The term “Dr. Drew”: Dr-oo – (verb) To pretend you’re a doctor on Teevee to fulfill your own perverse desire for attention that is constantly being amplified yet unsatisfied by a life in Hollywood surrounded by actually famous people to the detriment of everyone with whom you come in contact, as well as a disgrace to the medical profession, and a dangerous voice of misplaced authority to your viewers.
DO NO HARM
A charlatan plucked from the primordial ooze of media background noise, Dr. Drew is botoxed, spray tanned, his visage one of permanent concern. His hair is Clairol #672, “The Silver of Foxes.” Dr. Drew is a “celebrity doctor” – not a doctor TO celebrities, a doctor who IS a celebrity. Dr Drew started doling out medical advice on the syndicated radio show Loveline with Adam Corolla 25 years ago, dispensing sex advice to young folks. On Loveline, Dr. Drew received $750,000 from Glaxo Smith Klein for allegedly promoting Wellbutrin for uses not approved by the FDA (increasing libido for one), without revealing himself as a paid spokesperson. ADVICE: I am not a paid spokesman, but anyone purporting to be qualified to give psychological advice is a Big Pharma shill to one degree or another, and those shills, while they may be fluent in the jargon that impresses plebs, are not really the people you should listen to for personal advice.
Loveline launched the good doctor’s decline into crap media franchise, churning out an alarming number of hack reality shows: “Celebrity Rehab” , “Sober House”, Dr. Drew’s Lifechangers, Strictly Dr. Drew, Strictly Sex with Dr. Drew, Sex…with Mom and Dad, and the super-helpful Sex Rehab. Oh and lending his Doctor cred to the despicable Teen Mom series.
A personal suffering chaser with Peter Pan Syndrome, Dr. Drew is ready to render diagnosis on anyone in the news, irrespective of any personal knowledge about them or their medical history. He is willing to forego the formality of meeting a patient before rendering his verdict, dispensing medical commentary as casually as you might discuss sports. He stated Angelina Jolie was a “heroin addict”, and that Tom Cruise’s involvement in the “cultish” Church of Scientology “a function of a very deep emptiness and suggests serious neglect in childhood—maybe some abuse but mostly neglect.” I actually probably agree with this diagnosis and I think he has successfully kept the dialogue of addiction going, bringing us a greater understanding that substance abuse is a deadly disease. Dr. Drew seemed to be motivated to inspire the national discourse and by something other than feeding his humongous ego.
BLEAK HOUSE
Dr. Drew was a board member of a rehab facility in Pasadena called Las Encinas Hospital. He often endorsed Las Encinas on the really terrific Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew. The good doctor was co-medical director of the chemical dependency department and was prominently featured on the hospital’s website and – I know from having visited the facility – he had a big fat personalized parking spot there.
The LA Times reported that in April of 2002, two patients being treated for drug abuse in Dr. Drew’s unit at Las Encinas, died of drug overdoses. Drug overdoses...in rehab. Another substance abuse patient hanged himself from a wooden beam, and a day after that, a 14-year-old girl was raped by a 16-year-old patient as hospital staffers slept nearby. The hospital refused to confirm the reported rape and deaths, citing “patient confidentiality laws”, but when state health inspectors investigated, they faulted the hospital. Dr. Drew, naturally, contended that he played no direct role in any of the victim patients’ care:
“I had no direct knowledge and no direct participation in the recent care of the patients in question. Patient confidentiality laws prevent me from discussing these or any other patients who may have been admitted to the facility. To associate me with these situations is really becoming an egregious problem”.
Yes, THAT’S what’s egregious, Doc. Not that a 14 year old girl was raped while in the care and protection of a medical facility her parents were paying you $1400 per night to keep safe.
I’ve been to Las Encinas, and it’s a fucking dump. And it’s a sprawling, expansive property dotted with cottages and out-buildings. Most rehab facilities are contained houses, precisely because when people are that vulnerable they need to be watched closely. When questioned as to whether the fame and fortune of high-profile clients in hospital like Las Encinas somehow distracts hospital staff from other patients, Pinsky was adamant that there is no difference in the care given to celebrity patients and any of the other patients at the hospital.
“In fact, we accept insurance, and we mostly treat people who are the average person. Everyone is treated the same — everyone is just an addict with a disease”.
Ah, yes, insurance, the great equalizer.
Dr Drew’s parking spot has since been painted over and he removed himself for the facility’s website. He has scaled his private medical practice “waaaay back”.
DEATH’S WAITING ROOM
Now, real (non televised) rehab facilities have high recidivism rates, that is the nature of the disease. But, Dr. Drew’s green room was basically death’s waiting room. The relapse drug overdoses of Dr. Drew’s teevee stars,who had their lowest moments broadcast on television: Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr, “Real World” cast member Joey Kovar, Jeff Conaway, of TV’s “Taxi,” and LAPD, beating victim Rodney King, and country music star Mindy McCready. That mea culpa has left some unconvinced of Pinsky’s intentions and the efficacy of his treatment. Pinsky’s response was how “stressful” and “intense” is is to face questioning over his motive.
“It’s very stressful and very intense for me. To have people questioning my motives and taking aim at me because people get sick and die because they have a life-threatening disease, and I take the blame? Rodney King has a heart attack and I take blame for that?”
(King drowned in his swimming pool while heavily intoxicated). Family Guy has not killed even one person.
“Celebrity is the antithesis of anonymity. It’s safe here. It’s “Alcoholics Anonymous” – Dr. Drew on Celebrity Rehab, to a sick, vulnerable person for the entertainment of millions of viewers
An ambulance chasing exploiter of the sick, Drew makes millions off the suffering of his patients, and then goes on TV to make more money off the corpse. Whether or not sick or impaired people willingly sign-up for a television circus, a bona fide doctor does not treat vulnerable people in public. People that view other peoples pain and suffering for entertainment are in need of therapy themselves. Doctors who put people’s life-threatening illness on national TV for money are worse than the pushers who sold them drugs to begin with. If you really want to help people with addictions, for the love of God, keep it private. If you want to be an advocate for addiction therapy, do not tout your patient’s lives across the screen. At the very least, Dr. Drew, even if you don’t manage to shed light on the misconceptions, this is a show on VH1, and even if you don’t manage to actually “help” anybody, because your “help” is so powerful that it never seems to work, you’ll still get some sweet air time.
LIFECHANGERS
If you think all those disgusting rehab shows are the nadir, check out “Dr. Drew’s Lifechangers”.
What an Algonquin round table this must have been.
Recent guests on Dr. Drew: Lifechangers include a women named Vanity Wonder, who explained that she’s had over 1,000 butt injections because one of her first implants got infected, and famous underage bride Courtney Stodden, in a skimpy robe and stripper heels, getting a sonogram of her boobs – in front a live, thoroughly disgusted studio audience.
DR. FAUSTUS
Drew has warned against “Faustian deals” struck with the media by entertainers hungry for the spotlight.
There was a time when Dr. Drew decried public treatment of personal issues as being detrimental to the patient while glorifying the doctor. He’s written and spoken extensively about the corrosive effects of celebrity culture and narcissism and against the degrading blogs like Perez, Gawker and TMZ and YouTube videos that amount to virtual celebrity mob stonings. In his book, “The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism Is Seducing America,” he traces the self-destructive addictions of Millennials to their infatuation with bad celebrity behavior, and how the celebrity obsession is a potential public health issue: “a toxic new form of narcissism, stoked by the media.” He talks about the former stars who continue to sign up for celebrity-based reality shows like The Surreal Life:
“Nothing demonstrates a celebrity’s basic drive for attention more powerfully than a willingness to check one’s dignity at the door, week after week, in front of millions of viewers.”
(cough) Celebrity Rehab.
Dr. Drew’s new show follows the Nancy Grace horror on HLN. Grace has taught Drew that if your sole desire is to grift, and get free traction for your grifting, you don’t need ideas that make sense, you just need a publicist.
Dr. Drew has joined the HLM murder crew, yammering overly enthusiastically teleprompter readings, enjoying the type of sensationalistic name and shame peer pressure tactics of teenagers to try to gain ratings. They spew the ghoulish content and gleefully report it back to us in the finest bloodiest detail. I love true crime but I never in my wildest dreams thought I would watch a news network that lets its people loose to advocate and breed deathmongering. Their rabidity turns people into seething mobs of hatred killers. This has hit a nadir with the Jodi Arias trial. Dr. Drew is currently being skewered for interviewing “Jodi Arias supporters’. When taken to task, he starts babbling about the “First Amendment“, which obviously to him covers giving morons a platform for spewing their lunacy.
His Big Question: “What kind of person gets attracted to a murderer?!” Their Big Answer: “Somebody who is looking for attention by association!” They are too dim to see any irony in their statements.
Between his talk shows, books, and the VH1 shows and now carrying Nancy Grace’s water, what is the difference between Dr. Drew and the worst celebrity fame seeker? The landscape is lousy with obnoxious, querulous experts, many of whom are known by only their doctor titles and first names like Dr. Phil and that monster Dr. Laura. Only that medical doctor credential separates him from those fake doctors But what makes Dr. Drew worse is that while Dr. Laura is a sexually frustrated, meth faced, brutally condescending scold and Dr. Phil is just a fat sack of trash, Dr. Drew is a board-certified and practicing physician. So his viewers accept his opinions carry the imprimatur of hard science. Sadly, Dr. Drew lost the plot and is now doing more harm to the treatment community than good. He should either give up the Doctor title altogether and simply be Nancy Grace with a penis, or Bill O’Reilly (with a penis), or he should drop his showbiz aspirations and go back to being a doctor. Now that he’s drinking from the same cup as his clientele, he has rendered himself unworthy of his medical license.