to wrestle a monkey off my back. But the illness touches all of us in some fashion.

The bands at the event, held at South Lido Beach, were with the nonprofit Road Recovery, a national effort in which entertainment professionals mentor young people striving to overcome addiction.

The cause is serious, but the performers revealed a sense of humor. To wit: One sang "50 Ways to Love Your Liver," to the tune of Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover."

Glass, a writer, and her daughter Lindsey, a filmmaker who's waged her own addiction battle, formed Reach Out Recovery to bring attention to prescription drug abuse and prevention.

It's a timely quest. Deaths caused by alcohol, prescription painkillers and anti-anxiety medications outstrip fatalities from street drugs like cocaine and heroin.

Deaths aren't the only problem, of course. Living with an addiction is hell - if not for the addicts, then for their families. The community ultimately suffers, too, when substance abuse spirals into crime and dysfunction. We see the impact in higher law enforcement and emergency room costs, and in heartbreaking news accounts - at least three locally in recent weeks - of drug-addled parents charged with child neglect.

We could change this situation.

What if Southwest Florida committed to a policy that guaranteed free drug and alcohol treatment for anyone who needs it?

Sarasota and Manatee counties already have some good treatment facilities; what if we expanded them?

What if there were enough detox beds to treat addicts quickly, rather than put them on a long waiting list that leaves them to tumble further into trouble in the meantime?

What if we made sure that halfway houses, mentoring, therapy and follow-up care were available - not just to some but to all - who are climbing out of dependency?

What if we supported major brain research to understand addiction and develop the most effective means of rehabilitation?

Important measures, such as the state's new prescription drug monitoring database, are under way to reduce the potential for pharmaceutical misuse.

But prevention and enforcement should be combined with a stronger embrace of treatment options, so that those now in the grasp of drugs and alcohol can break free.

I know there's no cure-all. Not everybody who needs rehab is willing to go through it. And, as Winehouse and others have demonstrated, even those who can easily afford the very best treatment can't always be saved.

That's a signal that this addiction thing - a biologically based problem that affects some individuals far more than others - is much tougher to throw off than the "just say no to drugs" mantra suggests.

I met several people at Saturday's event who not only remember the precise day and hour they gave up drugs and alcohol but commemorate the anniversary each year. They are justly proud of the milestone and grateful to be free.

I applaud them.

We should never deny someone the chance to reform. And in a world so full of tragedies, we should never overlook the triumphs.