Celebrity Rehab: Acronym Fever. Catch It!

Episode two leads off with process group. I was surprised that only one member was going through serious withdrawal (Nikki McKibben). Apparently the detox process really varies from person to person and substance to substance when it comes to both onset and duration.

Some people start getting sick right away, while others have a lag time. Watching the ones who haven’t gone through it yet is like watching Johnny Knoxville right before he gets tazed. He knows it’s coming. He doesn’t know when. You feel bad for him, but a sick demented part of you can’t wait to see his pain.

Drew also mentioned that what keeps a lot of addicts hooked is fear of detox. I call this “Knoxville Wince Syndrome”. It’s a fear that plays on itself because a lot of people addicted to opiates, stimulants and amphetamines have increased paranoia and fear of pain. If you ever want to experience this sensation, take some meth and then watch Johnny Knoxville get tazed.

Special Note: I was kidding. Don’t do meth. You will end up assaulting your spouse with your shoe or coming in third in some British singing contest. Even worse, you may end up talking to Gary Busey. Yeah, it’s that bad. Special Note #2: I was kidding. Don’t ever watch the show Jackass. That show is only meant to be watched by freaks who assault their spouses and come in third on Star Search.

Anyway, McKibben was really struggling. She basically slept through the entire session. That being said, it took a lot for her to even attend, so she gets kudos from me.

Steven Adler admitted to everyone that the longest amount of time he had been sober since age eleven was two and a half days. He is currently on day eleven of his new sobriety. Good for him.

I wish there was some sort of international “days sober” repository. Steven Adler could go to this “sobriety bank” (I vision it being in some place really “sober”, like Salt Lake City or the Vatican, or some place really “wasted” like New Orleans or Amsterdam.) and trade in a ton of his “wasted” days for some sober ones.

President of Days Sober Repository

Maybe if he traded in enough wasted days he could wipe out some of the bad stuff in his life (like his stroke and getting kicked out of Guns and Roses). On the other side of the spectrum, some other people who are a little bit uptight (Bill O’Reilly and that guy with the beard on those OxyClean commercials who is always yelling at me, come to mind.) could use some of Adler’s wasted days and chill out a little. What can I say; I’m a dreamer.

Dr. Drew also explained that the pathology of recovery is similar to mourning the death of a loved one. People actually go through the pain of grieving when “losing” their addiction. People deal with the grieving process in different ways. Apparently Gary Busey works through the process by annoying the shit out of everyone he sees. I hope all of his loved ones live forever. If this is how he deals with the loss of his cocaine addiction can you imagine how he will be if he loses a pet hamster?

KIBBLES!! Come baaaaack!

Group session ended and everyone moved out to the porch. Adler recounted a time when he tried to kill himself by taking 100 Valiums (that’s ONE HUNDRED VALLIUMS), a bottle of Jagermeister and three quarters of a gram of heroin. You think living through that was hard? This guy also talked to Gary Busey, alone, for like a half an hour. Dude is hard-core.

Massive Head Wound Gary Acronym Sidebar: Gary pulled Tawny aside to let her know that “fun” stands for, Finally Understanding Nothing. I see what he means. Gary Busey used to be a functioning human being. He used to Understand how to deal with people. Now he Finally doesn’t Understand Anything. He doesn’t Understand how to talk to women in a way that you don’t remind them of their junior high janitor who got caught putting a camera in the girls’ washroom.

After her acronym lesson, Tawny said to no one in particular. “Gary needs to be at another facility”. Why this obvious and correct diagnosis is only being put forth by the “chick from the Whitesnake videos” and not the highly paid medical professionals is beyond me.

Highly paid medical professional.

Tawny Kitaen mea culpa: It was brought to my attention that in my last recap I said she used to be married to “former Angels pitcher Steve Finley”. I meant Chuck Finley. Steve Finley is the very well traveled outfielder who played for the Angels and Diamondbacks (among others). I actually knew it was Chuck Finley I just typed Steve instead for some reason.

Moving on. Dr. Drew decided to bring in a psychiatrist named Dr. Charles Sofie to evaluate Busey. When recounting his medical history, Massive Head Wound Gary mentioned that he had brain surgery. Here is the transcript of that conversation.

Massive Head Wound: I had brain surgery.

Dr. Sofie: For what?

Massive Head Wound: My brain.

Please note; that last line was delivered by Gary Busey without any hint of sarcasm.

Busey also informed the doctor that ANGER stands for Another Negative Grievance Explaining Rage. He also said that he has “angelic interactions” that he has to pass on to others. What else? Let’s see; TRUTH apparently stands for Taking Real Understanding To Heart.

Maybe Gary can figure out an acronym for DEPAKOTE because that was the psychiatric drug Dr. Sofie and Dr. Drew decided to put him on to keep him from annoying the hell out of everyone in treatment; not to mention the viewing public. There is a possible light at the tunnel for all of us!

Diagnosis: Batshit Crazy. That’ll be five hundred dollars.

Jeff Conaway whining episode #1: This is the first of what will no doubt be a series of infantile tantrums thrown by Jeff Conaway. This one involved him knocking on the divider door between his rehab and Vicki’s rehab in order to talk to her. This immediately degraded into a confrontation with the new res-tech Luisha, who informed him that it was against the rules. This of course lead to a crying fit.

Wasn’t he the calm, cool collected one on Taxi. Ah! He was merely acting! Ingenious! Why Thank You!

Jeff Conaway whining episode #2: This one involved him crying about how awful the facility was, how much pain he was in, and how much he wanted to leave. He verbally abused Luisha and then informed her he wanted to leave.

Quotables from Jeff during episode #2 included, but were not limited to, “…I feel like I’m dying, call 911!”, and, “…they’re not giving me anything for the pain, they’re giving me M&M’s!” This was all met with sympathy and attention from the other addicts (especially Busey).

First American ever to complain about receiving free M&Ms.

The climax of this fit came when he told Luisha to “…go pack my stuff, I’m leaving”. Who does he think he’s talking to; a bell hop, a maid, a roadie? Note to Jeff: The way I see it, if anything, YOU serve HER, not the other way around. Part of your “job” in this place is to help others with their recovery. Part of that help is staying out of the way of, and if possible, assisting the staff when needed. You want to leave? Stuff YOUR OWN dirty boxers in a garbage bag!

I’m not a parent. However, I have fantasized about murdering screaming kids on airplanes so I think I am qualified as any child psychologist to make the following statement. I have noticed that kids (such as Jeff Conaway) throw tantrums for no other reason than to get attention. I think that was the case here.

Unless you put a credit card in that hand, she ain’t comin’ to the door.

Eventually his girlfriend talked him down via the house phone and he agreed to stay (at least until the next morning). Once peace was restored Busey proclaimed “….that’s why I can help people because I come from a spiritual land..”. Not many people know this but Spiritualand is the capital of Annoyingreligiousguyville.

Moving on. The detox started hitting Amber Smith hard. She ended up lying in the middle of the hallway and vomiting in a garbage can while her legs twitched. Still hot! I am, and always will be, a complete and total dirt-bag.

Steven Adler woke up in the middle of the night suffering the after-affects from a dream. When he recounted it to Luisha, he said that all he could remember was someone saying, “…you think that’s hurt? You ain’t seen nothing yet.” I hope that this dream represents Adler’s fear of the future (and of sobriety). I hope to God that it isn’t some cosmic FreddyKruegeresque foretelling of actual future events. This dude has been through enough already.

Hello? President of France? Thanks for calling me!

Adler had a one-on-one with Drew to talk through his night terror(s). He recounted how he lost “millions” when he was in a coma after his stroke. Apparently his mom gained power of attorney over his finances and she stole his money. That had to be fun. Guy comes out of consciousness and he gets, “Hi Steve, it’s mom, remember me. Yeah, nice seeing you too. Hey remember those millions you made when you were in Guns and Roses? Yeah, well, funny thing, it’s all gone.”

Think about that progression. You are in a famous rock band. You get kicked out of the band. You attempt to kill yourself, but you have a stroke and you fall into a coma. Then you’re MOM (the same Mom who allowed your stepfather to kick you out of the house when you were eleven) takes all your money while you’re under. Ruff times. According to his dream, it’s going to get WORSE! God I hope not.

Someone send this dude a LOLcat.

Drew tried to steer Steven back to his original problem (getting literally kicked to the curb by his parents). He is so locked up emotionally, that he actually thinks that event was a positive moment. His logic is that because he got tossed out, he found his way to music, then to G&R etc. etc. etc. The problem is that path also lead to addiction, suicide, coma, financial ruin etc. etc. etc. He needs to acknowledge the damage getting rejected by his parents did to his life (and psyche) or he will never get better.

Next was visitation. Vikki came to visit Jeff. Should recovering addicts be allowed to visit other recovering addicts? I would think no, but what do I know? I mean, as I mentioned before, I have fantasized about killing screaming children on airplanes.

Anyway she was having some sort of nervous detoxy reaction to coming off Xanax, so she ran into Jeff’s room screaming and wailing. Jeff was in a pseudo-coma do to his coming off of whatever he is coming off of. This did not help matters. When your girlfriend says “….I need help I feel like I am dying..” the best move is probably not a well-placed yawn. Thank god Jeff is stuck in this rehab clinic. If he lived in a home of his own he would definitely be on the couch.

Hero

Later on in the night Vicki and Jeff had to be told to cut out some inappropriate kissing and touching on the porch. Unfortunately they weren’t stopped before I (and the viewing masses) saw it. I hope the scar left on my brain is not malignant.

More Adler downplaying his situation: He told his girlfriend and her brother, “…you should hear what some of these people have been through, I haven’t been through anything.” Yes you have!

Busey broke into Adler’s talk with his loved ones to inform them that “…it’s time for everyone to go, visitation time is over.” What is he now; some half-assed hall monitor? I think he is cutting those depakotes in half.

Before I finish, I would like to make it clear that I didn’t leave Rodney King and Sean Stewart out. They were barely heard (or seen) from this episode. I hope that they are/were getting the attention they need, and that the Conaway/Busey two-headed monster is only taking up screen time rather than care time.

Gross. Bring back Rodney please.

The last act of this episode was dominated by MHWG. See Gary, that’s my little acronym. It stands for Massive Head Wound Gary, and it’s how I will refer to you from here forward.

Anyway, after visitation MHWG called Amber and Tawny over for a private rap session. Let me tell you, they were thrilled. He proceeded to tell them that his girlfriend (whom we didn’t see during visitation but who is no doubt a certifiable fruit cake) wants to perform hypnosis on them, to help with their problems. Funny how she chose (according to MHWG) the two hottest chicks in the place, (and no one else) to put under.

A syndicated writer named Dave Berry used to do articles filled with lies, jokes and half truths but he would usually have a part in each piece that said “….this part of this article is not a joke, the following is the honest to goodness truth..”. Well, this is that part of this recap.

Everyone remember what I am about to say because I mean it. If Amber Smith and/or Tawny Kitaen go missing (in the near or far future) they were hypnotized by MHWG and his girlfriend, and kidnapped/murdered/eaten etc. Seriously. Call the police, the FBI, Dr. Drew, John Walsh, whomever, call somebody, and tell them to track down MHWG. I am not kidding.

Yes, crazy. The cameras are still on you.

Where was I? Oh yeah, MHWG never got the chance to fully pitch his murder scam because he wanted privacy from the cameras. Gee, I wonder why?

He has no right to tell the cameramen to beat it. He agreed to be filmed every waking clothed moment when this thing started. Apparently this had been going on for a while. They flashed back to some behind the scenes footage (How the hell can there be “behind the scenes footage” in an f-ing reality show? I agree. You can call it “footage of sausage making” if you so desire.) where MHWG was badgering the cameramen/producers/sound dudes about putting on his mike, being filmed etc. etc.

Since MHWG is so outwardly religious (In addition to being from Spiritualland, USA he’s on a bunch of crappy movies on the various religious stations.) and addicted to acronyms why doesn’t he live by WWJD (What Would Jesus Do)? Do you think if Jesus suffered from self inflicted head trauma and got addicted to coke and then ended up on celebrity rehab he would be giving the poor union crew people shit about doing their jobs? I don’t think so. I mean Jesus would totally be a dick to the resident techs and the other addicts, but not the cameramen. Come on!

In closing; it got so bad that MHWG actually started pushing the cameraman away he, Tawny and Amber. What a dick! On top of it all, when Luisha was summoned to sort the whole mess out, he tried to enlist Tawny and Amber as WITNESSES against the cameraman.

Hey Rodney! How ya doin? Wait sorry Head Wound is still having a meltdown. Talk soon!

This is akin to John Wayne Gacy trying to use one of the kids he was raping and killing to get out of a parking ticket. Here is a hypothetical answering machine message from that:

“Hi, Bruce, I don’t know if you remember me, my name is John, John Gacy. Yeah um, yeah, well I don’t know if you remember this but um, last Friday the 29th I lured you into my car with some marijuana. Then I um knocked you out with some chloroform and then took you back to my home and handcuffed you to my radiator and sexually molested you, and then tried to strangle you but you got away. Yeah um, I hope you remember that. Well, here’s the thing. I got this parking ticket in the mail from the Chicago Police for that day, the 29th. Anyway, that’s impossible right? I was with you right? I was attempting to rape and murder you. Will you tell them that if there is a trial? OK, well, Bruce, I’m gonna fight this thing, and I’m gonna put you down as a witness on the little form thing here. Let me know what you think……..”

And so on.

If Tawny or Amber show up on America’s Most Wanted remember, you heard it at TVGASM first!