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Series / Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew

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Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew (later renamed Rehab with Dr. Drew), was a Reality Show show that aired on VH1 for six seasons. The premise was to show various celebrities (the last season used non celebrities and was renamed as above) with alcohol and drug problems and addictions receive treatment by Dr. Drew Pinsky and his staff at the Pasadena Recovery Center in California.

While seemingly another variation of the B and C level celebrity reality show, the show was in fact a real chronicle of real treatment, with much less "cooked" and scripted moments created by the producers as is common on these shows. Many of the celebrities merely went on to get a paycheck or TV time, not realizing the true nature of the show. Some did it for these reasons as well as actually wanting to seek help. It was usually evident during the course of each season which celebrities were seriously trying to get help and which ones obviously weren't.

The show had two spin-offs. Celebrity Rehab Presents Sober House, a follow-up show to two of the seasons, chronicling celebrities from the season who agreed to go on to extended care (with other celebrities not from the season, or from past seasons also showing up) in a sober living house. Sex Rehab With Dr. Drew followed the same premise, only dealing with sexual addiction vice chemical.

The show had mixed reactions, with many finding the nature of the show ghoulish and not appropriate for true recovery. Others applauded its stark nature and exploration of the nature of addiction and the process of recovery. Additionally, as seasons went on, the name value of the celebrities greatly went down (Sex Rehab was heavily criticized for having "celebrities" who were practically unknown to most of the audience), and the use of non-celebrities in the final season led to poor ratings.

Dr. Drew eventually announced that season six was the final season, explaining that he was tired of the criticism leveled at him from a media system that did not understand how substance abuse works.


Celebrity Rehab provides examples of the following tropes:

  • Blatant Lies: Many of the contestants outright lie about the true depth of their addictions. Steven Adler while on Sober House denied being high, despite holding drug paraphenilia and house mother Jennifer (a former drug addict herself) telling him she can tell he's high.
  • Binge Montage: The first episode of each season showed several of the celebrities in the midst of drug and alcohol-fueled moments in their life before going on the show.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Gary Busey of course. Andy Dick in Sober House could be this as well.
  • Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: This was shown a lot on Sober House as many of the celebrities are out interacting with the real world again, and find their temptations are prevalent everywhere they go.
    • Even house technicians Jennifer and Will, long-time recovering addicts, face it in the Sober House. While confronting Steven Adler after catching him smoking crack in the bathroom, both are shown looking somewhat longingly at the crack rocks before they flush them, and discuss the triggers they are having to holding it and smelling the smoke.
    • In Season 2 of Celebrity Rehab, Seth Binzer returns after relapsing and proceeds to smoke the last of his crack on the roof of the treatment centre. Resident technician Shelly Sprague, a recovering crack addict herself, holds it together but is noticeably affected by it and even calls Seth out on smoking it in front of her.
  • Failure Is the Only Option: Sadly, many of the patients from the show later relapsed, were arrested for possession, and a few, like Mike Starr, Rodney King and Jeff Conaway, later had drug and alcohol related deaths. While tragic, this is actually better than the national average for drug treatment: According to NIDA, 60% of addicts relapse after treatment, and 10% die within 10 years.
  • Functional Addict: Many of the patients. While some have completely lost control of their lives due to their addictions, many others are maintaining their careers and lives. This is often stated by many of them why the felt for a long time they didn't have an issue and why it took so long to get help.
  • Going Cold Turkey: The first few episodes show a lot of the patients coming off their chemicals of choice. It's often not pretty. Also, since they are now completely cut off of everything, some go through withdrawals to things they didn't know they were addicted to and didn't bother disclosing, underestimating the hold something may have had on them.
    • In the first season, Shifty is having an obvious bad comedown from opiates. He's confused as are the staff, as it's not a normal reaction to what he's there for (cocaine). His later urine test comes back positive for opiates, and he admits that he does take painkillers, but hadn't considered them a problem.
  • Insane Troll Logic: Gary Busey claims often through his season to have been clean and sober for over two decades. He ends up in an argument with Dr. Drew halfway through the season when he admits he takes medical marijuana, insisting it doesn't count and is prescribed.
  • Jerkass: Several of the patients are horrible during the beginning of the season, mostly due to detoxing.
  • Obfuscating Disability: Stealthily subverted. Many non-clinician viewers felt some of the patient's "addictions" were rather minor, like Jaimee Foxworth's marijuana addiction and Jaime Lee's steroid addiction, and were there purely for the TV time and paycheck. However, both of these substances are well-documented as drugs people can be addicted to when taken by certain people; the nature of addiction is about the person (genetics and brain chemistry) and their behavior, rather than the substance itself.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten:: Ricco talks about having the inglorious title as the first person in UFC history to be suspended for failing a drug test for cocaine, a drug notorious for being out of your system in 2-4 days, when he knew months in advance when he would be tested.
  • Recurring Character: Several contestants have been on multiple seasons, but none more than "Shifty" Shellshock, who appeared in both the first two seasons and both seasons of Sober House.
  • Reality Show Genre Blindness / Wrong Genre Savvy: Many celebrities assumed the show was like other celebrity reality shows and was a production, not an actual rehabilitation center and they would be actually required to go through treatment. Jenny Ketchum was a notable example of this, stating in an interview she fully intended to disrupt the show for amusement, but found herself fully engaging with treatment instead.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Several, but Steven Adler, Gary Busey and Jeff Conaway stand out to a lot fans.
  • Tear Jerker: The deaths of many of the patients later on from drug and alcohol abuse. Watching them struggle and sometimes seemingly overcome their demons only make it worse when you hear about Jeff Conaway, Mike Starr, Rodney King, etc.
  • What Could Have Been: Artie Lange was asked, begged, etc every season by Dr. Drew to come on. He always refused, and implied often the show was for fallen celebrities trying to jumpstart a sagging career, which he didn't need. In reality, Artie later said he was in denial of his problems and was simply scared to go on the show and have it found out how bad he really was at the time.

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