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"  Another supermarket checkout line, another superstar check-in headline. Barely 11 days after Lindsay Lohan&amp;#039;s second stint in rehab, the sad news of her latest arrest is cleaning up at newsstands. This not long after a tabloid made the bold claim that she wanted to parlay her sobriety into an endorsement deal for a bottled-water brand. Just weeks before that, American Apparel taped a shocking picture of the passed-out star to its store windows, all to boost sales of the $40 gray hoodie Lohan is wearing in it. Meanwhile, click on YouTube and there&amp;#039;s Marc Jacobs meditating on the jade lawn of Passages Alcohol and Drug Treatment Center in Malibu, where he&amp;#039;s granting an exclusive interview to CNN. (Among other nuggets reported is that the monthly tab to stay there is up to $70,000.) Not even the radio provides relief. On what seems like every station is that voice, roughed up by too many cigarettes and too much Southern Comfort, emanating in that euphoric way that good pop anthems do: &amp;quot;No, no, no\u2009\u2026&amp;quot; SEE LOOKBOOK: CHLO\u00CB SEVIGNY &amp;quot;No, I never went down that road, but you know, if I need a resurgence in my career, I&amp;#039;ll just check into rehab,&amp;quot; says Brooke Shields drolly, echoing a general consensus about the ceaseless tirade of exploitative coverage and consumption of celebrities gone wild. Just how did recovery from drug and alcohol abuse become such a publicity event, a cash cow, even a career strategy? How did &amp;quot;going to rehab&amp;quot; become so, well, fashionable?  Not that there&amp;#039;s anything the least bit stylish, or even cool, about it. Addiction is a life-and-death matter, period. About 22.4 million Americans are addicted to or abuse alcohol or illicit drugs, according to recent government surveys. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s no question alcoholism contributes to the highest number of fatalities in this country,&amp;quot; says Robert Lindsey, president of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD). &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a terribly serious issue,&amp;quot; agrees actress Kelly Lynch. &amp;quot;But too many people who really need help,&amp;quot; she laments, &amp;quot;are hanging their persona on this idea of rehab as something to dip their toe into.&amp;quot; Lynch&amp;#039;s husband, producer Mitch Glazer, interrupts: &amp;quot;Did you see the piece in the Times on this Vegas club that&amp;#039;s actually called Rehab?&amp;quot; His incredulous inquiry refers to the wildest party in the desert city, a poolside marathon that lures about 3,000 baked bods each Sunday to the Hard Rock Hotel and claims to rake in $35,000 an hour \u2014 mostly on high-ticket bottle service. Nor is &amp;quot;Rehab&amp;quot; singularly the name of Amy Winehouse&amp;#039;s megahit this year; Rihanna has her own track titled &amp;quot;Rehab,&amp;quot; off her Good Girl Gone Bad album, released this summer.  &amp;quot;Recovery is a very intense experience,&amp;quot; says Dr. Drew Pinsky, medical director for the department of chemical-dependency services at Aurora Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena, California. Clinics letting a famous client take a press interview &amp;quot;is nonsense. It&amp;#039;s not treatment. It&amp;#039;s TLC. It&amp;#039;s completely mystifying for the people who deal with the realities of addiction in their own lives. It may even be negative by giving unrealistic expectations of the process. The term rehab has no meaning now.&amp;quot;  So the message gets lost in the madness. &amp;quot;The public knows about the drama and chaos of alcoholism and addiction,&amp;quot; points out NCADD&amp;#039;s Lindsey. &amp;quot;But this drama really trivializes the matter of recovery and turns it into a big charade. You don&amp;#039;t just show up, hang out, and, like magic, you&amp;#039;re cured. Recovery is a lifelong process.&amp;quot; For many public figures, the shorthand of rehab includes a shortcut mind-set. So declarations tantamount to &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m cured!&amp;quot; come even before a famous patient has stepped off the manicured grounds of a facility. That can be as dangerous as hanging out too soon in an environment, like a nightclub, that is rife with temptations. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s hard enough that people in the public eye have such a hard time,&amp;quot; notes Heather Edney of Cri-Help, a North Hollywood treatment center with its share of clients both celebrity and civilian. &amp;quot;But too often they check into recovery centers to detox, like it&amp;#039;s a spa detox, and they go right back into the lives they had before.&amp;quot;  Even science is corroborating that 30 days may not cut it. Researchers at Yale University have found it can take at least 90 sober days for normal analytical function and decision making in the brain&amp;#039;s prefrontal cortex to start reengaging. (Needless to say, it&amp;#039;s a challenge to meet that time line when life is a swirl of parties and premieres, all with a bottomless bar, courtesy of an alcohol sponsor.) Even where minors are given access, the chance to abuse is heightened when a famous minor is given the VIP treatment. &amp;quot;All that pressure to make a club hot by celebrity validation \u2014 I&amp;#039;m not going to say that any of us involved in nightlife weren&amp;#039;t part of the problem. That would be obnoxious,&amp;quot; now admits Amanda Scheer Demme, the nightlife queen who raised the profile of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and its bold-faced bo\u00EEte she managed, Teddy&amp;#039;s, with its parade of A-list actors, fashion designers, and rock stars.   &amp;quot;Does anyone purposely serve kids alcohol? No,&amp;quot; continues Demme, who left the club last year. &amp;quot;So how do you control them getting it? Like other clubs, we were legally allowed to let them into Teddy&amp;#039;s because of the food license. But that was then,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;It de\uFB01nitely got me listening and thinking. Would I ever do it again? Never. We&amp;#039;ve all learned our lesson. Nothing more than I&amp;#039;m a mom and I wouldn&amp;#039;t want to see my kids going through it.&amp;quot;  One Hollywood player who found sobriety through AA and Narcotics Anonymous highlights a line in NA&amp;#039;s Basic Text of Recovery: &amp;quot;We\u2009\u2026\u2009are under no surveillance at any time.&amp;quot; This now seems quaintly retro. Who&amp;#039;s more at fault after all, the photographers who are able to point their telescopic lenses at an unfettered patio and shoot clients at the Wonderland Center? The celebrity client who positions herself in full media view? Or is it the facility \u2014 with monthly fees reportedly in excess of $35,000, among the steeper in the luxe-rehab market \u2014 for not erecting a privacy wall? Maybe it&amp;#039;s the gardeners for not planting higher vegetation. Like many, Chlo\u00EB Sevigny \u2014 who acted in Bazaar&amp;#039;s feature \u2014 admits cynicism about the state of celebrity rehabs.&amp;quot;I wonder if some of these facilities say, &amp;#039;Maybe we&amp;#039;ll shave off some of the price if you endorse us.&amp;#039; I don&amp;#039;t know for sure this happens.&amp;quot; But there&amp;#039;s another more probable reality, she concedes, to why a famous addict might come clean to the public. &amp;quot;I do hear it can be very hard for a lot of actors to get insured to work unless they can prove they&amp;#039;re sober. Talking to the press, asking for forgiveness or sympathy, in a way, might be something they have to do to maintain their persona, their careers.&amp;quot; Besides, adds Sevigny, &amp;quot;those more fancy places might just be what someone with a more fancy lifestyle might feel he needs. It&amp;#039;s elitist when you consider what the rest of the world has access to, but that&amp;#039;s what someone used to traveling the world with a private chef probably thinks he needs. Recovery works only if you work it, however it comes.&amp;quot; Those in the medical and treatment community are hardly demanding censorship on the subject. &amp;quot;Look,&amp;quot; says Pinsky, &amp;quot;celebrities know the camera is watching them, they know everyone is watching them, that it&amp;#039;s out there, and they are held accountable somehow.&amp;quot;   It&amp;#039;s not only media conglomerates fixing for a hit of dollars from scandal either. Although every pundit was quick to trumpet the end of Kate Moss&amp;#039;s career following the white-powder incident, the lucrative contracts returned twofold and her income spiked.  &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s about taking a bad situation and finding a constructive way out,&amp;quot; says Dita Von Teese, who had to deal with her own very public split from Marilyn Manson. The press has reported that the singer&amp;#039;s substance abuse was a catalyst. &amp;quot;A celebrity knows someone&amp;#039;s going to spill the beans, so they probably figure, How can I embrace this? I don&amp;#039;t think they have a choice. The Internet lets the world know every detail about you instantly, true or not. It might even be helpful. People ultimately have more respect for you if you own up to your problems.&amp;quot; For Marc Jacobs it was nothing less than showing the world it&amp;#039;s okay to be fallible. &amp;quot;Marc is one person who&amp;#039;s not embarrassed about his recovery,&amp;quot; says his dear friend Amanda de Cadenet, who was in touch by phone or in person with the designer throughout his stay at Passages. The CNN crew was already booked to do a story on the center when Jacobs volunteered to share his experience, she says. &amp;quot;Rehab has become a tool for getting out of jail or restoring one&amp;#039;s image. But that&amp;#039;s not the point and purpose of rehab. As someone who had a severe drug and alcohol problem and was in rehab at 14,&amp;quot; she says, &amp;quot;I know treatment works only if the individual is truly ready for it.&amp;quot; Laura Day, the best-selling Practical Intuition self-help guru to Demi Moore and Jennifer Aniston, also prefers to highlight the upshot of all this overexposure. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s good to see that our new icons can have problems but still have very successful lives. Our own problems are huge to us, so it&amp;#039;s very reassuring to see we&amp;#039;re not alone. But how wonderful for our icons to embarrass themselves. We all do. But they recover, and we can recover.&amp;quot; A reality check couldn&amp;#039;t hurt either. &amp;quot;Addiction is a major issue beyond Hollywood, but we&amp;#039;re in this incredibly shallow and culturally devoid era where people care about what someone famous is eating for breakfast or wearing to do laundry,&amp;quot; grouses designer and actress Tara Subkoff. &amp;quot;The world needs rehab from celebrity voyeurism.&amp;quot; No time like the present: September is National Recovery Month. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a9535/go-to-rehab-0907/>