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Rehab: Not Just For Quitters Anymore.

April 25th, 2007 · 1765 Comments

Rehab was once reserved for that special moment when one realized that they had hit rock-bottom. It offered a last bastion of hope for those who had stumbled past their limits: the celebrities that had been caught with drugs and hookers in cheap motel rooms, their mug-shots plastered across CNN.com, their hair always slightly askew to the left, faces puffy from a weekend bender, and eyes vacant, and bloodshot. It was a sanctuary, restricted from the outside world where drastic measures were taken to combat the addict’s degenerative disease of alcohol, drug or gambling abuse. A few years ago, it was only the drug-addled antics and subsequent busts that made headlines, and ne’er a peep to follow. Courtney Love has gone several times, and the mention of her sentence was announced, but her ensuing stay in rehab was always kept under the radar. Ben Affleck went for gambling addiction, I think, but no one talked about it much. Whitney Houston has yoyo-ed in and out several times without much of a fuss. Yasmine Bleeth’s mug-shot still haunts her to this day, though I never heard what steps she took to combat her “little problem.”

Yasmine Mug

Robert Downey Jr. has gone multiple times, but really all I can remember is his jail time, his pretty picture and his ankle bracelet – but no rest and recovery time.

Downey Mug

In fact, we all have friends, and relatives that have had to try it out, and it has always been kept very hush-hush: a time for that person to build a foundation for the rest of their lives, and hopefully someday emerge a better person for the experience – with just a little skeleton rattling in the closet.

However, recently, instead of keeping celebrities’ habits and following payment-to-said-piper out of the public eye, stints of drug abuse and ensuing layovers in Promises, Wonderland, or the ubiquitous Betty Ford are strewn across the evening news, inviting all who dare care to track the addiction-recovery process of their beloved miss-stepped star. Now this is all well and good. It gives the public a taste of how rampant addiction is in today’s Starbuck’s Venti Mochachino with a Ritalin chaser world and how difficult recovery can be, proving to all that there is no need to paint one of your own sheep black for their mistakes.

But I have to take a step back and wonder: is the way of the rehab quickly devolving into a career move? And when did it become an option to move so boldly? Specifically, if a celebrity’s reputation has been marred by too much excess, can they just be shipped off for a leisurely 30-day vacation to get “clean,” and then emerge as bright and shiny as a sober Sunday morning?

Though I never thought I would be writing these words in my life: I think it all started with Pat O’Brien.

O'Brien

This once prominent man in the celebrity world, known for hosting the half-hour gossip show, “The Insider” where he interviewed movie and television stars about their private and public lives, spearheaded this entire obscure hide-out/blow-over campaign back in March of 2005. After an embarrassing string of dirty voice-mail messages became public, which expressed O’Brien’s insatiable taste for hookers, cocaine and adventurous sex, this beloved gossip-hungry host checked out of reality and into rehab to avoid the damaging viral revelations that spread like wild-fire across the internet fields. He claimed that the reason for his lascivious manner, naughty language (I want to f**king go crazy with you”) and his penchant for offering up his member to coworkers (A gay male producer said that O’Brien once said to him, “I have a gift for you,” and when asked what, O’Brien allegedly answered, “Bend over”) was directly caused by his addiction to alcohol and cocaine. So, he hid for awhile, became a national joke for 30-days as everything unraveled, and then upon his exodus, “The Insider” immediately welcomed him with open arms and a light slap on the ass – problem solved.

Furthermore, in late July of 2006, another one of our favorite celebrities, albeit a much more respected one, ran into the same dirty mouthed slip of the tongue. Though, instead of wanting to penetrate various orifices of his colleagues, Mel Gibson simply wanted to eradicate all the Jews in the world.

Gibson Hug

Gibson was arrested after driving drunk on the Pacific Coast Highway in his hometown of Malibu; but where the situation became devastatingly more serious was when an obliterated Gibson began to preach to the cause of anti-Semitism, which not only insulted the police officers (one happened to be Jewish, and the other Gibson referred to as “Sugar Tits”), but also served to alienate an entire peoples.

This black-out landed him shortly thereafter in, you guessed it, rehab. His excuse for this condemnation? He has an issue with alcohol abuse. Though, pictures did surface from that night, which clearly illustrated to the world that a significant amount of alcohol was in fact being abused, Gibson most likely decided that he had hit his career rock-bottom with his alarming tirade, and had to take some drastic action or potentially be excommunicated from the Church of Hollywood. In fact, most of the entertainment industry in Los Angeles dines on Matzah and Kosher meets, so passing the blame onto something that can be and has been blamed for so much was Gibson’s only shot at redemption – short of traveling to every Jewish temple in Los Angeles and handing out cookies for Yom Kippur. Though everyone eventually accepted Gibson’s excuse, many still doubted his claim of alcoholic excess and thought it was more of the deep-seeded-hatred-of-Jews sort of excess.

Both of these perpetrators used rehab to rehab there public and reputation-damaging mistakes, and not to fight any aforementioned degenerative disease. Doesn’t that kind of undermine the sanctity of rehab’s purpose?

Now, the fun part: our beloved Celebutards. Lindsey Lohan started her 2007 with a stint in rehab following months of speculation regarding her drug and booze binges, and one very notable reprimand from Morgan Creek Productions CEO and super producer, James G. Robinson who delivered a strongly-worded letter to the 20-year old starlet’s people, accusing her of “all night heavy partying” making up “bogus excuses,” and threatening to take action to recover any “monetary damages.” Her crime? Repeatedly failing to show up to set on time, and giving the bogus excuses of “dehydration” and “exhaustion.” Her behavior continued on unchecked until she found herself in Wonderland in Los Angeles after the world watched and speculated about the severity of her addition problem. Though her original intention seemed genuine enough, she went on to threaten rehab’s benefit to everyone else. She announced to the press through her publicist to “please respect my privacy at this time.” Though privacy is not what she got. In fact, she was photographed out of the facility many times for shopping trips, car-repairs and a little rest and relaxation away from her supposed rest and relaxation, which only served to alienate her fellow Wonderland attendees with her antics, and single-handedly proved to make a mockery of the entire recovery process.

Lohan Out

Lohan was supposed to go away to rehab, and then come back with a dependable, insurable movie star image, and a clean reputations – that didn’t happen. In fact, the day she left rehab, she was out at a dance club in Los Angeles (dancing and drinking water, natch), and then a few weeks later she was seen with alcohol at a New York drink spot, dancing along to the famed Amy Winhouse song, “Rehab,” as she sang, “They tried to make me go to rehab, and I said no, no, no.”

Lohan Flashes

Onto our ill-fated iconic pop-queen who checked herself into rehab, and out again, and in again, and out again, three times (3x!) before she actually decided to stay. At the urging of her manager and family, (and, as she said in a statement, not by her own accord), Britney Spears was at the end of her glitter encrusted rope when she was finally shipped off to Promises in Malibu. The world watched Spears unravel from her “Be All You Can Be” buzz-cut, to her tacky, hastily chosen tattoos, and the umbrella bashing of an innocent SUV and rehab seemed like the only option.

However, again, the process was negated: she was allowed to leave the grounds several times, she received special treatment, paparazzi were given tips from moles in the facility and photos were taken of her on the grounds, and she began a romantic relationship with a man while she was there (which is so unbelievably against all policy’s of rehab: no dating in the first year). To top it all off, Spears decided she didn’t need help anymore and up and left a week early and was seen out and about shortly thereafter. Though Spears claims that her issues stem from either Bipolar or Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, using drugs and drinking every night with Paris Hilton at various clubs does not really help those psychiatric disorders, and in fact, Spears should have had enough respect for the institution of rehab, and its ability to help your life; apparently, Spears’ rock-bottom is lower than shaving her head, and a few tacky tattoos. I believe, however, if she were to stay straight the public would welcome her back into their loving, warm, iTunes-addicted arms and throw her on the top of the pop-queen heap once again.

Britney Rehab

Thus rehab is more than just a place to recover, but a place to transform in the public eye. Go away for 30-days and the drunken, weaving, sunken eyed caterpillar is now a… well, you know. But all these stars checking in, and debasing the nobility of the institution, it might just give the American public the impression that is doesn’t work.

Last and certainly least: Jesse Metcalf.

JesseMetcalf

Never heard of him? Oh, well let me refresh: Jesse Metcalf is a D-list actor playing opposite Eva Longoria, on the hour-long melodrama, Desperate Housewives – merely a pair of biceps and some washboard abs. He never was thought of much, by the supermarket tabloids, or the American television viewing public. Then, it was announced on March 19, 2007, that Metcalfe entered rehab to be treated for alcoholism, and his face was plastered all over the gossip rags and entertainment outlets for days. His publicist could have made this a private affair, but decided to announce it to the world. Why? So his client could move up in the ranks of stardom and join the Lohans and the Spears, and maybe even the Gibsons.

I see a growing trend: what once was a sanctuary for people to recover their lives, their loves, and maybe even their homes and businesses, has turned into a publicists’ tool to recover their client’s career, and in the same fell swoop, recover their own paycheck along the way; but more than that, with the old habits of some of the stars (Lohan/Spears) coming back so quickly, the entire process has become somewhat of a joke in the meantime.

I guess when it comes down to it, I might have to go to rehab someday folks (well, you may have to too, but I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt), don’t ruin it for us common decent drug abusers who actually need it to become whole again – if you don’t want to “go to rehab, no, no, no,” then just don’t go. And publicists, drug addiction and alcohol addiction are very private things; they are a point of weakness, helplessness, and distress that many people wrestle with everyday of their lives. If you marginalize the institution with movie stars and iconic teen-queens bouncing back and forth and in and out like playground kick-balls, you’re going to destroy it for the rest of us hard-working recovering addicts. Let your client’s decide when the time is right to get their lives together, and Celebrities, don’t use rehab as a $75,000 rest and relaxation vacation. It’s no party to try and sober up and stay straight, so stop showing up uninvited like it is.

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