AHS Views

I’ve been reading about all these movie stars and celebrities in trouble with the law recently because of their drug and alcohol abuse, and it suddenly struck me that I (stupidly) hadn’t connected the dots. They were all driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, sometimes both. Many of them have announced intentions to handle their dependencies through treatment, usually alcohol or drug rehab programs.

Actors, musicians, professional athletes, politicians and high-profile businessmen seemed to be lining up to get arrested for drunk driving over the past year. Hollywood and sports have been hard hit. We’ve read about the actors, actresses, directors and producers. But I didn’t know that more than a dozen professional football players and coaches have also been arrested for DUI recently (one of them in the nude), including several players for the Cincinnati Bengals alone! Several sports figures are already in court-ordered or voluntary alcohol or drug rehab programs, while others are pending various court actions.

Here’s just a partial list of Hollywood’s impaired driving arrests in recent months:

• Lindsay Lohan – actress
• Paris Hilton – tv celebrity
• Nicole Richie – tv celebrity
• Mel Gibson – actor, director, producer
• Ray Liotta – actor
• Vivica A. Fox – actress
• Jessica Smith – actress
• Michelle Rodriguez – actress
• Lane Garrison – actor, two counts of Felony DUI, one of Vehicular Manslaughter
• Ty Pennington – television personality
• Tracy Morgan – comedian
• Yancy Butler – actor
• Rip Torn – actor
• Anneliese van der Pol – television show “That’s So Raven”
• Gus Van Sant – director

Oscar nominee Robert Downey Jr., who says he has been sober for nearly three years, attended alcohol rehab and drug rehab programs after several alcohol and drug related arrests. He said actor friend Mel Gibson, whose Malibu DUI last year was much publicized, helped him through his own repeated DUI and drug arrests during his struggles with alcohol, cocaine, and heroine addiction. Downey told the Toronto Star that Gibson supported him while he spent a year in prison, and then gave him a role in “The Singing Detective” which Gibson produced when everyone else in Hollywood refused to give him a job. Gibson was ordered to a mandatory one-year alcohol rehab program after his drunk driving conviction. Downey said Gibson’s DUI arrest “gave me pause to think about how formidable and cunning addiction is. It is a terrible, terrible, evil and tragic disease.”

He’s right about that. Alcohol and drug abuse is epidemic, and dangerous. Let’s hope these public figures get into an alcohol or drug rehab center with a program that works!