With Mindy Mcready's suicide, FIVE people who appeared on "Celebrity Rehab" have died

It's been called a celebrity deathtrap in the past (by The Daily Beast), and now it's even more so. Dr. Drew Pinsky is the Angel of Death of the 21st Century.

• Pretty soon Dr. Drew will have a body count on the level of Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy

• I think the reasons for this are pretty obvious, no? I'd expect a show called "Celebrity Hospice" to have an even higher mortality rate.

• If it talks like a duck, walks like a duck...

  QUACK

• R2 is right, addicts do tend to hit the end of the line faster.

• Dr Drew and Dr Oz are horrible (for different reasons)

• Who are the other 4?

• Echoing r6, who else has died?

• Most who went through rehab become addicts again. Add to that the notorious Reality TV drama and you have a ticket for disaster for those who are not only addicted to their drug of choice but also hope to regain their former glory by appearing on a reality show (because it has the word celebrity in its title).

• I feel so sad for Mindy! When she had troubles, Nashville turned its back on her. & her lover died 1 month ago. Those poor kids!

• r4 r7 Rodney King, Mike Starr (from Alice in Chains), Joey Kovar (from The Real World), and Jeff Conaway.

• Wasn't our beloved Jani Laine (sp) a casualty too? Thought he was on the show long before he had one night stand with DL.

• r11 Yes! Thank you, I knew there were 6 and I couldn't think of the last one, how could I forget our Jani?

• Jani was on Celeb Fit Club.

• Dr. Drew and that asshole friend of Oprah's are both clearly unethical within their professions and should lose their licenses. Bringing increased attention and shame on people's weaknesses for a psychologist or psychiatrist is completely uncalled for. Pinsky's Hippocratic oath called for him to do no harm. He's already blown it there.

• That was Celebrity Fit Club. Dr Drew lost me when he had Tom Sizemore and Heidi Fleiss live together. Add his paid endorsements for anti-depressants and his way of diagnosing people like Bill Frist and I just couldn't take it. He wrote a book on narcissism and I'm inclined to think he should look in the mirror. Plus, he's always on the air within minutes of these folks deaths. Maybe he is offing them?

• Thanks R10 & 11, but we are playing kinda fast & loose with the term celebrity, no?

  R6

• Those of you snarking on Dr. Drew (and I am no fan) have to realize this: He's not responsible for their deaths. He never guaranteed they were going to be "saved." No mental-health practitioner can make that guarantee. The program was essentially the equivalent of a clinical trial for people with Stage 3 cancer. You know, going in, that some are going to make it; some aren't. Prognosis not great. If you're sick and hope to get well, it's best not to be that far along when you show up for treatment.

• If that's the case, R17, he's an asshole for exploiting their 'illness' for personal gain.

• That rehab was the most poorly run facility I've seen, and the shit they pulled there would have never gone on in real life. That includes Bai Ling managing to get out and walk on the fucking roof without no one noticing, and the volatile exes and enabling spouses being allowed to mingle freely.

• I think members of the Eight is Enough cast should go on that show.

• r14 - If you mean Dr Shill, he's not licensed though he once was. He doesn't need to be to host a tv show, so long as he doesn't refer to himself as a psychologist. He had a shady past before Oprah blew him up.

• I remember there was a website that ripped apart Celebrity Rehab and how the rehab was run. Dr. Drew and Dr. Oz both need to go away.

• Was Mindy Mcready the one who had that seizure on the show? That was really scary to watch.

• They need to cancel the show, it seems to be hurting celebrities..not helping.

• Oh, if only I could, R20.

  Lani%20O%27Grady%2C%20feeding%20the%20worms

• Dr. Drew is probably not the cause for these celeb suicide but he has not helped them either. Who are his success stories? Which Celebs has he helped. He & Dr. Phil seem to be big on exploitation. Never trust a doctor who uses his first name. Also don't trust TV doctors with fake credentials.

• Hi Everybody!

  Dr.%20Nick%20

• Hi, Dr. Nick!

  Everybody

• "The program was essentially the equivalent of a clinical trial for people with Stage 3 cancer" Lol.

• Coming soon... Celebrity Suicide Watch?

• I don't think celebrity rehab was a good idea for any of these people but can't blame dr. Drew for their deaths. The show was exploitative and gross, but the celebs would have died anyway. That's what happens to addicts. Jeff Conaway was pretty much already dead when the show began, that much was obvious.

• Human sacrifice, R15.

• Jeff Conaway died of pneumonia.

• r33 yes but he supposedly got pneumonia from his excessive norco use, it fucks up your respiratory system.

• How is this idiot still the doctor on the show? He obviously isn't doing a very good job.

• Do any of the Kardashians have a drug problem? Please, please, please?

• [R36] There have been rumors that Kris had a cocaine addiction years ago when she hung out with Nicole Brown Simpson and Faye Resnick. I don't if any of her spawn have drug problems, but Kim might have dabbled in drug years ago when she hung out with Paris Hilton.

• the interventionist on 'Addicted' could have helped Mindy. She's awesome. I'm reading her book "The Lost Years" and it's very good whether you've been personally affected by addiction or not. Told from both mother/daughter perspective.

• r38 really? You like Kristina? I am curious because I thought she was just trying to be on tv. It's good to know she is the real deal.

• How many times did Dr. Drew & His staff warn these people, if they didn't get clean, they would die. They chose to ignore what they were being told' that could have saved their lives.They watched costars & other celebs that participated in the program die from not following the program & still they used. They chose not to go into in house rehab, some opting for out poatient defying the advice Dr. Drew gave them. For you to blame Dr. Drew proves you know nothing about addicts & addiction STFU

• Actually r40 I know a lot about addiction and Drew is a shitty doctor. Do you know anything about addiction? Because to offer an addict 100 thousand dollars is a pretty stupid thing to do. I don't disagree that a lot of these people were way beyond a 30 day rehab program's help but if some of them were able to just hit rock bottom and sober up or die it would have been better. They probably were penniless and couldn't feed their addictions but here comes dick Drew to give them a bunch of money.

• I think Tom Sizemore is doing OK.

• so STFU! r40

  r41

• I tend to want to give them money but I know it's the worst thing to do. In my case I have no money to give them.

• R38 here. I started watching Addicted and something about her really resonated, she's definitely the real deal (IMO). Read up on her story. After everything she'd been through, her husband committed suicide a little over a year ago, and she stayed sober through it. Sad but powerful story. I agree with R41 about Dr Drew. Also celebrity rehab shouldn't even "be a thing".

• The show is not a "deathtrap. Rather the subjects are real life addicts/alcoholics and death is the fate of many who cannot get clean. If there was a reality show about a cancer clinic there would also be a lot of deaths. Addiction and alcholism are deadly problems, literally if you did not know.

• I wonder if reality shows like Invervention had as many deaths as Celebrity Rehab... they´re fucked up too, but nobodies fucked up...

  itscurseditoldyou

• exactly r46, addiction is a deadly disease and if they had been left to their own devices they would have run out of money and not been able to facilitate their demises. Enter Douche Pinsky to give them money so they can buy more crack, opiates, etc. Thanks, r38, I didn't know about her husband. I will have to look it up. If you don't mind my asking, are you an ex-addict? Because you seem to know a lot about it. I am, and that is why I'm curious.

  r41

• [quote]Do any of the Kardashians have a drug problem? Please, please, please? Give me a minute. I'm waiting for the ratings to come in.

  Pimp%20Mama%20Kris

• The worst reality show is the one for fat people. I really believe a few of those fat people will die from heart attacks or strokes. No doctor would really approve that kind of exorcize for the morbidly obese.

• The execrable Pinsky responded glibly, when presented with the fact that five people he has flapdoodled on his unethical show have died, that they wouldn't be the last. He should lose his license.

• Oh, shut up r50. If they just sat there and stayed fat instead of "exorcising" you'd be complaining about that.

• Most rehabs fail the vast majority of people because they are 12 step based. The 12 steps simply do not work. The most comprehensive study on this subject done to date shows that AA has a 3-5% success rate at best. (The study was actually done by a man named George Vaillant, a Harvard professor who was on the AA board of trustees when he did the study, so naturally he was hoping that it would turn out in AA's favor. Look it up.) 5% is also the annual rate of spontaneous remission for addicts (i.e., those who just decide to quit on their own and do it with no outside help). In other words, AA's success rate is at least the same, if not slightly worse, as doing nothing at all. Would you take a pill for any other kind of disorder that had the same success rate as doing nothing, and even stood a slight chance of making your condition worse? It's bad enough that the steps don't work, but what's much worse is that addicts are repeatedly fed the lie that not only do they work, they're the ONLY thing that will work. Other methods that have been developed more recently have much higher success rates (CBT, SMART Recovery, The Sinclair Method, harm reduction, etc.), but efforts to advance the use of these methods are continually swept under the rug by 12 step snake oil salesmen who continue to remain convinced that "the truth" about addiction was revealed in some bullshit outdated book from nearly a century ago. (I'm actually inclined to believe that a lot of the higher ups in the rehab industry are fully aware of the futility of the steps and depend on the failure rate they produce in order to continue lining their own pockets, but that's a whole other issue.) Dr. Drew has blood on his hands for just for propagating these lies as far as I'm concerned. I'm not opposed to the idea of rehab as a place where people can at least be isolated from their substance(s) of choice for the initial few weeks or months after quitting - but they should be receiving top quality, comprehensive treatment for whatever psychological issues have been triggering their addiction while they're there. They shouldn't have fake spirituality shoved down their throats and be made to partake in other silly bullshit exercises in futility like making lengthy lists of all their faults (a component of the steps, for those who don't know), as if they don't have enough shame and guilt to deal with already.

• Holy shit, R51. That's unbelievable. There's definitely something seriously mentally wrong with this man. He's most likely a raging narcissist, but I'm also inclined to wonder if he might actually be a sociopath as well. In any case, he's every bit as fucked up in the head as any of the celebrities he "treats." It's just that his issues manifest themselves in such a way that he appears outwardly respectable to anyone who isn't looking too closely.

• R53= moron. And liar. The 12 step programs have a higher rate of successgil recovery than ANY other method. Addicts are difficult to treat. Under the best of circumstances. Successful recovery utilizes the steps. Most addicts simply won't do them because they involve making amends to others and accepting responcibility for their actions.

• Celebrity Rehab made me a fan of Shifty, the white rapper. Steven Tyler came out and said the show as faked. That the groups were instructed to mime their addictive behaviors for the camera. This is really dangerous, introduce a pattern of use and give these people enough cash to buy their way into a huge habit. Dr. Drew should be investigated. He also conducted very flawed research on the harmful effects of pot.

• We will never know what harm Pinsky was responsible for or what issues he exacerbated by his tainted interventions in their lives. Whether it was poor and misguided counseling or giving them access to money and fame that may have interfered with a reality that needed to be faced by each person That he did this to enrich himself is beyond negligent and irresponsible. So no one should be absolving him of anything based on generalizations and assumptions.

• So it seems Pinsky recently "reached out" to her after her boyfriend's suicide. Jeez. God knows what he planted in ehr head. [quote] Pinsky wasn't immediately available for comment, his publicist said, but he issued a statement Sunday night that noted he'd spoken with McCready recently. Here's his prepared statement [quote] "She is a lovely woman who will be missed by many," the statement said. "Although I have not treated her for a few years, I had reached out to her recently upon hearing about the apparent suicide of her boyfriend and father of her younger (child). She was devastated. Although she was fearful of stigma and ridicule she agreed with me that she needed to make her health and safety a priority. Unfortunately it seems that Mindy did not sustain her treatment." This SOB was probably trying to talk her into coming back to his show with her new "storyline." If he had any decency he'd bow put of this field.

• Is Swifty still in a coma? Agree with the posters who said Pinsky is a narcissist. You can tell by tje way he NEVER MISSES A CHANCE TO SHOW OFF HOS BODY!

• [quote]The 12 step programs have a higher rate of successgil recovery than ANY other method. Please post sources that support your argument, R55. I did use sources in my post that would be easy for anyone to look up and verify. All you did was call my post "bullshit," call me a liar, and make a series of bombastic statements with no concrete evidence whatsoever to back up anything you said. 12 step proponents usually do this when their religion is challenged. They insist that their argument is the truth, but expect people to accept it based only on the premise of "Because I SAID SO, that's why!" They never have any actual, verifiable evidence to back up their claims. As I pointed out in my last post, many of them also have a rabid need to insist that their way not only works, it is the ONLY way, as evidenced by R55's bombastic claim that all "successful" addicts use the steps and that those who don't like them or use them are just trying weasel out of taking responsibility for own actions. Really, can anyone who's NOT a stepper not see right through this bullshit? I essentially predicted what your argument was going to be in my last post before you even posted it, idiot. I wouldn't give a shit about any of this if steppers would just accept that their method is not effective for a LOT of people and leave people alone to find their own path to recovery, but many of them can't even do that. What the hell would be so difficult about just using the steps yourself if you find them so useful, but not getting bent out of shape when it's pointed out that they don't help many others? I care deeply about the issue of addiction and definitely don't begrudge any addict anything that helps them, including the steps, but no one has a right to try and brainwash people into believing that they alone know The Truth about this highly complex psychological issue and that everyone who disagrees with them is wrong and not to be trusted. This mentality keeps the vast majority of people for whom the steps don't work from receiving other treatment that could prove much more useful for them. It's not okay in any way, it's highly destructive to millions of addicts who need help, and I'm going to continue to call out this bullshit wherever I see it because this is serious shit.

• Bravo, R57. I'm sick of people saying that Dr. Drew isn't "responsible" for any of the deaths. No one is claiming that he held a gun to anyone's head and pulled the trigger, but that doesn't necessarily mean that his hands are clean either. For fuck's sake, he took a bunch of people who were severely emotionally damaged, whose lives were in shambles, and he put them on a god damn reality show to talk all about it - under the guise of legitimate medical treatment! How the hell does it even need to be explained to anyone that this was completely unethical and irresponsible? Yes, I know that they all agreed to do it (although who WOULDN'T for $100K - shit, even I might fake an addiction and sign up just for the paycheck), but that's still not the point. The point is that he is the one who orchestrated the entire thing. There would never have been such a thing as Celebrity Rehab without him. He damn well should have known better as a licensed medical professional, and he went ahead and did it anyway.

• Every celebrity who appears on Dr. Drew's dreadful show is a celebrity who is NOT in an effective treatment program. They're a person who chose to famewhore instead of really making changes.

• r60. I am not a 12 stepper or an addict - I see the stepper's bullshit clear as day. Hey, maybe it works for some. But as a rational and objective third party I see it for what it is.

• Dear R41, I'm someone who has issues with alcohol and was in AA briefly. I'm drawn to stories of addiction and recovery. I just finished Kristina's book. Very inspiring - you may want to check it out!

  r38

• Dr. Drew defends 'Celebrity Rehab' after Mindy McCready's death

  http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/gossip/la-et-mg-mindy-mccready-suicide-dead-dr-drew-celebirty-rehab-20130219%2C0%2C41135.story

• From the article at R65: [quote]"So I called her, and she was in trouble," he said. "She was really struggling. She knew it. We discussed the fact that she needed to be hospitalized and head to a psychiatric hospital, but she was so mortified about the stigma and judgment of the public and the press that it really took some convincing." She was mortified by the stigma surrounding mental illness, and here he is blabbing about personal conversations he had with her after the poor woman has already fucking killed herself. He can't even resist poking at a dead woman's bones just to garner a little more attention for himself.

• They were crying because she killed one of her dogs, first...maybe her dog was sick and she knew no one else would take care of it? They also made a big deal because the house was a mess. How would you feel if your kids were in foster care? I'm sure the last thing she thought about was her house being a mess.

• Big damn deal about the dead dog. She just watched 'Crimes of the Heart'.

  beth%20henley

• [quote]They also made a big deal because the house was a mess. How would you feel if your kids were in foster care? I'm sure the last thing she thought about was her house being a mess. More of the vaginalization of news.

• "We discussed the fact that she needed to be hospitalized and head to a psychiatric hospital, but she was so mortified about the stigma and judgment of the public and the press that it really took some convincing."" WTF? This is a woman who went on NATIONAL TV to talk about her struggles with addiction, why would she be afraid of a "stigma"? Either he's totally bullshitting, making it sound like these celebrities really confide in him, or nobody intends his show to act as real therapy. Probably both.

• I was so hot for Joey Kovar. Big, dumb roided ape, but thought he was cute. Then I saw his Playgirl spread, and his shrunken wiener, and found it such a turn off. When everything is BIG - arms, chest,legs,ass, but the wiener is small, it's just a literal cock block, mentally. RIP Joey

  Reichen

• Joey wasn't so small as much as he was so SHAVED. god, I hate that look. but thought he had big cute mouth anyway. RIP bro', still hard to believe he took enough drugs to tear down that body so young. While Burroughs makes it to his 80s.

• Yeah - Joey had world-class DSL's. Are there steroids in heaven ?

  Adrian%20

• has it been mentioned that the dog was her boyfriends? the one who committed suicide. it's still disgusting and inexcusable but it makes more sense. i think she was so incredibly co-dependent on men with zero self worth she probably had no reason to live after David died. maybe killing the dog was wrapped up in the guy. I just wish someone could have reached her.

• I spent years addicted to heroin and then alcohol. The only people I know who have sobered up and survived are all in program - as we call 12 step groups, or have kicked through program. It always intrigues me when I hear such loud rants against 12 step programs - why? What is so threatening about the process to you? Yes, it's free and you do meet a lot of ex-cons and homeless down-and-outs there - does that scare you? What's your problem - how can going to a meeting hurt anyone?!

• An old article from WaPo showing how sleezy Pinsky is. People who are sick should not be treated by this quack.

  http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-07-06/lifestyle/35489202_1_wellbutrin-drew-pinsky-avandia

• r75, here is why it doesn't work for some people, via Doug Stanhope. I agree with r60, but Stanhope makes his core issue more explicit.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DyBYmiYnFg4M

• I earned my doctorate in Psychology back in the late 80's. If an instructor told us that there would be a tv show like Celebrity Rehab in the future, no one would have believed it. It's pretty shocking that it's come to this.