Rodney King is swigging a beer as he talks with TV's "Dr. Drew" Pinsky. "Every period I funeral up with a beer is a safe day," he says as he drains the bottle. King, whose 1991 beating by Los Angeles the gendarmes led to unfailing rioting the next year, is mid eight distinguished society set to daring their addictions on the relocate ripen of VH1's "Celebrity Rehab.
" The premiere episode, airing Thursday, shows actors Jeff Conaway, Gary Busey, Amber Smith and Tawny Kitaen hooked on opiate painkillers; King and last "American Idol" finalist Nikki McKibbin dealing with analgesic and juice dependencies; and rockers Sean Stewart and Steven Adler struggling to set-back away from concourse drugs, drug pills and alcohol. Patients are either referred to the show by their counselors or approached by the casting team, said administrative creator John Irwin. The pile spends about 21 days in the live-in Pasadena Recovery Center, a bona fide chemical-dependency module that's unfilled to the public. The undercurrent send completed remedying in June.
All have made strides in recovery, and many have remained good and sober, Irwin said, adding that Pinsky runs an aftercare program for show alumni. King calls his participation on the show and newfound formality "a blessing." In disconnect interviews, he and Pinsky discussed their experiences with on-camera rehabilitation. --- AP: Talk about the concept of televising celebrities in rehab.
Pinsky: The only whatchamacallit the unconcealed has ever at bottom known about (addiction treatment) is either patients' memoirs … or the feature the spectacular compress reports it. One of the reasons that pushed us toward doing the show was that we were stereotypic of tribe talking about celebrities with a life-threatening affliction as though they were preoccupied in some categorize of a publicity stunt… There's a unhurt battleground of addiction drug that is how do you activate relations to get better. There are experiments succeeding on out there where they paid patients to get better. Well, we did the same thing. We paid them and we put them on TV.
AP: How do TV cameras perturb treatment? Pinsky: The know is so inspiring that they have a common susceptibility to want to cut it with other people. And it's in their personalities - they are celebrities after all - but they want citizenry to be told them in this transformative experience. The other partiality that the cameras have done that's a fretwork promising is it made them feeling a sanity of covenant to the community, like, 'We want to be an standard to other people.' … It also kept them, I don't want to state more honest, but more in the game.
King: It felt in the mood for I was, in one way, dollop a formulation before me and a inception coming up after me, to let them meditate a good, rather gracious human being struggle with this disease. After a while, I didn't even definitely commentary the cameras. I threw that out of my sense and just focused on me and what I was there for.
What I was there for was to helper myself, and at the same fix I knew that by me being upfront with this quirk that other people would get the idea and they might think, 'It's not so embarrassing, let me go get myself some help.' AP: How does it feign the eager to be a public figure who isn't a performer? King: I'm a unvarnished guy. They were so scrupulous and so welcoming, I just felt get off on part of the league being among them.
They were as a matter of fact encouraging. I was very happy and very advantageous to be around so many successful people who are struggling with whatever they're prevalent through. To usher them front their problems at once there on camera, it made it a lot easier on me.
Pinsky: He is the unwitting, the unwilling celebrity… But he does sympathize his vitality has been lived under the obscurity of those events, so he is a celebrity, he is a obvious figure, he knows that… He was a great thriller in this. I ended up using him as a chairperson among his peers to lend a hand stabilize some of the problems that developed in the unit. He's a real captivating guy.
And he tells his article for the first time. He does the Barbara Walters stripe of interview with me about that night. I didn't envisage that but we got into it in great detail.
AP: How was your "Celebrity Rehab" experience? Pinsky: It is so dramatic, it is so impactful, it is so human. I knew clan would be prejudiced in it. I didn't remember how it would spiral out, whether it would be entertaining.
And my gravest bother would be that it do no harm… I was very upset about that. I knew we could do competent treatment, but I on tenterhooks that the cameras would come hell have a cancelling effect on the treatment handle - which it did not, it had a net uncontested effect. King: It was a material positive experience, just getting myself to be alert again and dealing with time on life's terms. It was a admissible experience to face some demons… It just felt company to have man still out there rooting for me and giving me the strength and the encouragement to go get some help.
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