Celebrity Rehab: Out of the Fog and Into the Fire

This week there was quite a bit less drama than we’ve been seeing in the past three episodes. It was a relief not only for me and you, but for them too, I’m going to guess.
It’s no fun to walk around feeling like an open wound all day long, so it’s nice to see that the physical pain is over for most of them. The flip side is that this is the calm before the real emotional storm starts, and everyone is in the eye of that storm except Joey.We don’t get to see if Drew confronts him about Steroids yet, but we do see the rage side of him and it is not pretty. Those of you that watched The Real World Hollywood know exactly what I’m talking about.

Instead, we begin this week on Tom watch. The night shift takes over, and Loesha shows her replacement, Inez, where Tom’s meds are in case he comes back, and what’s this? A car pulling up? Hallelujah, it’s Tom. He’s a few hours late and HELLA stoned, but at least he made it back.

He makes a bee line for the bathroom, probably to do more drugs before he gets searched. Guess who his roommate is going to be? Rodman. Ha ha ha. Perfect. Dennis got to enjoy his single for a whole week, now he can look forward to a lot of time communing with the hallways of the PRC and being zen with the coffee machine while Tom sleeps off his last high. After that, I hope that Tom talks his ear off.

I’m glad that they didn’t put him with Mikey. He’d be shining his shoes and doing all his homework for him. It’s better that he be placed with someone who isn’t as impressed by him.

And what did Heidi mean when she told Rodman that it wasn’t fair for him to be saddled with Tom for a roomie? She must have seen some scary shit to think that he might mess with Dennis. Maybe it’s because he’s just starting to kick, and Rodman isn’t. Oh, well. Life is tough and Dennis is coddled enough as it is. Plus, it is already Day 8 and what has he learned so far? How to feel sorry for a pretty blonde who had a seizure? The jury is still out on that one.

Tom tucks into some Chinese food like he hasn’t eaten in days, and his girlfriend Monroe waltzes into the facility unannounced. Seriously, she just sauntered down the hallway like she knew exactly where she was going, not stopping at the nurse’s station or signing in. Let me do the honors.

Mmm, mmm, mmm. Girl is out of it. She’s got the slow movements of a habitual pot/dope smoker and the bug eyes of the speed freak. Her heart must be praying for death followed by transplant into a nice little Morman girl, with all Monroe has been putting it through.

She kneels next to Tom’s chair and puts her arm around him, telling him that she forgot a few things when she was packing his stuff up.

Forgetting to pack everything is a cockamamie story that she cooked up for the cameras, just like the dope he’s going to inhale when she leaves. What makes her think that they won’t find it? These people have seen everything and Monroe’s presence is setting off every red flag.

They put her on camera outside the facility and she says that she came to say goodbye because Tom worries about her, and where she might be. I bet he does. This is a girl who does drugs with Tom Sizemore. This isn’t small time Bush League dabbling we are dealing with here. This is “oops, I smoked another one of your Warhol prints” we are talking about. He’s wondering if he’ll still have furniture left when he gets home.

Monroe also says that she is glad that Tom is in rehab. Not because he is kicking drugs, she doesn’t mention that, but because it’s been three years of “Heidi Hell,” and she’s sick of hearing her name every single day. Uh-oh. THAT’S not good. He sounds like he needs years and years of therapy. Didn’t they split up a long time ago?

I hope that he isn’t blaming Heidi for his problems. He was getting high long before he met her. Plus, if my boyfriend brought an ex up every single day, I’d be the next one. Someone who does that is obviously not over the person and sure as hell isn’t going to love you like you need to be loved.

Tom stumbles into the doorway where Shirley speaks to him like he’s a doddering old man, shouting instructions like he needs a hearing aid. He finally makes it to the edge of his bed where he keeps nodding off while trying to get his pants and shoes off. He finally succeeds and Will grabs them.

Let’s see what’s in those pockets, shall we? Remember that balloon of dope that Shirley had in her hand during previews last week? It’s Tom’s, not Mikey’s. Thank God. That’s the good news. The bad news is that they have to retrace his and Monroe’s steps all over the floor to make sure that they haven’t strewn drugs all over the place, for him to get his hands on later.

I guess that this is a pretty common thing for addicts to do when they come into rehab. It might be the fear of withdrawal that makes them smuggle dope in, don’t know. What we do know is that it would be tragic if one of the other patients stumbled upon these hidden drugs by accident. They are barely out of the kicking phase and it would suck to relapse before they have even given sobriety a fair shake.

They check around the floor and table where Tom was shoving noodles into his mouth and then it’s off to the hall bathroom that he occupied when he first arrived. Lo and behold, he was using the trash can as his own private dope dispensary.

Under the kleenex and trash, they find viagra. Viagra. Does he think that Heidi is going to pity fuck him? He wishes, and since when do they allow three hour conjugal visits? Don’t the boners last that long? I admit, I’m curious. Plus, he’s only 47, why does he need viagra?

After the viagra they find matches and a big bag of crystal meth, and if that wasn’t enough, there is a piece of foil with a nice lump of heroin nestled inside it. You know, for a little midnight snack.

He was planning to light it with the matches and smoke it with the crystal in the hall powder room. Holy shit, can’t that kill you? Especially since he’ll probably have some kind of barbiturate in his system to help him with the withdrawals. So scary. What if there was a knock on the door and he panicked and did it all at once? I hope that they teach everybody CPR from day one. You never know when you are going to need a hero.

Shirley is pretty matter of fact about the situation saying, “He’s gonna be surprised in the mornin.”
If he wakes up. Dude is OUT. Done. Down for the count, incommunicado. When Dr. Drew checks his vitals, he asks him when was the last time he slept. Tom says that it’s been a few days, which could mean weeks, if we go by appearances.

When he wakes up he is going to have one heck of a hangover, and Drew tells Shelly to make sure that he gets enough fluids. She nods and walks out with him, and good God, that hair of hers. Is her other job at Huntington?

She must be hating it too because she took it down for the morning meeting. It looks SO much better and it’s such a pretty color. I hate to harp on it but do you know how many people would love to have nice, long hair like hers? She needs a make-over BAD.

The topic of the day is indeed being honest. Heidi says something about how we should be honest every single day because lying costs you the truth. Okay, yeah. That was pretty obvious.

Mikey says that he always felt really bad when he lied. Once again, not terribly deep but these are baby steps so I’m going to bite my tongue for the time being.

I noticed that the biggest liar of them all didn’t open his pierced mouth. That’s right, Rodman. I’m looking at YOU. You tell some doozies, bub. Somebody needs to get tough with your ass, instead of letting you pass out really bad advice, which we will come to in a moment.

Mack says that her father taught her that it’s always better to lie, AAAAAAAND the Mack show begins again. Show of hands please, for all of you that agree that she loves to shock people with her stories.

Pappa John was a piece of shit, a totally amoral turd of a human being. I don’t care if he did write some pretty ditties back in the sixties, he was, as Heidi says, evil. Mack says that she has to admit her part in it, she chose to use even though her influence was a really bad guy.

When Heidi asks her what her dad thought of her drug use, she tells the group about her dad shooting her up with coke at 17. When Mack would visit him, he would say, “Got any drugs for your old dad?” Fucked up.
Heidi says that she can’t even imagine such a thing, and Mack says, “You couldn’t picture a lot of things.” Well, that is another understatement.

I noticed the camera pan to Mikey while Mack was saying all this stuff about doing drugs with Pappa John, but he never opened his mouth about the fact that he was doing the exact same thing. Why is that? I am dying to know that story. Was he raised in a hippy style household? Is daddy a vet? I need answers, people! We haven’t gotten to the bottom of Mikey’s issues, and no, I’m not buying the “I lost my band,” thing. Not entirely.

Drew voice-overs that everyone on the show has been betrayed by someone that they loved. Mack just happens to trump everyone by having Satan for a father. Can you imagine if he were still alive when the incest book came out? he’d have to go into hiding or risk facing a major witch hunt. I mean, look at the vitriol that was aimed at Polanski, and he wasn’t even related to his victim.

Group with Dr. Drew becomes the Joey show because it’s all about those angry feelings. See, Joey was a little boy with ugly coke bottle glasses who got picked on a lot and his mom wasn’t very sympathetic. As a matter of fact, she hit him regularly. Mack asks him if he bulked up like he did because of beeing made fun of, he admits that he did, and then Drew throws in his two cents about putting up a wall, a wall made of muscles.

He was always searching for uh-septinss, as he calls it, and hoarded his candy until he had enough to bribe the neighbor kids into playing with him. He does the same thing now, only with drugs. He smiles as he says all this, even when he admits that he still cries about it.

The Bob gives him his “all Cool” speech, telling him why it’s not cool to smile when acknowledging things. It means that you aren’t really dealing with them yet and could try to kill yourself tomorrow, something Bob knows all too well, since he tried to off himself twice and even shot up while in rehab.

Is there anyone outside of Motley Crue that can compete with Bob and his stories? If there is, let me know. I want to read that book.

It’s pretty obvious that Joey has some major issues with women and what happens next only serves to underline that point.

Joey’s on the phone with his baby mama and they joke a little bit about the poke he’s gonna give her when he gets out, when all of a sudden that ‘roid rage rears it’s ugly head.

Nikki asks him when his second check is arriving (I assume for this show) and he tells her that it’s none of her business. As long as he pays his share of the bills, she should butt out. When she says that she is tired of not having any money, he tells her to get a job. Okaaaaay.

She gets upset, Heidi says that if she were Nikki, she’d beat the fuck out of him, and poor Nikki cries because she’s pregnant and can’t get a job. She must be pretty far along then, or only be skilled in jobs that require contact with hazardous materials. In which case, he’s an asshole for not helping her out.

If she is only three or four months pregnant, then she should probably be working. Don’t get mad at me but it would be downright stupid for someone to hitch their hopes and finances to Joey’s star. He barely had reality fame and probably works in a gym, seriously.

If she’s bedridden or hugely along, then I apologize. One thing is certain, Joey should have spoken to her in a completely different manner. This is the future mother of your child, not a gold-digger. If she were money hungry, I think that she could have done waaaay better, no?

Anyway, Joey is tensing up and says that he needs a release. Instead, he gets crappy advice from Rodman. Good old women’s rights activist Dennis tells him not to give a dime to his woman because he’s the “star.” He should hide his money through his agent because “somethings gotta happen or someone’s gonna get hit.” What the fuck?!?

Nice job, asshole. Now you’ve got him really riled up. He takes a page out of Mikey’s book and starts swearing at the cameras for filming him while he makes a sandwich.

Dude, you have been to this rodeo before! Cameras followed you around the Real World house, remember? If you want privacy, check into the bathroom for a while or go for a swim. And submerge yourself for a nice long time.

Nope, instead of getting on the treadmill or something, he tells Loesha that he’s going to beat someone up. Drew voice-overs that they might have to look into that.

Heidi tries to calm him down with no success since he does not have the tools to deal with his rage without drugs and alcohol. Instead, we are treated to more Manson eyes.

Dr. Drew decides that it is time for some ‘expressive therapy’ and shuttles them all into the van for a field trip to Memory Lane Salvage. That name is too ridiculous, which makes it kind of awesome in a really sick way.

Tom doesn’t come along since it would probably be dangerous to give Heidi a baseball bat with him around, but Dr. Shirley from Sex Rehab is there. She says that addictions are used to numb the pain, leading to unresolved anger. They get the marvelous opportunity to let it all out, using golf clubs, sledge hammers and poor, innocent cars.

I like how everything is so neatly laid out. They even put some pretty colored glasses and eggs on the hood of one of the cars. Classy. Who is responsible for that nice arrangement? Did they hire an ‘expressive therapy’ stylist? One of the Top Design rejects? I can just hear him now.

I have done this once before. It was after a particularly bad break-up and a girl I worked with invited me over to her apartment, where we threw empty liquor bottles from work at a dumpster until one of her neighbors complained about the noise. It was amazingly cathartic and I slept well that night for the first time in a week. It really helped to scream and rant and wail, pretending that the dumpster was his head. I highly recommend it.

Mack is first at bat, SHOCKING, I know. She yells about her missed childhood and people that hurt children, neglecting to mention the truly evil people that put all the psychobabble jargon into her lexicon.

She’s also mad because he never said that he was sorry, not even on his death bed. Since when do demons apologize? I may not earn any more friends with this comment, but I truly believe that some people are utterly irredeemable. You cannot fix everyone. Sociopaths don’t suddenly grow a conscience just because you promise to make all their boo-boos go away. Michael Myers isn’t going to cry and say sowwy at the end of the movie.

She says that it’s nice to hit stuff for a change since she usually turns that anger inward. This is why God invented punching bags, my child. Look into it.

It’s Joey’s turn and he sounds scary from the very beginning, snorting like a bull and circling his vehicular opponent like a lunatic. He says more stuff about his mom hitting him and buying him ugly glasses that the other kids made fun of.

He’s mad because she smacked him and he couldn’t play kick ball. Kick ball. I gotta admit, I started laughing. Can you imagine holding in that much rage because you missed a neighborhood game or some little girl giggled at your horned rims? Man up, boy! Mommy issues are soooo last season, just like your glasses.

I know, I’m being mean again but it must be the fact that this kind of experience is so common. Why is he having such a hard time? Was the bullying really, really bad? Was he beaten and shamed on a daily basis?

Almost everybody has experienced some kind of bullying. I think that it is his lack of intellect that cripples his ability to move on. Guys with more smarts would have parlayed those life lessons into success by now. Or I’m full of shit, you tell me.

Drew was cheering him on like the nerd that he is, by the way. Yelling encouragement is not his speciality. He doesn’t exactly have what one would call a ‘fiery’ personality.

Joey does a lot of damage in the lot and he can hardly catch his breath. He says that he hasn’t felt that uncontrollable feeling since he was a little kid and couldn’t stop crying. I say, own your inner wuss, Joey. Stop lifting weights and yelling at your girlfriend because mommy was a meanie. Becoming one yourself isn’t going to solve your problems.

At least he has found his trigger- it’s that shortness of breath. Dr. Shirley tells them that trauma is storred in the body and once you find your trigger, you can learn how to step back instead of acting out.

I wish that they would have shown some of the other patients hitting the cars but the only hint that anyone else did anything was Lisa walking away with a broken bat. I mean, she could have hit half of them in the face with it and we sure wouldn’t be able to tell.

Speaking of amazing beauty, Tom is finally awakening from his hangover. It took almost two days for him to come out of his fog, and he sits down with Dr. Drew for another evaluation.

The last time I slept that much was when I had the flu in September, and Tom is feeling like that too, only with the added enjoyment of the skin crawlies. He looks like HELL, yet another thing that he and Heidi still have in common. Yes, another ugly joke.
Don’t blame me. This was a slow episode.

The prince of self medication started smoking pot at fifteen, the number one gateway drug, as NotWithoutMyTv said last week in the Housewives’ comments. He still uses it but it isn’t his favorite. He changes favorites over time and let me see if I can make sense of his history, his IDDB, if you will.

1991- 1996: Pot, coke and heroin, which he smoked because he has a fear of needles.

1996- 2002: His longest sobriety. He calls this period “the best time of my life.” I would think so, since this is when he was on the verge of becoming an A-list character actor.

2004- Present: Crystal methamphetamine.

The last month: Up to 6mg of Klonopin (anti-anxiety, anti-seizure med) a day, heroin and meth, of course.

Meth is his favorite drug at the moment and I have to say that it strikes me as pretty peculiar that everyone here has a favorite drug, and everything else is just something they do so they can sleep or wake up, depending on their state. Can you imagine living in a world where, say, heroin was just a chaser?

He tells Dr. drew that he wants to return to his heyday and is afraid that he is going to O.D. from the heroin. He doesn’t want to die, he feels ashamed and he makes little eye contact. This feeling of shame is common but Drew doesn’t want it to lead to isolation. Oh, and this is Tom’s ninth stint at rehab. Ouch.

Heidi makes a sweet gesture and takes him some food. She tells him that she is finally feeling better but that the day before was her worst. Hmm, the day after he arrived, she was feeling the shittiest. What a surprise. He eats and then lays his head on her thigh, saying that it’s “worth a fortune” to be doing so.

She says, “You’re so sweet, Tom,” but she deadpans it. She is being nice, I’m not sure why. She doesn’t like him being there (neither would I), she’s never going to forgive him (neither would I) and then she stares off into space, thinking about God knows what. Love/hate is my guess.

She is a bigger person than I would be.

An even bigger nutcase is on her way, and Dr. Drew is going to pick her up. He drives up into the hills somewhere or maybe it’s Malibu, I can’t tell, to get Kari Anne, the love and hero of message boards everywhere. I’m going to try and catch up on some old sex rehab episodes to figure out why everyone hates her so much, but then they show her getting kicked out of the PRC and throwing water on Shelly.

She is a mess, and not a hot one. How did this skanky little girl get to be Miss Teen USA? Was it due to sexual favors? I’m not joking, I’m serious. She looks like she should be on Bad Girls’ Club, not Celebrity Rehab.

Dr. Drew walks through the open front door, wandering around and calling for her. She turns up around a corner, stoned off her rocker. Depressing rock music plays in the background as she uses the wall as support. Damn, girl. She is coming off of a serious bender.

He goes into his speil about wanting to help her and they collect her drug paraphenilia which is sweetly ensconced in a box that says ‘LOVE’ on the cover. Was this box something they got in Sex Rehab? I’d be afraid to touch it if I were him.

She hops into the van and fixes her face. Drew voice-overs that getting her to the PRC wasn’t the hard part and then they show a close-up of Shelly. DRAMA. This is going to be fun. NOT. She better not hog all the camera time with her antics. I am not emotionally invested in her yet and I would hate to see someone like Mikey or Heidi not get the treatment they deserve because she was too caught up with making all the caregivers miserable. You know what I mean? I will be hella pissed if this turns into the Kari Anne show.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out next week when we get to go to a funeral, and unfortunately, it ain’t Kari Anne’s.

This episode was kind of slow, do you agree? It wasn’t as compelling as some of the first were. I have a feeling that all of that is about to change with nutso joining the cast. We’ll see.

Love and Kisses,
Twunty McSlore