Mary J. Blige on getting sober & helping Amy Winehouse

In this week's Billboard cover story (image below, on newsstands Monday 11.24), Mary J Blige talks getting sober, her new musical direction and why she could have helped Amy Winehouse.

Blige ​, who​ spent most of her adult life struggling with alcohol and cocaine ​, has strung together two solid sober years since last drinking. But she knows herself well enough not to rest easy.

"I've done those things for so long," she says. "I would stop drinking and then I'd start again. This is the second time that I've stopped drinking. It's peaks and valleys, peaks and valleys."

Blige also says she felt "connected to [Amy Winehouse] in terms of the darkness", and still believes she might have helped her.

"I would tell so many people, 'I need to talk to her, I need to get to her,' " she says. "Especially when my life turned around and I chose life. I wanted to somehow get to her, to tell her, 'It's OK to choose life.' "