February 23, 2008

Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew- Four Days Left

FOUR MORE DAYS
At the group therapy session at the top of the episode, Dr. Drew asked his patients to make predictions about everybody's future sobriety. Jeff Conaway said something nice to start. He predicted that Jamie Foxworth would be the most successful because she seemed the most stable. I have to agree with him, although outside of a few outbursts, we didn't really get to know her. And that's fine by me. I don't need to know anything about her personal life to wish her well. With that said, Jamie predicts that Jeff will not succeed because of Vicki who is his enabler. The group pretty much agrees that in order for Jeff to succeed he's going to have to stay away from Vicki. Jessica pokes at Rico and accuses him of holding back, not opening up to the group. She predicts that unless he starts opening up about his past, that he'll revert back to old behaviors. She's probably right about that. He used to gamble, lose and rely on his muscles to get himself out of trouble. He gambled away a small fortune and lost custody of his kid. This segment ultimately leads to footage of a one on one session between Dr. Drew and Rico where he tries to find out what else exactly is in Rico's past that he's ashamed of. Turns out he's a criminal and doesn't want to discuss anything in detail because he's scared of the repercussions.

Four days left of treatment and our celebrities don't seem ready to leave. Dr. Drew is proud of the progress his patients have been making so he has them visit a "dry" coffee house to put on a talent show. Dr. Drew schedules these outings to give them a taste of a life with drugs and alcohol. My only other experience with rehab is a movie that Sandra Bullock made called 28 days, in which a young woman goes to rehab to sober up or goes to jail. I recall that the patients in that movie also went on an outing or two. So maybe the outing thing is legitimate. To tell you the truth, I hope to never find out whether or not that fact is true. Truly.

SOBER LIVING
Anyway, it's nice that the celebs have the talent show to look forward to because most of them are freaking out about what comes next. Dr. Drew suggested to the patients that they move on to a facility called sober living which sounds like a halfway house for recovering addicts. Apparently, it's a safe environment where they can learn how to make a sober transition back into their lives. Sober Living scares them. And some of the celebs are shown talking themselves out of going and making excuses why they can't afford it. For some of the celebrities this is a real problem. Jessica Sierra from American Idol, doesn't really have money and she doesn't have a job. All she has is one hit single that may or may not be providing her with an income. And on top of that, her whole life is in Florida, while the Sober Living facility is in California. Seth Binzer doesn't sound like he really wants to go to the facility either. And while his isn't a money concern, his interest level just isn't high enough. So what does he do? He agrees to move into an apartment with Rico the Ultimate Fighter/Cage Fighter/Real Man Fighter and together they will get tattoos and remain clean and sober. Hopefully Seth Binzer will see what a bad decision that would be for him. Rico is in no position to help anybody. His life is a bigger mess than Seth's. But I do appreciate that they honestly want to help each other out and believe they could prop each other up during the tougher days ahead. My wish for Seth Binzer is that he moves back in with his lovely wife and potentially chemically imbalanced child. (And I say that because Seth's DNA might have been effected by the crack he was inhaling when he conceived Halo.)

THERAPEUTIC OUTINGS
Long after group, everybody got dressed up and headed out to the sober cafe. Rico did stand up, Jessica sang a song, Seth Binzer spoke rapidly into the mike and everybody else supported them. It was nice to see the celebs relaxing a bit outside of the center. And it seems like everybody had a good time. Since that trip went so well that Dr. Drew thought he would challenge his charges with a trip to Catalina. I think Catalina was a boat because everything we saw from there took place on a boat. Jessica led a couple of the girls in a rousing chorus of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall and Rico jumped off the boat into the engine churned waters, in spite of warnings from the crew that Harbor Patrol would arrest him for doing so. That trip didn't go as well as the outing to the coffee house. Rico almost did get arrested were it not for the slick talking of Dr. Drew and his crew. But Rico wasn't the only one to act out. The show ended with Seth Binzer and Jessica Sierra participating in a food fight which really messed up the common area outside by the pool. But I guess it's normal for people to act out when they're scared and Seth and Jessica are good examples of that. Both fear leaving and both are acting out. I'm guessing they have to act out because they don't know how to process their emotions without drugs and alcohol. They're like children who haven't yet learn NOT to hit another child when he's angry.

JEFF CONAWAY LEFT
Jeff Conaway left the facility. I assumed it was because he wanted to get back to his drug seeking life style. But I found out after reading an interview with Dr. Drew about the episode that Dr. Drew advised Jeff to see a neurosurgeon for a back operation. He said that after watching a sober Conaway walking around he observed that something was wrong with how his body was moving. Turns out he was right. Jeff Conaway had an operation and Dr. Drew is still hopeful that he'll be able to recover from his varying addictions. If Jeff Conaway hadn't been sober, doctors wouldn't have been able to see that there was a problem.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm assuming they were going to Catalina Island.

About Me said...

Thanks. I know what Catalina is, but not from watching this show.

SLBTS Alumni Dept. said...

Hello Gen X Misanthrope we enjoyed the read and we are trying to track down this episode of the Dr. Drew show. Thanks for the shout out we posted about it here:

http://www.soberliving.com/blog/2008/07/gen-x-misanthrope-celebrity-rehab-with.html