Why celebs like rehab and how it can affect non-celebs

Posted by Cindy on August 25, 2009

More and more you hear about this celebrity or that celebrity going into rehab.  Again.  But while addiction is an ugly problem, the way it is treated among celebrities is not.  Prime, top, high class, lavish, plush, and with a massage just about everyday, these are the words used to describe the drug rehab centers for the celebrities of today.  Once upon a time, drug and alcohol abuse was such a shameful thing that Hollywood studios spent tons of money covering it up in the golden age of Hollywood.  Old school Hollywood star, Errol Flynn, was such a bad alcoholic, he used to inject alcohol into oranges in order to get his fix throughout the day without the studio he was contracted to knowing it.

But because the nature of celebrity has changed, so has the way we view what they do changed, according to Richard DeGrandpre in his book called “The Cult of Pharmacology.”  He addresses such issues as how rehab means a kind status—good status—in Hollywood.   But when there are tennis courts, spa therapies, and bedrooms that not even five star hotels could compete with, it isn’t really a wonder that celebrities like rehab, and might even do anything to get a alcoholism intervention.

Part of the problem for having such exclusive treatment centers stems from the fact that heath insurance often does not cover residential drug treatment. As a result, more and more exclusive facilities are popping up, centers that often provide the best care possible and amenities that are like those found on the finest of vacations.   It has become a hip trend.

While celebs might have access to some of the best rehab places out there, places that make taking drugs look like the best thing a person could do, the average people who indulge in celebrity worship do not.  As a result, the glamorizing of addiction is becoming more and more of a problem.  Most people do not just face the problem of drug addiction but also the problems of economic woes, unemployment, mental diseases, socioethnic insensitivity to their background, and various other issues.  A bare bone facility might be able to address these issues, but  whether or not an average person will want to enter those facilities when bombarded with messages about high class ones (which set up false expectations) is another issue all together, one which the media and the celebrity culture in general chares responsibility in.