Examining Rehab 2 With Dr. Drew – Episode 5

Our scene-specific blog commentary on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew continues. Below, the doctor talks about the main points of the episode, among them: Jeff’s “recovery,” Amber’s anger and the intense meeting with Steven’s mom.

So, this episode starts where the last left off. After calling 911, Jeff agrees to stay in rehab.

The cops, thank God, see the craziness and understand that this is not someone that should go home. They supported me when I said, “Look, we can’t safely advise you to go home.” They could see he wasn’t in his right mind. It’s not a normal impulse to call 911 when people are trying to help you.

Jeff says he doesn’t want to play “the rehab game anymore.” I thought that was telling.

He does treat it like a game. I do have a crazy, deep affection for him. We get more conflicted as the season goes along, but we always come back around to each other. That said, I’m never sure when Jeff is acting. I’m never sure when he’s amplifying his emotions. I’m never clear what’s real with Jeff, and I’m also not clear if Jeff is clear about that. It almost doesn’t matter. It’s all kind of the same. In the end, I’m not clear what’s motivating him. Why is he here? Is it all B.S. to him? Is it the real deal? Is it possibly the real deal? Might we get some real out of him? Who knows? The point is that when he calls it a “game,” I’m not sure how different that his from him saying, “Hey, I’m really serious this time.” It’s so confusing. What I know for sure is that I’m willing to get in there and struggle with him.

What did you make of his sudden improvement? He says, “God touched me in my sleep.”

Doesn’t it show how much there’s an emotional overlay to his pain? At the very least, can’t we learn that, especially those who are prescribing his painkillers? There’s a heavy overlay of something here that is not just about the pain.

Amber is extremely irritable this episode. Can you compare her anger to other post-opiate users?

Opiate users get more desperate than angry. The thing with Amber is she has a lot of rage and anger in her already. She’s particularly angry that she has to have feelings. She’s always looking for fairness: “Why do they get that, and I don’t?” is always her refrain. And that’s her manipulating, and I get that. But part of my job is to get her to have that anger. Jeff is an expert in laying into me, but Amber is the opposite. She doesn’t understand how to do that yet, so I’m just trying to get her to let those feelings out while understanding that she won’t hurt us, she won’t destroy us, we’ll be OK.

Art therapy is used in this episode. Is that a method you frequently employ?

No. It’s too costly. We have to watch our resources while treating patients. We used to, back in the day, when you’d do whatever you could with patients and just throw them whatever you could get your hands on. Art therapy is very useful when there’s a good art therapist on board.

This seemed really evocative for everyone.

Understand that that’s a little scary for us. If it gets too evocative, we’ve got trouble on our hands because people want to go do drugs then. That’s the risk of evocative therapy. But this was just right for our group.

It did lead to a confrontation between Gary and Jeff over the front seat of the van.

It’s like children, right?

You selected Rodney to mediate. Why him?

It just occurred to me in the moment. I didn’t see any real resolution to the bickering. Gary was trying as best he could, and they wouldn’t grant him that. Everyone had ganged up on him. I figured that I needed a physical presence, a show of force. And I thought Rodney is always talking about wanting to be of service and that he feels so good when people give him responsibilities and it just occurred to me in that moment. I figured it would be a chance for Rodney to serve the group and it would get these guys to shut up when this giant man tells them to. They’re not gonna listen to me. And it just stopped. There was nothing to process. Rodney got them just to shut up. I considered it a stroke of genius, I must tell you. It kept the peace from then on.

There’s also a screening of The Buddy Holly Story that night. What was the thought process behind that?

Two things, really. The first is that the group was looking for something to do together at night, something social and unifying. The second is that I’d been working so hard to get them to see Gary as who he is as a human being and not just as a guy whose behaviors cause distress. He is a pretty neat guy, and he’s talented of historical proportions. You know, a lot of these drug addicts are so tied up in their own stuff, they don’t even know about other people’s lives, let alone care. If you remember, early on, they didn’t even know who Rodney King was. That speaks volumes about that kind of thinking. So being made to watch a part of Gary’s got them to look at their own narcissism. I was kind of moved by it, myself. And I was also moved by Gary. He has this very deep insecurity. Even though he’s in everyone’s face as the center of the storm, he really believes that no one cares about him in any genuine way. When we told him that we were going to show the movie, he started crying, saying, “These people don’t want to know about me. They don’t care.” He expects rejection.

The final major point centers on Steven’s mom. I know that you’re way too diplomatic to back me up here, but she seems terrible.

I’m sorry if she comes off that way. Hearing her side of the story for me really made me question what Steven was experiencing. The whole story about him being thrown out at age 11, it turns out he wanted to go stay with his grandparents. She goes, “Honey, you insisted on leaving. You demanded to get out of here. You told us we were horrible people and that you wouldn’t stay with us and you liked your grandparents better and we said, ‘OK.’ What are you talking about?” The whole business about him being arrested in school is distorted and fabricated and that fits in with who Steven is: a sick 11-year-old, who was sick already at that point and needed care and didn’t get any. That’s where the parents really fell down: they didn’t treat this kid who needed help. The addiction and resentment and years that have gone by have distorted the memories. This person who seemed so horrible – and I’m not saying she’s great, don’t get me wrong here – maybe isn’t as horrible as we thought. The reality is that it doesn’t diminish Steven’s experience. My job is to stay with Steven’s experience. So while the reality might have been different, I still have to validate Steven’s experience and help him process it as he understood it. I’d like to be able to help him heal with his mom, and hopefully someday that can happen. The biggest problem for us is that he carries resentment and resentments cause relapse. Resentments make people use.

For more on this week’s episode, check out Dr. Drew’s video recap here.

And view more screen shots from the episode below: