Rehab Failure

Normally, I would be content to let Charlie Sheen continue his slide into darkness without comment, if it weren't for a troublesome observation: did this guy really go through drug rehab? Or did the rehabilitation experts just switch his drug to ego?

As Reuters reports via Yahoo:

ABC News and celebrity website Radaronline had Sheen's blood and urine tested, and revealed no drugs in his system for the past 72 hours. "I am on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen. It's not available because if you try it once, you will die," he said in the ABC interview.

Maybe it doesn't cause physical death, but it has been known to kill careers.

Watching this all play out on TV also troubles me. ABC, NBC and CNN are all feeding his unchecked megalomania by letting him rant even more against his show, his producers and his network. CBS is keeping its distance and staying silent, which is about the best it can do in the face of a sitcom star gone wild.

A commenter on Deadline.com suggested this:

There’s a reason why recovering addicts are secluded from the public when they are in a proper rehab facility. Addicts often act out in anti-social behavior and anger when they first transition to sobriety, mostly due to the changes their body chemistry is going through. Since Charlie is being pampered in an at-home “rehab light”, the whole world gets to see his withdrawal symptoms. If Sheen’s people had been smart enough to force him into a real rehab facility, only a therapist would be hearing these rants in private. This behavior will pass in a month or so if Charlie sticks with his sobriety.

Or it would have never happened at all had he been forced to do a 90-day program, in seclusion, in the first place. I serenely hope that's what CBS and Warner Bros. Television and the Two And A Half Men staff all wanted for Charlie. But I don't think he would've gone for that. I also hope some suit didn't suggest some way to get him in and out of rehab as quickly as possible to salvage what was left of the season and protect millions of dollars in advertising and syndication revenue.

Now as it stands, Sheen's show has only cranked out 16 episodes this season, eight less than its contract with CBS. I gather nobody even considered sliding work on those episodes back to late spring or early summer. That's a shame, but networks really don't want to be paying big bucks for shows -- even highly-rated ones -- that will end up airing during the summer when TV viewership drops. At least the show's crew is getting paid. The rest of us get to see a man go down the tubes thinking he's on top.