Celebrity Rehab: Steven Adler Has Just Left the Building

Thursday’s episode started out with Jeff Conway explaining to the Pasadena Police that, he is, “..in pain, and they won’t give me anything for it…” . I think he thought that he was in the Pasadena Medical Marijuana Clinic (be sure to visit the Cypress Hill gift shop in the adjacent lobby). Jeff wanted to make it seem like this was some sort of half-assed version of the movie Misery, with him as a more ornery but less talented James Caan and Dr. Drew as a more womanly Kathy Bates.

If there is such a thing.

The police officer wasn’t fooled. Once Drew informed him that Jeff had made veiled threats of suicide in the recent past he gave Jeff two choices: 1.) Stay at the Pasadena Recovery Center with its film crews, fashion models and pool tables. 2.) Go to a psych ward, with nurse Rached, the Chief, and a younger (and pastier) Danny De Vito. Needless to say, Jeff is still on the show.

Let’s all take a moment to be Thankful.

The police went away and we were left with Conway being consoled by Busey. Through tears Jeff exclaimed, “..I miss my mother..”. Busey explained, “..she’s up in heaven, she’s up there praying for you..”. Now, I’m a layman. Unlike Massive Head Wound Gary, I am not a minister. However, I did go through sixteen years of Catholic school. From what I remember from my religion classes, when you go “up there”, God is up there too. So, it would stand to reason that if Jeff’s mom is hanging out “up there” she wouldn’t have to “pray” for him, right? Wouldn’t she just have to “ask” God? I’m sure he’s busy, but couldn’t she just leave a message with his secretary, or send him an e-mail? I don’t want to turn this into a theology lecture (I vowed I would never force theology lecture down anyone’s throat after I ate some shrooms before a Christian Doctrine of the Middle Ages lecture where I shit you not, the minute hand grew wings and flew off the clock above the teacher’s head.) but are there tiers of heaven; a la Dante’s hell in the Inferno? Since Jeff’s mom still has to “pray” for him there must be; right? I guess if MSHWG’s words are the truth, there has to be a VIP section of heaven, with like, Martin Luther King , Mother Theresa and those people who defend Amber Smith’s honor on the Tvgasm comments page. I guess this “cool” heaven doesn’t have direct contact with the other “plebe” sections of heaven. Who knew?

Next Dr. Drew warned the viewing public that we are entering the stage of recovery where the addicts start acting like complete dicks. This momentarily puzzled me because I thought the reason these people were in recovery is because they “were acting like complete dicks”. Drew clarified by saying that after detox everyone will start regurgitating the awful bile that is their childhood and other personal failings. Unfortunately these people used drugs and alcohol to mask these feelings and they can’t anymore so… You get the idea.

Woah. Where’s your mask? Put it back on!

Prior to the inevitable quick edits of everyone being ornery and bitchy, we got proof of Dr. Drew’s prior assertion that “different addicts have different recovery and detox arcs”. Just as everyone else became a pain in the ass, Jeff became serene and nice. According to Conway, he had a dream (right after the cops left) that “..took my brain to a crazy land..where God “touched” me..”.

Dude, you know you’re having a rough time when God molests you in your dreams and you think it’s a good thing. In addition to being in a great mood, he started standing up straighter, and he had improved mobility. There are a couple of explanations for this: 1.) He exaggerated his pain (either intentionally or subconsciously) prior to his “diddled by God” epiphany. 2.) Once he pulled the calling the police stunt and everyone called his bluff, he realized he could no longer barter threats of leaving, suicide or surgery for drugs. This caused him to reach bottom. The result was some sort of magic psychosomatic jump in his physical recovery. 3.) This one is Jeff’s version verbatim. He had a dream where God molested him, causing him to recover instantly. 4.) He didn’t have a dream at all. In this version, God is real but he sort of acts like Freddy Kruger. He came down to Earth and molested Jeff. Then he used some of his magic God dust to both cure Jeff and convince him that it was “all a dream”. 5.) This one is sort of like four except Jeff’s mom left this note for God’s secretary. “I know you’re busy up there in VIP heaven, but when you get a free moment could you please go down to Earth and molest Jeff, and then cure him, and convince him it was all a dream”. Which version is correct? Only Jeff’s dead mom knows.

What did I do to deserve this?

Drew called a meeting to deal with the bitchy moods of the other, non-Jeff celebs. He focused on Amber because she seemed the most upset. He saw her sulking and asked, “..what’s up Amber..”. To which she replied with a curt, “nothing”. Dr. Drew told her to tell everyone what she was really feeling and she explained, “..people like Jeff and Gary can go around yelling and waking people up at all hours but because of the power of their personality, they can say “I’m sorry” and everyone acts like it’s O.K. but if I exhibit any negative emotion at all people say, “are you all right, what’s the matter with you…”. Drew told her to tell him (Dr. Drew) to f*&#ck off, in an attempt to get her to release some negative energy. She obliged, and then smiled, so it seemed like it worked.

Does everyone see what I just did? I recapped an incident involving Amber Smith without making any childish, tawdry and/or sexist comments about her body. That is the way it should be! I want to keep my thoughts to the episode at hand, but I feel like I need to speak up. Some shallow uneducated jerks on the internet think that they can “pad their essays” by making wiseass comments about Ms. Smith’s body. Some of these sexist Neanderthals might try and use the argument that since Amber is a model, and she has made all her money off her body, that a few hundred positive comments about her previously mentioned body really don’t hurt anyone. This assertion is based on a false premise. These people don’t realize that what Ms. Smith modeled wasn’t, in fact, pictures of her body, but rather, Cat Scans of her brain and maps of her DNA. She put her soul and brain on display for everyone to see!

(In order to move the recap forward I am assuming that someone’s “soul” is real, is in their DNA, and can be seen on a DNA map.)

Thank you for growing up, a-hole.

Granted, these images appeared in Barely Legal Cat Scan Magazine and on suppleassDNAscans.com, which some may regard as tawdry outlets, but they were tastefully done! More importantly, they were about her “inner beauty”. Amber Smith’s supple DNA map.

Well, that’s enough passive aggressive innuendo for one recap. My bad, let’s hug. Moving on. After Amber vented Dr. Drew asked everyone if they bottle up their negative emotions in their day to day lives and subsequently let these feelings out when drunk/high/coming down. The general consensus was a lightly whispered “duh” followed by a couple nonspecific reports of hitting, smashing, kicking, yelling and crying. Drew decided that a good way to short circuit this cycle is to find a way to draw these feelings out in the sober world so they don’t have to be self-medicated-out with Coors Light.

Hear that? Just be yourself! GO!

His method? Art Therapy. Dr. Art Therapy is a neurosurgeon and alchemist who can tease negative thoughts out of people’s brain with a pair of tweezers, an electric eel and a Dixie cup filled with Mercury. I’m just kidding. It’s a play on words. Get it? Sorry. He had them go down to a local Art Gallery and create works with crayon and colored pencil that explain their pain.

This stuff really works. The reason I know is because my mom is an art teacher in Chicago’s inner city. She does art therapy about three times a year. To see these kid’s work is both terrifying and depressing. It really helps people reveal things that they normally wouldn’t in normal conversation.

Steven Adler was the first to get some notice for his work. Unfortunately it was for the wrong reasons. Apparently Adler had a dream the night prior that his dog was being kicked but for some reason he was powerless to intervene. This dream was what he chose to reenact on paper and it was too much. He wasn’t able to complete his piece. He had to leave the gallery. He walked outside sobbing . Shelly the resident tech talked him back in by assuring him that “everyone in recovery has to go through mom and dad issues..”. This is a reasonable and very true statement. I also think it is true that Adler has mom issues that go way beyond the norm. What is “beyond true” is that he is going to have to eventually deal with these issues. Walking out of the art therapy, (he may have completed his piece but they never showed it), is not how he’s going to get sober.

Wait here. I’ll get you some Play-doh.

Next came Rodney King. He drew a picture of a couple of kids trying climb a bridge over raging river water with one side being “good” and one being “bad” I really didn’t like his work. Please don’t get mad at me! I’m not judging his actual artwork. What I mean is he (and everyone) was told to do something that magnified and explained their rage and sadness. Rodney did the opposite. He sugarcoated his feelings. If I was to judge all the celebs based just on what I have seen so far on this show I would say that Rodney is probably the best person. However, I think the fact that he is such a great guy allows him to slip through the cracks when it comes to being forced to do the “work” of recovery because his problems aren’t on display like MHWG’s and/or Jeff. He needs help and someone needs to get some of the bile and anger that he must have living inside of him, come out.

The next batter was Sean Stewart. One piece depicted him in a hallway being bullied by several other children via insulting him about his dad. The next showed some of his drugs of choice bracketed by slashing wavy lines. After explaining the two works he got sort of embarrassed and ripped them in half and exclaimed, “..who cares…nobody.”. I couldn’t tell if he copped out of showing his true self by dismissing his work or if the ripping and yelling counted as unearthing true anger.

Woah. Literal.

Jeff expanded on the “words in wavy lines” movement started by Jeff. His was the single word, HIT. Jeff explained that he was sexually abused as a child by a man who he now constantly thinks about hitting; even though his molester is long since dead. See, there you go! He stuck to the assignment and ended up revealing something that was clearly a source of anger and pain.

Busey followed up with a depiction of an event that (according to him) happened on December 4th, 1988. He said that “angels of provenciality” surrounded him (whatever the hell that means). None of what he said made any sense but I get the feeling that it made sense to him, which is way more important. It was also clear that he was revealing something that he had kept bottled up for a long time. He wept openly, and declared that he was prepared to join the group. I find it interesting that the two squeakiest wheels got the most out of the exercise. Maybe that’s because they are so used to emoting, yelling and whining that they are the only ones who are emotionally equipped to release their feelings. Could it be that the only two people who are truly “recovering” are the most annoying people in the place? God I hope not.

That’s a lot of sun. I blame hairspray.

Well that’s enough serious talk for one recap. Let’s get back to making fun of people with real problems. Moments after their epiphanies MHWG and Jeff got in a shoving match outside the gallery, Upon leaving, Jeff called “shotgun”. While this may seem very childish there is a more than valid explanation. Jeff’s injury makes it so he sort of does need is own space. He really can’t afford to be bumped by someone next to him if the van took a sharp turn.

For some reason MHWG took it upon himself to try and talk Jeff out of his seat in order to “hold” it for res tech Shelly. By “talk Jeff out of his seat” I mean “got in Jeff’s face and gently shoved him..”. That being said, as I mentioned before, Jeff legitimately cannot be shoved/touched AT ALL. What ensued was a screaming, yelling f-you fest that was really the clip of the show but was, simply put a bunch of bleeped f-you’s. Gary did try to claim that he “tripped into Jeff”. This claim is preposterous but, like usual we can’t tell if it is a lie because due to Gary’s neurological issues he may actually think that’s what happened. I dubbed these guys the “the only two people who are truly recovering” two paragraphs ago? Well, they did find me on craigslist.

I would say hug it out, but I don’t want anyone’s head exploding.

When the troops got back to home base Stewart rallied the troops against Busey. (Stewart was the physically closest to Jeff and Gary during the conflict) He ran around stating the obvious “Busey should be in a psych ward..”. He sort of reminded me of Denzel Washington in Crimson Tide running around the sub trying to convince everyone that Gene Hackman was off his rocker. The stakes are raised here. All that was art stake in Tide was the fate of the world. Stewart, if he succeeds in his quest, could vanquish MHWH from our lives forever. This is heavy stuff.

Gary attempted to apologize to Jeff but it was derailed when he once again claimed that he “fell into him”. This comment was overheard by Stewart who jumped in the fray. After some mindless one-liners back and forth Stewart decided to walk away but Busey chased him down the hall and had to be restrained by Bob Forrest. Busey definitely violated Stewart’s physical space, but once again, he claimed that he, “fell on him”. I would like to see how many people Busey fell on before getting sober.

What? I fell.

Drew called everyone together in order to retain some order. More insults were exchanged. Busey was accused of being a mental case, a child and not being able to respect boundaries. Busey spewed incomprehensible nonsense peppered with comments about his “Lord and savior Jesus Christ”. What if after Jesus got pissed at all those zealots and started throwing stuff around in the town square in Galilee (or was it Jerusalem?) he kept on saying “I didn’t do that, I just fell into your Franken scents and Mur..”.

After a bunch more yelling Drew decided to give Rodney the job of regulating (from now until the end of rehab) whether anybody is “stepping over people’s boundaries” and letting them know it. I don’t agree with this. Rodney needs to recover, not be some half-assed security guard. He has made no progress because Drew and the staff like him too much to push him through the hard steps of getting better. If Rodney is in fact Gary’s “Bodyguard” I hope we won’t have to sit through a mush mouthed version of that awful “…and ieieieie willl alhaways lo o o o love you ewe ew..” crap.

Season 3 is calling.

Drew’s next move was to try and show Gary in a more positive light by screening The Buddy Holly Story. Busey was nominated for a best actor Oscar for his performance. That last sentence was not made up. The quotable moment here came when Stewart asked, “…what’s it about”. Um Buddy Holly. Yeah Stewart, he’s that guy buried in Grant’s tomb. This was followed by Stewart replying “…who’s Buddy Holly”. Your dad is a 60′s rock star and you don’t know who Buddy Holly is? It is seriously akin to Rodney King having a son who didn’t know who Martin Luther King was.

The last quarter of the program was the Steven Adler living in denial show. First came a one on one session Drew set up with another therapist as a prep for his upcoming meeting with his mom. All of his mom’s previous crimes were rehashed but when the doctor asked, “….what was your role in these incidents..”, Adler immediately flipped out and left the room. Granted this was a bit of a loaded question but come on! At least Joe Biden stayed in his chair after that woman asked him if he was a socialist. Adler has to allow himself to open up both in things like art therapy and in these sessions.

Next came Adler’s mom. Drew brought in his pal Dr. Sofy to help referee. I can’t really go over the argument between Adler and mommy beat by beat because, well there was a lot of beats that led nowhere. The stage was set when mom came in crying and Adler exclaimed “fake tears”. Mom denied that she really abandoned Steve. Steve denied her claim. Mom claimed Adler “got violent, hitting things..”. Adler denied this. Mom did acknowledge that her mother disowned her when she married a “man who was not a Jew” and then had Steven. Her mom only accepted her (and independently raised Steven w/out mom) after she divorced the gentile (Steven’s father). I get the sense that this is the source of the source of the problem. All the screaming and yelling was really for naught because, as he did twice already Steven got up and left. He really should have been told either at art therapy or at the prior session that if he did this there would be consequences. He is going backwards.

We will be moving forwards next week with another recap.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Y’all come back now, ya hear?