Is Dr. Drew too dangerous for prime time?

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 19:40:00 +0000

With the news last week of country star Mindy McCready’s suicide by gun, the death toll among Dr. Drew’s "Celebrity Rehab" patients now stands at five, giving the show an unusually high mortality rate of nearly 13 percent. But what’s even more disturbing is that most of those deaths — possibly even McCready’s — might have been prevented if the program had utilized treatment practices proven to be most effective.

Although Dr. Drew appears to truly believe in what he does, addiction experts say that the treatment philosophy and policies demonstrated in his show and public statements often do not reflect the best evidence-based practices. His rejection of maintenance treatments, use of punitive detox practices and humiliating therapy, and insistence that people cannot truly recover without complete abstinence through 12-step programs reflect the conventional wisdom of the 1980s, not the data of the 21st century. Indeed, "Celebrity Rehab’s" treatment — leaving aside the massive confidentiality violation of being televised — diverges dramatically from the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s (NIDA) Principles of Drug Treatment, a guide that lays out standards for the best addiction care.

Mindy McCready’s protracted, apparent suicide

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:16:00 +0000

When Mindy McCready died Sunday of an apparent suicide at her home in Heber Springs, Ark., it was a tragic end to the life of a country star and mother of two. It was also, sadly, not much of a surprise. But though her death seemed all but preordained, her life was still entwined with a host of other people's. And it raises the uneasy question: When a woman seems as hell-bent on self-destruction as McCready was, what is everyone else in her world supposed to do?

McCready's entire public life seemed shadowed by disaster and exploitation. She claimed to have had an affair with Roger Clemens that began while she was still a teenager. She made several apparent attempts at suicide – an overdose of antidepressants in 2005, an alcohol and Ambien overdose in 2008, a wrist-slashing incident later in the same year. In 2005, her then-boyfriend Billy McKnight was arrested for attempted murder after a beating and choking incident. Less than a year later, she mothered a son by him. There were multiple arrests, including one for kidnapping her son. There was the inevitable leaked sex tape. There was a stint on "Celebrity Rehab." In an interview three years ago, she admitted, "My entire life, things have been attracted to me and vice versa that turn into chaotic nightmares or I create the chaos myself." And in the past few weeks, the chaos only intensified. In January, her music producer boyfriend David Wilson, the father of her 10-month-old son, was found dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. Her children were placed in foster care and she was ordered into rehab. And then on Sunday, her body was discovered on the same porch Wilson had died on just weeks earlier. Nearby was the body of Wilson's dog, dead from a gunshot wound.

Salon.com > Dr. Drew Pinksy

Is Dr. Drew too dangerous for prime time?

Mindy McCready’s protracted, apparent suicide