Friday, February 22, 2013

From LoveLine to Doctor Death - The Dr. Drew Situation

From LoveLine to Doctor Death - The Dr. Drew Situation


Country Music... well, I can't really say super star, cause really. Who the fuck was she anyway? Well Mindy McCready, one of Dr. Drew's Celebrity rehab folks was found on her front porch dead of an apparent suicide earlier this week. She appeared on VH1's celebrity rehab with Dr. Drew in 2009 for an alcohol and painkiller addiction.

As tragic as this sounds, it is the fifth person that Dr. Drew has helped on the VH1 show to die. Which begs the question - Is Dr. Drew even remotely helpful to these people or is he just exploiting them at a time of need? Dr. Drew himself comes out and says as much in laying out that he doesn't really help these poor schmucks.

Dr. Drew, who says he hadn't seen McCready in years, spoke on CNN last night about the tragedy. He admitted that although she was on Celebrity Rehab, he did not actually treat her. Which really begs the question on what the point of all this is. Dr. Drew spoke out on what's seemingly his poor track record with treating addiction among celebrities:
One of my hopes was, in bringing Celebrity Rehab out, was to teach people how dangerous addiction was. If I was doing a show on cancer there would not be much surprise when my cancer patient died. In fact, we'd celebrate a few years of good quality life. People don't understand that addiction has virtually the same prognosis.

In the case of McCready, after appearing on the show, she was never able to get her singing career back on track. So you can't really say that the good ol' Doctor really helped her. Then about a year ago when her boyfriend killed himself, I guess it was just too much for her.  She was found in an apparent murder suicide where she shot her dog in the process of offing herself.

So I guess that lends to blaming Dr. Drew for not only five deaths, but perhaps we should count the dog as a .5, because really, what the fuck did the dog do? Poor dog.

On the other hand, relapse rates for addiction range between 50% and 90%, and are comparable to the relapse of other chronic illnesses like diabetes. So it's treatable but the steps required is far more than just simply putting a camera in front of them.






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