Celebrity Rehab: Bring the Pain

I have come to the conclusion that Jeff Conaway is not real. Maybe I’m delusional. Maybe the pound and a half of Vicks Vapor Rub that I have lathered on my face and chest (and pondered eating) over the last three and a half days has finally leaked into my brain and caused some of my sensory neurons to liquefy. Hell, that crap has the power to turn the three tons of silly putty mucus that has been bottlenecking my esophagus and skull cavity into the equivalent of the Euphrates River after a two hour monsoon. Do we really think Vicks Vapor Rub can differentiate between snot and brain matter?

As I look at the label it lists the “Active” ingredients as: Camphor-4.6%, Eucalyptus Oil-1.2%, Menthol-2.6%. There are no inactive ingredients listed. That’s right! I’ve been marinating myself in some crap whose manufacturers only have enough courage to list 8.4% of the ingredients! What if the other 91.6% is some flesh/mucus/brain eating strain of Ebola cells? What if I’m about to die? What if? All right. If I die from a Vicks Vapor Rub overdose consider the following my will. I leave my socks and my underpants to Flipit.

Aim higher, dude.

However, if I am in fact not delusional maybe the following is valid. I have determined that Jeff Conaway is actually a character (not a real person). No one who used to be a functioning, vibrant actor with a bright future can become this annoying and decrepit before age eighty. Clearly this is a made up person who was “written in” to this reality show. This fake persona was/is actually inspired by the crazy lady who throws cats on The Simpsons. Maybe it was the other way around. Maybe the Jeff Conaway character inspired the Simpsons writers to create crazy cat lady.

The point is episode 7 started off with Jeff Conaway skulking down the hall banging his cane into the wall and yelling. “Where’s Dr. Drew….where’s my medicine…I need to get out of this place…you don’t attend to my needs….son of a bitch…I need to talk to my surgeon…”. Dr. Drew then had a meeting with Jeff to talk him down and get him to stay in rehab. Please see the six prior episodes of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew (season 2) and/or the entire first season of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew and/or theangriestwhitestmale’s recaps of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew for an explanation of this meeting. Since Dr. Drew and Conway have had this exact same conversation about ten times since this show has been on the air about how Jeff can’t leave, can’t have drugs, can’t get more surgery etc., (no joke! It’s the same damned thing over and over) we don’t think it’s productive to repeat it once again in this recap. On the other hand, half of a page on the contents of Vicks Vapor Rub benefits both the readers of TVGASM and the world at large.

After Crazy Cat Lady got done with her fit, Shelly the Resident Tech held an impromptu group session out on the deck. Notable Quotes: Nikki McKibben “I have offers to do shows but I don’t know if I could stay sober.” My thought-Who the hell goes to see a concert for somebody who came in third on American Idol seven years ago? Steven Adler- “A lot of people want to see me fail.” My thought- A lot of people have never heard of you, don’t know who you are, and probably care more about getting all this damned snot off their fingers and keyboard than whether or not you “fail” rehab for the fortieth time. Amber Smith-”I have a paralyzing fear of being sober, but on drugs I can do anything”. My thought- Anything? I just packed my car up. I have a trapeze, two bottles of Valium and a gallon of Vicks Vapor Rub. I will be at the Pasadena Recovery Center in three days. I will see you then. Stay unwell Amber. Stay unwell.

After the mini-group Dr. Drew proposed that Adler, Stewart, Tawny and Amber go down to skid row and help at a homeless shelter. The thought being that addicts tend to constantly take and drain from those around them and if they can help and uplift people it can break them out of their addiction cycle. Asking Adler and Stewart to do this was a good call. Both of them proved that they don’t get the concept of helping/lending a hand/being a team player when they ditched making dinner at the beach last episode.

Adler declined to go. His reason was that he feared that if he went to skid row he would be tempted to score drugs. I’ve had a similar problem my entire life. I have often feared that if I ever listened to an entire song by the crap metal band Skid Row that I might be forced to strangulate myself with a bicycle spoke. In order to avoid this situation I have always turned the station within seconds of hearing one of their songs. I, like Adler, don’t want to go down that road. Honestly, I can’t tell whether he is being prudent or if he just doesn’t want to help the homeless. Is he really going to break away from the res tech to go score drugs with cameras watching? I’m not an addict so I don’t know.

Maybe he’s afraid he’ll blend too well.

On the way to the shelter Amber Smith started freaking out. She was clearly worried about seeing people in the same peril she was in at one point during her addiction. When she saw people on the street who were clearly suffering from mental illness and/or the affects of drug addiction she began to have shortness of breath and her hands started shaking. When she got in the shelter she said. “I can feel the collective suffering of everyone.” This sort of reminded me of the refrain of the great Dinosaur Jr. song Bring the Pain. “I feel the pain of everyone/and then I feel nothing.”

Dr. Drew had a private meeting with Nikki McKibben about getting past the grief of her mother’s death. Drew brought up the fact that she has not sung/written/performed anything in the year since she died. Dr. Drew theorized that McKibben was afraid to perform because she felt like she would be cutting her grieving process short. Since both her and her mom enjoyed making music she feels like participating in that joyous activity would be, in essence, saying “..I am doing fun, happy things and I have forgotten about you…”. Dr. Drew explained that she could use music to express and even manage her sadness and in the end become more enmeshed in the grieving process, which will in turn, help with her addiction.

I agree. All this will help. My only worry is that if someone who came in fifth in American Idol twelve years ago starts writing and performing songs, people could in fact end up listening to them. This, in turn, could cause people to hang themselves with bicycle spokes, take up hard drugs or even ingest Vicks Vapor Rub. So to save this one addict, we could end up causing the ruination of several million people. Great job Dr. Drew. Thanks for nothing.

Have you heard Chicken Little rap yet? There was no financial meltdown before this happened. I’m just saying.

Back at the homeless shelter Amber Smith had to bow out of serving after only a couple minutes of slinging hash. Stewart and Kitaen tried to encourage her but to no avail. In addition to being homeless, penniless and crazy, these poor saps down at the mission got screwed out of their one chance at seeing two super-models. Maybe they’ll visit again in season three. Hopefully Cindy Crawford is inhaling paint fumes somewhere.

The producers of this show are trying to fill time. They have been for a while. They literally don’t have enough good stuff to fill an hour so they constantly show junk that is really, in essence, the same exact thing that has been seen in a prior episode or “scene”. Take for example, the meeting I mentioned earlier between Dr. Drew and Jeff. I/we/you have seen that exact situation many times before with very little change in tone, situation or in word. Both Drew and Jeff actually said some of the exact same stuff they uttered in meetings prior. Verbatim; believe me, I checked.

Stay with me. I don’t like Charles Dickens. For this I have been told several times (by more than one person) that I am an uncultured dolt. This may be true. However, I do have a well formulated reason for why I don’t like his works. When Dickens wrote, he did, in fact, get paid by the word (no joke). For this reason, Dickens’ works are unnecessarily long, repetitive and overly descriptive. If you read A Christmas Carol you will find a three to four page description of every street/room/house that Ebenezer Scrooge walks in or out of. Sometimes you get a flowery break down of the same exact setting, MORE THAN ONCE! Stuff about the color of the grass and the texture of the wallpaper. Bad, bad, boring bad stuff. Don’t get me wrong. I like a lot of the screen and stage adaptations of his work. The George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol is awesome.

Not that it even comes close to this version.

Why does any of this matter? Well, I honestly don’t think it is worth my time, (or yours) for me to pull a Dickens and red scribe a scene that (in essence) has already happened. From here forward I will mention these scenes in order to keep everyone informed but I will not go into depth, because, as I said, we have figuratively (and in some respects literally) seen this stuff before. This will cause my recaps to be shorter than others on this site. However, I think it is better to give everyone the fresh juice rather than rotten old fruit. Personally, I actually think it is funnier (and better) for me to give a brief quick and dirty on these “repeated” events. If I were to say “Drew and Jeff had the Jeff wants to go home meeting” again and left it at that isn’t your (the listeners) own imaginary version of the crap that takes place during those meetings way funnier than anything I could say.? Now, if Drew and Jeff have an “Jeff wants to go home meeting” where one of them drops their pants, believe me I will give you more than a quick and dirty account.

I always thought Dickens should have said. “Ebenezer then walked down a street that looked exactly like a street in a Charles Dickens novel.

And that, my friends, is how I just earned my sack of money to pay for this year’s Christmas presents. Thanks for your time.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Nikki Mc Kibben met with the res tech on the porch about getting back into singing/writing etc. This meeting was exactly like the one I chronicled with McKibben and Drew earlier this episode.

Next came Jeff lying alone on his bed moaning, “..I don’t understand why this is happening to me, it hurts my back, it hurts my brain I don’t want to deal with this pain..” What happened to his dream from two episodes where God magically cured him? I guess god’s power only lasts an episode and a half.

I offer this proposition to Conaway and any of the other people who like to attribute certain things to god when it is convenient and/or when anything out of the ordinary or “miracleish” happens. If god does in fact perform miracles how about this one? If Conaway, or any of the other dopes on this planet who claim to talk to god can call god and get me the correct picks (against the spread) of all of tomorrow and Monday’s NFL games (a 6000-1 shot) I will become a DEVOUT follower of Jesus in the Christian denomination of your choice (even if it’s a real crazy one like Pentecostal or Jehovah’s Witness). I’m dead serious. No takers? I thought so.

During Jeff’s bedroom session Drew pulled Sasha Kusina (the resident nurse) aside to discuss Conaway’s pain. Kusina believes that he is in “just a little pain”. Drew seemed to think his discomfort level was higher but that his impression of his own pain level may be permanently blurred due to his chronic opiate abuse. Basically his body tells him he is in more pain in order to get what it really wants..more opiates. Kusina wondered aloud whether there are any rehab’s for “old actors”. I’m guessing that’s a little too narrow of a market. What’s next? The Rockford Center for glue sniffing old ditch diggers? The Grand Rapids Center for sex addicted professional miniature golfers? The Pasadena Center for chocoholic TVGASM writers?

Who the hell’s Nikki? How did he get a new girlfriend while he was in rehab? God the vaporub is getting to me.

Drew mentioned to Sasha that Conaway’s fear that he may never be able to act again might be one of his major problems. He also said that he thought Jeff may have a talent for teaching. I don’t see this. He seems way to self-absorbed to give enough of a rat’s ass about anyone to teach them anything. Then again, I’m not a professional. I’m just a struggling aspiring sex addict from Grand Rapids trying to make ends meet by hustling people in miniature golf and writing about TV on the internet. What do I know?

After his conversation with Sasha, Drew was called by Seth “Shifty” Binzer’s (from season 1) sponsor and notified that he had been on a week long crack binge and that he was in a hotel room and that the sponsor and others were concerned for his safety. Drew immediately went to the hotel. He knocked on Seth’s door and was told that he couldn’t come in because he was “taking a shower”. Where the hell was this hotel, Bangkok? Most hotel rooms I have been in have a door that separates the bathroom (and hence the shower) from the other rooms. Can any of the crack-heads reading this let me know if “taking a shower” is street slang for “taking crack”?

He actually spent that time getting ready. He looks very dapper. In a fucked up kinda way.

Drew managed to bargain with him to let him in after ten minutes. When Drew came in, Seth explained that “…dude I didn’t want to let you in I thought I was being like raided”. Drew responded, “..I know you’re a bit paranoid..”. Seth then said “…I’m not paranoid bro, it’s just that (pointing to everyone in the room) all these people are out to get me..”.

I will lampoon the last quote by Binzer by recounting a conversation between my friend Brendan and my other friend Kevin on the night Brendan first got stoned. Brendan: Dude, I’m not stoned, I just can’t stop smiling. Kevin: Translation, you’re stoned!

After the paranoia discussion Drew said, “..dude you’re so skinny..”. I’ve heard of instances where people move somewhere and after a couple of years acquire some of the local accent. But come on Drew, you’re a doctor. Dude, DUDE! Really? Have you been around drug addicts for so long you’ve started to talk like one.? I don’t want my doctor talking like that. “Whoa bro, I was totally looking at like the MRI of like your colon and stuff and dude that tumor in your butt totally went down after radiation. You totally must be crushing that high fiber diet we said you should get crackin on. That shit’s tight dog!”

Rehab? All you need’s a little cake, hon!

Drew convinced Shifty to go into rehab. When he got there he decided he needed a “minute to chill” somewhere outside of the facility. Two sentences later this “minute” became two hours to “chill and get some coffee”. Could any of the crack addicts out there let me know if “chill and get coffee” is crack slang for “go on a seven hour crack smoking binge..”? Thanks. Binzer then explained that he had to leave and come back because he can “..only roll into rehab a certain way..”. The only way he can roll in is, apparently, on crack.

Next came the Drew/Jeff private I hate it here I want to leave don’t leave I want to die you don’t really want to do that Jeff I want surgery you can’t have surgery conversation. This time Drew tried to dig a little deeper and asked Conaway what he wanted to do for work after rehab. Jeff replied that he wanted to act. Drew suggested that may not be possible due to his disability and suggested teaching. This was met with more crying followed by IwanttodieIwantsurgeryIwanttoleave stuff. This was followed by drying tears and a grudging, figurative, “..I’ll think about it.”.

Maybe you could be next year’s “mystery”.

Bob Forrest then sat down with Nikki to write some songs. In addition to being a counselor, Forrest is also an accomplished musician. Mc Kibben mentioned that she had only written one song, called Naked Inside. I have never heard this song. However, I know that it sucks. The title alone reminds me of the crappy poetry written by kids whose parents have just gotten divorced. Have you ever read any of that stuff? Bad! It has titles like Death of Myself or Pain in My Soul or Mommy and Daddy got Gang Raped and Murdered by a Gang of Somali Pirates off the Coast of Cameroon. Plus, aren’t you supposed to be “naked” inside? I’m no doctor, I’m just an old glue sniffing ditch digger but I think it would be a problem if one would have, let’s say, a jean jacket with a Pantera patch underneath your skin, in close proximity to vital organs. That being said, if you did have a jean jacket underneath your skin you wouldn’t be living the horror of being “naked inside” that was so deftly chronicled in Nikki McKibben’s worldwide number one hit Naked Inside. P.S. as far as I can tell no writing was done during Bob and Nikki’s “writing session. Whew!

At least neither Bob or Nikki smoked crack. For that we got Seth Binzer. Seth and his sponsor went to a convenience store and got something called a “glass rose” which (as far as I can tell) is a small (fake or real) miniature rose in a glass cylinder. The ultimate use for Seth and others is as a crack pipe. Seth put crack in his pipe and smoked it. While there are many things funny about smoking crack; I don’t feel I am qualified as some of the experts who have spoken about this subject in the past. Please refer to the works of Dennis Leary, Chris Rock and the work and life of Richard Pryor for your crack smoking humor needs.

After a commercial break Seth smoked some crack in the woods. Please refer to the works of Jeff Foxworthy for all of your smoking crack in the woods humor needs.

You know you’re a redneck when you pee out the shape of a Jack Russell Terrier in the desert while you’re smokin’ crack out of a rose pipe.

What do we need after crack in the woods? Group therapy. This group session was the Sean Stewart show. He talked about how his first girlfriend cheated on him and broke up with him. He talked about a period of time where he couldn’t get an erection. He talked about how he feels like less of a man. He talked about being scared of women due to his sexual problems. To rectify this last situation Drew told him to ask the three women in the group questions. In front of the group! To me, this would be the worst thing you could do. Who wants to talk to the hot chicks about their dick problems? Again, what do I know? Amber Smith said she would be very insecure about herself if a guy had dick problems with her.

Not helping.

Stewart then mentioned that when he was eleven someone told him he was “a waste of egg and sperm”. When pressed as to who said this his answer was bleeped out. Because his dad is famous I’m going to guess his dad (Rod Stewart) but who knows.

Amber Smith then offered up that after she got pregnant and had an abortion she became very promiscuous. If you need any abortion humor please refer to the work of…oh wait, there is no such thing as abortion humor because abortion isn’t funny.

Smith then said that during this time (and for the majority of her life) she felt like she wasn’t pretty. She was then reassured by many of the male members of the group that she was, in fact pretty. Rodney kept on repeating “you really do have a supple ass”. I agreed with him at first but he said it like fifty times and it kind of became annoying.

Enough, Rodney!

After group Nikki showed Bob Forrest lyrics for a song she wrote called Beautiful Disaster. The problem is a million people (including the person who beat her in American Idol, Kelly Clarkson) have already written songs called Beautiful Disaster. What’s next? Is she going to “write” a song called Mary Had a Little Lamb?

In reaction to Nikki, Jeff pulled out a guitar and played a song he had written long ago called Things Go Wrong. It was sort of cheesy, but not bad for an opiate addled half actor/teacher.

This song faded into more Seth Binzer buying/smoking crack nonsense. For some reason during this binge he bought two hamsters which he named Keith Richards and Rick James. I viewed this whole episode as him trying to get attention and since it is something we have seen before he gets my ant-Dickens treatment.

In another moment straight out of Dickens; Smith, Kitaen and Conaway sat on the porch and talked about drug addiction. Conaway proclaimed “God bless us all, everyone, I want some motherfucking surgery..”. No he didn’t. However, he did say that “..she (Amber) should come to my acting class..”. The Japanese have a saying. They say “a man is whatever room he is in..”. In other words, you are what you are. If you are a chocoholic TVGASM writer you’re a chocoholic TVGASM writer. If you are a disabled guy in rehab you are a disabled guy in rehab….and so on. If you are a disabled guy in rehab you are NOT a teacher. You are especially not a teacher when mere hours ago you were telling Dr. Drew you never want to be a teacher.

Dr. Drew called another group session that was interrupted before it ever got started by Shifty climbing on the roof and making a ton of noise while smoking crack. This was a brief moment and another blatant attention grab so it gets the anti-Dickens treatment.

No Busey or Rodney this week. Why? Who knows.

I think I’ll call this one “Jesus Take the Wheel”.