“How long do you think this show will run, Bob?”
“Five or ten years, easy. Besides, I’m putting my career at risk even doing a show like this. And I’m coming to you straight, no lawyers or agents.”
“You’re nuts, but okay. Deal!”
By the time we entered the third season, the lawyers came.
We all sat down at the big table. “Well, we hear that you have some kind of deal?”
“Yep.”
I had started to make pretty good money by then and the show had produced spinoffs like Celebrity Rehab Presents Sober House and Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew. I was being paid well for them too, but I also realized that come the fourth season, there was no way VH1 was even going to consider continuing with the deal that I had cut. I agreed to $5,000 a week with a 10 percent annual increase. I also specified that my contract never have any mention of or stipulations about any subsequent seasons. Television can burn you out, and I didn’t want to be trapped into another season if I wanted out. Five weeks on a set can be a grind, and I needed that option.
Besides the spinoffs we’ve done, we decided to take a new direction this time out. The new version of the show has no celebrities at all. All of our patients are just plain folks. Unlike celebrities, who have the resources to explore various treatment programs, people of average means don’t really have that option. We put out ads throughout the country on places like Craigslist.org and offered treatment to people who otherwise couldn’t afford it. There was no mention of VH1, Drew, or myself. We asked applicants to send in a short video of themselves and what their goals were. We were inundated with hundreds of responses from all over America within the first hour. Some, of course, weren’t genuine. Even though the ads hadn’t mentioned the television show, some of the respondents figured out what the deal was and applied as a way to get on the air and make a play for reality stardom. We had a good crew that was able to discern between those who wanted help and those who hoped to become the next Honey Boo Boo.
“Please help me!” said one wolf-eyed kid from a small town in Alabama.
“I don’t know where else to turn!” cried a girl with pink hair and a nose ring.
“I won’t live to see next year,” stated a young mother as her kids wailed offscreen and she calmly pulled on a cigarette, the curls of smoke framing her delicate face.
It was heartbreaking. These were people who had suffered and who had been victimized by bad treatment centers, and their plight put me in a strange and frightening position. Most of the patients on this new season have an abiding and unwavering faith that Drew and I are the only people who can help them. It’s the power of TV. That faith can be unnerving, because nobody can wave a magic wand and administer a cure. It takes work. Not only from Drew and me, but from the patients themselves. It’s a lesson I had to learn over a period of years as I faced down my own struggles. When someone says to you, “My crappy life would be different if only you were my counselor … and now it’s happening,” it puts a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. As a counselor, I’ve never experienced this kind of thing. Right now, as we get started with the show, it’s okay. It’s the honeymoon phase of things. It’s usually that way. But once the weeks start to roll by and the cameras don’t back off, it could all come crashing down. The words I would hate to hear are “Fuck you, Bob. You didn’t do anything. I’m going home.”
But that’s a possibility and I have to be steeled for it. While the show has gotten praise for its demystification of rehab and how we show that the path to redemption is navigable, there are also plenty of voices that say it’s sleazy and exploitative.
In 2009, the country singer Mindy McCready signed a contract to appear on the show. She was almost a living embodiment of every tragic female country star to ever have existed: failed relationships, pills, alcohol, domestic abuse, and underneath it all, a fragile vulnerability. She could have been a parody of the country music genre, but we all loved her and the audience did too. She gave all of us a huge scare when, on camera, she suffered a seizure and collapsed. All through her time on the show, she exhibited a concern and kindness for her fellow cast members and always seemed to care more about them than she did for herself. We were happy that she seemed to have conquered her demons when the season ended. But it wasn’t long before her name started to appear in the media again as her troubles once more started to consume her. In February of 2013, when news of her suicide came to light, I was heartbroken. We deal with troubled people and we try our best to help, but sometimes tragedies occur.
That’s the nature of what we do. All I can do is apply what I’ve learned and what I know and be compassionate, give encouragement, and, most of all, be real. It’s showtime now. A small army of crew people from VH1 runs about with clipboards and wireless headsets. The back end of the parking lot has been converted into an eating area by a catering company, and tables and folding chairs are set up underneath a makeshift awning that flaps in the mild breeze. Smoke curls up from a portable grill that an early-shift cook uses to prepare some kind of meat as well as chicken for lunch. In a room inside
