In May of 1994, I walked into a Hollywood chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous for the first time; while waiting for the meeting to begin I watched as an Academy Award-wining actor swept the floor. It was his humbling little task. It’s what kept him sober, he told me. I haven’t had a drink since. For that I am truly grateful.

In 2002 I walk out of my last AA meeting because the culture of recovery in Hollywood had changed. It had become a production of hip, slick, and cool. It had lost its shame. Hollywood sent recovery into the mainstream by putting a camera in the room, and turning the shame of hitting your bottom into a chance to be seen on TV.

When realty shows like “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew” put a camera on an addict, it rewards them for bad behavior and puts off the chance at solid recovery. (Dr. Drew himself calls it a media intervention.) But it’s the financial rewards of Nielsen ratings that are helping to slowly kill actors like Charlie Sheen.

Hollywood paparazzi and media outlets flood the public with the comings and goings of troubled souls like Lindsay Lohan, plastering her image everywhere like a car crash you can’t stop rubber necking. Young actors in Hollywood and the MTV crowd see this stupid behavior and the limelight that goes with it and say to each other, “That doesn’t seem so bad. Let’s party.” It’s within that mode of exposure that the addict get’s lost inside the lens of Entertainment Tonight. Most addicts are at some level narcissist. Couple that with being an actor, and you have Siamese twins gazing blood shot into a reflecting pool of flash bulbs.

Hollywood’s long lists of addicts are simply egomaniacs with low self-esteem. However, once the actor/addict gets sober, most are just not that interesting in public and the media looses interest. The upside of this personal discovery are people like Robert Downey Jr.; who has flourished as a performer and person since he really “got it.” (more…)

Dow plummets again.

All through the campaign Barack Obama told us not to listen to the “politics of fear.” These are the ways of the old guard, the naysayers, the negative ones - he said. Those who won’t sit and talk with the bad men are the warmongers - he called them. These are the guys who created our enemies, he inferred. Don’t listen when they use words like “terrorist” and ”disaster” and ignore the call to be vigilant. It’s a neo-con ruse. It’s a plot to scare you.

So what has our president been saying lately? The economic slump is a “continuing disaster,” he told us. He said the economy is “in crisis.” Back in December he told us it was “going to get worse.” Recently he warned of a “national catastrophe” if the stimulus bill wasn’t passed. He kept his speech before the joint session somewhat more positive in a stylistic sense (style points count when you blow off your promise about not tolerating any earmarks). But still, again down goes the Dow. (more…)