Celebrity Rehab
Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew is a VH1 reality television show that premiered on January 10, 2008. The show features several celebrities as they undergo treatment for various drug and alcohol addictions. The celebrities are treated by Dr. Drew Pinsky and his staff, including Bob Forrest. It is filmed at the Pasadena Recovery Center. Pinsky is listed in the show's onscreen credits as the executive producer.
Recurring cast
The following are staff of the Pasadena Recovery Center, where the series is filmed. Casts for individual seasons are seen in sections for those seasons.
- Dr. Drew Pinsky - MD, Addiction specialist.
- Shelly Sprague - The Resident Technician who runs the floor. A recovering addict herself, she has also appeared on Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew. She met Pinsky through Bob Forrest, a fellow recovering addict and colleague of Drew's with whom Sprague used to do drugs. She runs a center at Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena, California.
- Bob Forrest - Chemical Dependency Program Director at Las Encinas Hospital, who appears during group sessions as a counselor.
- Loesha Zeviar - A Resident Technician who first appears in the second episode of Season 2. Responding to observations that Loesha receives more abuse than Shelly, Pinsky describes her as more staid than Shelly, and says that she invests more in the patients than Shelly does.
Production
According to a December 2009 New York Times article, Drew Pinsky, who was alarmed by tabloid portrayals of addiction as an indulgence of the rich and famous, and a group of independent producers, approached VH1 with a proposal for a reality television series that would authentically depict addiction, as a sort of media intervention.
According to executive producer John Irwin, casting for the first season was the most difficult, as the representatives of the celebrities who had been arrested or had publicized bouts with addiction refused to speak with him and the other producers. The process became easier after the first season aired. Actor Tom Sizemore, for example, who was cast for Season 3, had been sought after since Season 1. Producers have reportedly offered actress Lindsay Lohan six figures to appear on the show. Pinsky, who focuses on the treatment side of the production, is not involved with casting.
A multitude of cameras are employed, which roll twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, during the 21-day treatment cycle. Because some dramatic incidents occur early in the morning when the camera crews are not present, automated cameras are mounted all over the clinic to capture them. The exception to this are the bathrooms, which nonetheless are equipped with microphones to monitor unusual sounds, such as patients attempting to use drugs.
In addition to receiving the free treatment (which would normally be worth approximately $50,000 - $60,000 USD), the patients receive a salary for their appearance on the series, which is prorated, and distributed once a week as an incentive to stay.
Celebrity Rehab has spun off two other shows, Sober House, which shows Rehab alumni going to a sober living facility, which acts as an interim step for recovering addicts between completion of rehab and returning to their old life, and Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew, in which Pinsky and his staff treat celebrities for sex addiction.
Criticism
While the series has won praise from both former addicts and other addiction specialists, many take issue with Pinsky’s methods. Jeffrey Foote, a clinical psychologist and substance abuse expert, states, "The velvet-glove confrontational stuff Pinsky does is what works for TV, but it’s not what works for patients." The web site for Foote's Center for Motivation and Change uses a clip from Celebrity Rehab to demonstrate poor techniques. Foote adds, "The dramatic confrontations seen on the show are actually more likely to drive less-severe substance abusers, who are by far the majority, away from seeking treatment." Critics also maintain that the patients' needs and the show's needs constitute a conflict of interest, with Dr. John J. Mariani, director of the Substance Treatment and Research Service at Columbia University stating, "The problem here is that Dr. Drew benefits from their participation, which must have some powerful effects on his way of relating to them. He also has a vested interest in the outcome of their treatment being interesting to viewers, which is also not in their best interest. Treatment with conflicts of interest isn’t treatment." Pinsky has responded to this criticism by saying, "The problem with my peers is they don’t understand television. You have to work within the confines of what executives will allow you to put on TV. Otherwise, we’ve not done anything, we’ve not really struggled to change the culture at all." Pinsky also responds to questions about airing the series on a network that broadcasts other reality shows featuring uncritical depictions of sexuality and alcohol use as recurring themes by saying, "The people that need what we have are watching VH1. Not the people watching educational TV, the NPR crowd. You gotta give ’em what they want so you can give ’em what they need."
Defending the practice of paying addicts to attend rehab, producer John Irwin says, "Whatever it takes to get them through the door so they can start treatment—that's the goal. Pinsky offers a similar response, saying, "My whole thing is bait and switch. Whatever motivates them to come in, that’s fine. Then we can get them involved with the process.
Pinsky has also drawn criticism from experts for publicly offering diagnoses of celebrities has never met or personally examined, based on media accounts, and has also drawn the ire of some of those celebrities. Following comments Pinsky made about actor Tom Cruise's belief in Scientology and Lindsay Lohan's drug abuse, Cruise's lawyer compared Pinsky to Joseph Goebbels, and Lohan retorted, "I thought REAL doctors talked to patients in offices behind closed doors. Pinsky, who admits in his 2009 book, The Mirror Effect, that he scored a high 16 on the Narcissism Personality Inventory, and shares several traits with the "closet narcissist", asserts that he was never motivated by fame to become a media figure, but from a desire to educate the public on the medical facts distorted by the media. He has been praised by those he has treated, including Rehab alums Duncan Roy and Andy Dick. Dick, who has made Pinsky his primary care physician, disputes the accusation that Pinsky is motivated by a desire for fame, insisting that Pinsky "really is just this unbelievably caring guy. He really is. He’s almost too caring.
