Celebrity Rehab: All You Need Is Love

We pick up this week right where we left off, with Mindy’s horrific seizure. We also get to see Tom Sizemore in all his junkie splendor and have a tender moment with Rodman whenhe finds out about Mindy. Who knew?

They must have bonded pretty well that first day. Or he just likes blondes with big boobs because I’d be willing to bet that it isn’t her music. But who knows? I have stranger stuff on my iPod, that’s for sure. The Mooney Suzuki, anyone? Nope? Nope? Didn’t think so.Back to that seizure. Mack fetched Will, one of the techs, and you can tell that he’s been through this many times. It’s got to be an almost weekly occurance with the damage most addicts do to themselves.

He puts pillows on either side of her head so that she doesn’t bang into the bedframe with her thrashing. She’s foaming at the mouth a bit, then moves her head back and forth like she’s saying “no” over and over.

A little crowd made up of the other girls have gathered and they look scared out of their wits.

Will tells them that they just have to wait for her to go through it, she’ll come out of it and they’ll get her to the hospital. They all really do look scared and that’s a good thing. I hope that they are having one of those ‘aha’ moments because this could happen to any one of them.

The ambulance arrives and they load Mindy on to a guerney. She is understandably upset and confused. I have never had a seizure so I am not sure how it feels for the person that is going through one but I do kinda know how they work.

The brain developes scar tissue after an injury and this hardened tissue then irritates the nerves and synapses around it, causing them to misfire. There are medications to stabalize these symptoms but I’m not really sure that you can ever fully heal the cause.

Since Mack is turning into information central on the show, she runs off to tell Rodman. He must be a sound sleeper because he didn’t hear a thing.

Dayum. Well, he is used to having hundreds of people in his house while he sleeps, as we shall soon find out.

He throws his tshirt on and rushes out to catch her just as the EMTs are loading her into the back of the ambulance. He holds her hand and tells her that they will pray for her. I wonder what he is going to think when he finds out that she had this seizure because a man hit her.

They head back inside and Mack thanks Will for taking such good care of Mindy. He tells her that Mindy’s seizure was mild and that he has seen waaaay worse. Mack says that she has too but she was too wasted to really pay attention or care, even after people died in front of her. That’s just awful. I can’t begin to fathom the horror that she’s been exposed to.

Or give Kim Jong Il some pointers for his prison ‘work camps.’
They let Mindy out of the hospital with a dislocated shoulder (go figure!) and put her back in bed. She reinjured it when she fell on the floor.

Also, she could have stayed at the hospital but she wanted to come back to the PRC to continue treatment. That’s a very good sign that she might be moving towards admitting that she has a problem.

Here’s another thing that I’m hoping some of you Gasmii can answer for me. When Mindy thanked Mack for helping her, I got the impression that she didn’t remember the seizure. Is it like passing out, or are you aware and feel helpless? I really hope not. That would make it ten times worse.

I also wonder if it is possible to have one and not even know it. She remembered one thing, though, and that’s Rodman being sweet to her. Uh oh. Don’t go there, girl, unless you can fight like Carmen Electra.

At coffee the next morning, Lisa fills Mikey in on the crazy night they just had but Mikey slept through it. Yay, Mikey! Does this mean that you are feeling better? I sure hope so. Nobody needs you going ‘pyew, pyew!’ at the cameraman today. Give the guy a break. He’s only earning union wages.

Dr. Drew checks in on Mindy, who is in some pain and bit her tongue pretty badly during her seizeure. He promises to help her find out why this happened and then hunt down her ex and kill him.

I wish.
Little Heidi is still detoxing pretty badly. Everyone else seems to be physically getting better but her. I hope that she’s eating. She looks so frail and weak to me.

Drew interviews that he fears that she is isolating herself and pays a visit to her parrot picture plastered room. Say that ten times fast.

He says that her obsession with birds isn’t healthy. I thought that he said ‘nerds’ for a second and pictured her chasing after Steven Hawking in his motorized wheelchair and masturbating to Booger or Arnold Poindexter. Ew!

She drags her little butt to group where the topic of the day is isolation. The Bob says that being alone is one of the worst things that an addict can do and at this point, he hasn’t seen them interacting enough with one another. This is supposed to be a group effort.

Heidi isn’t quite sure how she is going to react with other people. She says that she has a nasty tongue because she was trained by nasty women. I bet, and I bet that it wasn’t just their tongues that were nasty. Okay, let’s not go there. I still haven’t eaten dinner and for all I know you are reading this while eating yours.

She explains that she got into the whore business because it seemed interesting and it was taboo. I’m a little confused by her description of prostitution. She defines it as the “influence of money in your life,” which I take to mean that everyone has a price and that people prostitute themselves in other occupations all the time. It also could mean that if money didn’t matter to you, you’d never be a prostitute. Not sure.

She goes on to say that money makes life a lot easier but sometimes it makes it harder. Right, Dennis? Here we go again.

Get your shovel out, Gasmii, it’s time for more Rodman bullshit. He’s still running his mouth about how zen he is. You see, lowly earthlings, money never made Sir Rodman The Lyin’ Hearted happy and he doesn’t just hand it out to ass kissers and sycophants, no matter what Bob may believe. He just lets them party in his house for free every night!

Argggggh! This guy is BLIND. He goes on to say that there are 2- 300 people in his house on a daily basis, five nights a week! Is he exaggerating? How is this even possible?

I’m low on Merlot. Too bad he isn’t retired somewhere in Cleveland. In all seriousness, I don’t know how he does it because he manages to go upstairs to bed while all these people are in his home partying. Mack says that it’s weird, but excuse me.

Bob says that Dennis is lonely and thinks that having all those people around will somehow assuage his loneliness. How about his wife and kids? Why aren’t they enough? I’m going to guess that he’s addicted to the adulation but this is another case of hitting only the tip of the iceberg.

We wrap up the meeting with Drew telling the patients that he has been present with many people right before they are about to die and they all say the same thing. When searching for the meaning of life, it all comes down to love and your relationships with the people you are close to in your life.

Poor Heidi. She says that she is not at the stage yet where she can point to a person in her life that will give it meaning. That SUCKS. I’m surprised that she hasn’t killed herself yet but then again, taking drugs ARE a form of killing yourself sometimes.

The poor thing says that she would hate herself if she stopped taking care of the birds but she’s also angry that her dead madam friend saddled her with their care. She then starts to cry and looks like a sad little girl for a moment.

When she says that if she let herself hold on to the anger, she’d be miserable every day, let’s say it all together now:

Sorry. I just watched ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane’ again. It’s the little things like Davis/Crawford melodramas that make me happy, not to mention give me one liners for my recaps.

I really do hope that Dr. Drew can help her. She has such a long road ahead of her. She has to learn how to co-exist with other human beings all over again. They sit down for a one-on-one session to talk about it.

She doesn’t HATE people, she’s just been disappointed by them, lied to and betrayed. Not surprising, considering her former profession. What IS surprising is that she doesn’t hate men, but I can see how she would be a guy’s girl. It’s that no bullshit air that she has about her, and she’s very tomboy-ish.

My heart aches for her when she says that she has no friends. I cannot fathom going 60 whole days without speaking to another human being. Unimaginable, but then again I’ve been known to talk so much that I didn’t even notice that I was bleeding. Yep, that’s another one of those stories for another day.

She says that she’s not afraid that people won’t like her, and that she wants to get to know people again, she’s just gotten carried away with the drugs. You know who she is starting to remind me of? Keith Richards. She has a cool about her, a charm that makes it possible to sometimes forget how scary ugly she is.

In the end, she has made a choice to change her life, and that’s good. She still defines doing drugs as a ‘choice’ that she made though, and that’s bad. I really hope that she stays. It would be great to see her get better and take on the world again, just not prostitution. I feel like there is so much more that she could do.

One more thing before we move on to Mindy’s MRI. Heidi explains to Mack what started the downward spiral with Tom Sizemore. After two months of relationship bliss, they got into an argument and he threatened to call her probation officer. It was the drugs, and they ruined everything. After that she couldn’t love him anymore.

Such is the aftermath of love gone wrong, and we come back to Mindy. She’s meeting up with a Dr. Amen to get her brain scan. I think that the doctor likes busty blondes like Dennis does because he stares a little and gulps a couple of times.

They do the scan and Dr. Amen speaks to Drew first. He asks him if Mindy has much of a history with substance abuse because parts of her noggin are toxic and damaged. If she doesn’t stop whatever it is that she’s doing, she’s going to lose more brain function. Uh, yeah. I think that we are all well aware of that. It’s a no-brainer, tee hee.

Mr McSlore just read that and smacked me on the side of my thigh. And I liked it.
Ahem, moving on from my tmi-

She comes in and he explains that while most of her brain is healthy (blood flow and activity patterns), her temporal lobes got damaged somehow. Ding, ding, ding! A lightbulb goes off in Mindy’s head because that is where her abusive ex used to whack her skull into the headboard.

Dr. Amen also points out that her co-ordination center is low and asks her if it could be alcohol related. She looks at dr. Drew. He gives her one of those raised eyebrow tight smiled ‘ya think?’ looks.

The brain wizard shows her what her brain looks like now and what it will look like if she doesn’t ease up on the hooch-

Maybe she should lay off the McDonalds’ milkshakes too.

Friends and family are visiting today. Shit. I just sounded like a Verizon commercial.

Mack has her ex-boyfriend coming in, Mikey has a weird looking guy named Albie who arrives with a rock chick, Lisa’s much older looking boyfriend Adam is there and poor Heidi has no one. I guess that hookers don’t do too well in the life long friend department.

They all sit down to a big barbecue, including corn on the cob.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he stuck his finger down his throat just to mess with Shelly again, especially after what she says to him when he gives her one of his special picks.

See, Mikey’s friend Albie brought a baggy full of guitar picks with Mikey’s name and AIC printed on them. He’s like a little kid, passing them out to everybody and even informing Shelly that the company Spector will be introducing a bass guitar with his name on it.

First of all, when she finds out that AIC stands for the name of his old band she says, “ouch…,” like oh no, how bad for you to be reminded of your big failure. It doesn’t, actually. He seems really, really proud.

Then, after Mikey tells her about the new guitar, she tells him that she hopes that he doesn’t shoot all the profits into his arm. What the fuck? Wow. She is really pissed at him for all the name calling. I was definitely taken aback by her attitude.

It’s obvious that there is a little bit of the bitch hiding in there, not to mention the fact that saying something like that wasn’t very professional. Can you imagine Dr. Drew saying that? Not hardly. I can see Bob saying it but in more of a “aren’t you glad that you went to rehab instead of shooting all that money into your veins?” way.

I’m all for tough love, and who knows? I wasn’t there, I don’t know how much of a prick he was to her, maybe it was ten times worse than what we saw. All I know is that she is supposed to be helping, not pricking him with little digs, especially in light of the fact that he almost lost it last week. Maybe she wants him to go to Huntington and make her life easier.

Too bad, it’s her job. Plus, after the way she acts like a schoolgirl around the next new patient, you can definitely tell that she plays favorites.

Whatever, none of that matters and all the bad feelings disappear when we come to one of the most awesome grannies to ever set a bejewelled Naturalizer ballet flat into the PRC. Her name is Patty and she looks EXACTLY how I want to look when I am her age. She is gorgeous, right down to he purple nail laquer.

She was probably a looker back when guys would come courtin’ in their brand new jalopy whilst dear old daddy watched with concerned consternation from his leather wing backed chair. I can just see her swaying back in forth to Glenn Miller in the moonlight, hugging her lambswool twinset tightly against the evening chill and sipping lemonade spiked with gin that young Donald stole from his job busing tables at the country club. I LOVE HER.

She has some kind words for Lisa and then turns her attention to Heidi. Our granny likes to keep up on the latest celebrity doings, it seems, since she tells Miss Fleiss that she’s very familiar with her “repetoire,” wink, wink. Don’t you love that? Using that word to describe trafficking in flesh makes it sound almost classy. I bet that if Mikey took a dump or blew chunks right in front of her all she would say was,

All of my grandparents are dead and I totally want to adopt her. I love hanging out with ladies of a ‘certain age.’ Every once in a while you run across one who blows your mind with their charm and story telling abilities, and if they fabricate half of it, who cares? Once you reach that age you can’t remember what year it is, let alone whether it was Jimmy or Teddy that felt you up under the bleachers at the Strawberry festival in ’49.

Before she leaves, taking her sparkiling geriatric gentlewomanliness with her, she tells Heidi not to let anything bring her down. I’m reminded by her sweet gesture never to underestimate the power of a kind word. And since Heidi had no one there to visit her, it was especially kind of Patty to make the effort.

They should look into acquiring a floor granny. One whose ample bosom is perfect for laying your weary head after a long day of kicking booze and contemplating the mystery of Shelly’s AWOL ass. I hereby nominate Patty, unless Betty White is available. Then all bets are off.

The visitors head on out and we next see Dr. Drew pacing and talking on his cell phone. It looks as though the big kahuna is about to arrive, FINALLY. Sizemore’s rep is on the line informing us that Tommy got arrested again and has agreed to come in to the PRC.

The plan is to get his ass in there for an evaluation, put him on enough withdrawal medication to put a rhino into a coma and get him enrolled before he can escape again. A hefty task for any mortal since Tom Sizemore is basically the Michael Jordan of junkies.

He arrives with his agent and manager in tow, the superstar of in-patients. On instinct he flips off the camera. It’s borderline hilarious that he thinks that the paps are going to show up to his first day of rehab. Please, when was the last time a paparazzi photo of him was worth more than the paper it was printed on, during the press tour for Saving Private Ryan?

You know what’s funny about him? I looked him up on IMDB and he hasn’t stopped working. He does some B movie in 3D, a CSI or two and then hits the meth pipe for a few weeks. I’ve heard of functioning alcoholics before but a functioning meth-head? Somebody at the Mayo clinic needs to study this guy, he’s a freak of nature.

Dr. Drew remarked that he wanted everyone there for the Holy Grail’s arrival and when Tom walks in it’s like a premiere or something, with all eyes on him and Shelly acting like a star-struck teenager in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

He’s wearing typical Hollywood douchewear too! The only guys that aren’t are Drew in his shirt and tie, The Bob in his slouchy old man sport coat and hat, and Mikey in his leather and sheepskin ode to the crisp Pasadena weather. This is a job for Queer Eye. someone get Carson kressley on the line!

Anyway, Tom has only agreed to an evaluation so Drew is nervous. He’s busy charming everybody too, joking with Bob that he’s terrible at directions and that’s why he’s late. He has Bob in stitches the whole time and he won’t stop talking about the press. He claims that he was arrested on a ‘benign warrant,’ meaning, I suppose, that it had already been taken care of, like that makes it all right or something.

Dr. Drew takes his blood right in the reception area, and he’s not wearing gloves. I found that to be strange but I think it’s because Tom is schmoozing so much and Drew wants to get on with the admission process before he slips out of their grasp again.

Tom looks away while Drew is drawing the blood as if he hates needles. Wasn’t he on heroin for years? Maybe he just sniffed the dope, or maybe the pinch of the syringe is giving him opiate flash-backs.

He also has a strange conspiratorial tone in his voice, and he’s a low talker that encourages his listener to lean in closer to catch his every word. He also has that gift of making you feel like you are the only person in the world when he talks to you. Very seductive. It will be interesting to see if he still has his touch with Heidi.

He’s pretty freaked out that she’s there, so I assume that they have had little to no contact since he went to jail for hitting her. He says that he forgives her but that his drug use didn’t start to get really bad until he began to date her.

This may be somewhat true but he is not making complete sense here. After all, he admits that he was using heroin before he even met her! Wow. He must have a pretty fucked up idea of what really bad drug use is.

I don’t think that I have ever seen anyone sweat as much as he does either. He must be coming down from one of those “periodic binges” he was talking to Dr. Drew about. He paces and then fidgets in his chair. I don’t know any meth addicts but I assume that he’s still high?

Also, I have seen an MTV special about kids that were addicted to the stuff but I don’t remember them dripping with more sweat than Rodman after a play-off game. He has to be on something else too, but in the blood test he only shows benzo, meth, pot and something else that I couldn’t understand. It sounded like “alkids” and Google doesn’t have any answers with that one. Can you help me out, Gasmii?

He tours the facility, meets Loesha the sad faced drug dispenser and says hello to Rodman on the treadmill. Did you guys notice? When Tom asked if he was there because of booze, he said yes! Not fame, not “the court.” Booze!

He spreads his charm all over the wing, telling Rodman that he looks good, giving Mack one of his trademark sheepish grins and then he meets his biggest fan, Mikey.

I thought that Mike was going to cry, he was so enamored of the guy, and when he finds out that Tom knew Layne Staley, the love at first sight is complete. It’s painful to watch how needy he is with him, staring at him and invading his personal space like an obsessed fan. There’s a bit of hero worship going on as they walk down the hall arm in arm.

What do you guys think? Is all this fawning because he is a genuine celebrity with actual talent, not another Joe Schmoe from a fleeting reality show? The guy is a charmer, no doubt about it but it almost seems like his presence there somehow validates the others. Like, if he’s so fucked up maybe I’m not such a loser after all. Tell me what you think in the comments because it’s bugging me.

Mikey tells his new hero that he’s kicking coke and heroin but none of that matters now that Tom’s there. What does he think is going to happen? Does he think that he and Tom are going to start a new band together in Rehab or is he all Mr. Happy because Albie slipped him a little something in that baggie with the picks in it. I don’t know for sure but he is acting all lovey dovey all of a sudden.

Meanwhile, Mack and her big mouth waltz into Heidi’s room to tell her that Sizemore is in the building. She’s all, “Nooooo. Where?” and then Mack asks her how she FEELS about this turn of events.

Somebody arrange a psychobabble lobotomy for her, I’m begging you.

Heidi runs down the hall and instead of freaking out on Tom and calling him names, she calls him doggie and wraps herself up in his arms. It’s crazy romantic in a sad junkie kind of way, poignancy mixed with sweat and regret. There is still so much love there but you know that it can never be. Meth and heroin make for some pretty strange bedfellows and this is one romance that isn’t going to have a second act.
Plus, there’s that whole ‘you sent me to prison’ thing.

Heidi asks him what he’s in for and he tells her that he’s got an arresting problem and that he got it from her. There he goes again with the wit and charm. He’s got to be Irish, right?

He looks visibly upset when she leaves, like he would love to just sit down and have a good cry. Dr. Drew is relieved that she was so inviting with him and didn’t show any anger. What was she going to do with all 90 pounds of her bad self, box his ears? Bruise him with one of her pointy little elbows? Girl has zero strength at the moment.

Tom sits back down with the staff and he says that the trial was the catalyst for all of the bad stuff that followed and that he wants to work through those feelings. The aforementioned test results arrive and he insists that the using pattern that they show is recent. Sure it is, buddy.

Shelly goes through his bag and the junkie fear mechanism kicks in. He’s got some prepared excuse about having to leave to see his kids and needing to fetch his pajamas. Oh, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. There is no way in hell that you are going to leave and do all that stuff and be back by 11. He asks for his agant or his manager, but both of them left. He is getting more and more agitated with every passing minute.

She takes the bag away and of course, she finds drugs in it. At the same time, Tom is sitting on his bed, planning his escape. He must really be freaking out now that Shelly has his drugs.

Drew comes in to get him started on his withdrawal meds but he gives him the same speil that he gave granny Shelly. Everybody knows that if he leaves now, he isn’t coming back. When Dr Drew isn’t looking, he slips out the front door with a newspaper under his arm. they all chase after him, trying to get him to stay.

He’s adamant about leaving and says that he’ll walk if he has to. Somebody picks him up and he’s gone. Ugh! How disappointing for everyone. They were so close! And why couldn’t all his friends band together and decide not to pick him up? Fuck! It was probably one of his meth-head buddies who came and got him. Why can’t they get security to keep people like that away?

Well, that ending sucked. Tune in next time when Joey enjoys some ‘roid rage, we get more of Mack’s daddy and somebody (my money’s on Mikey) gets caught with a balloon of heroin.

Love and Kisses,
Twunty McSlore