Expert: Rehab 'Train Wrecks' More Interesting than Successes

LOS ANGELES, July 24, 2007 (KABC-TV) (KABC) -- Out of rehab for less than two weeks, actress Lindsay Lohan is arrested on drunk driving and drug charges. Her arrest raises questions about how well rehab works.

You see people go in and out of treatment centers. That makes many wonder whether rehab really works. One man who has worked with many celebrity clients tells Eyewitness News that the road to recovery is often a long and tortured journey before a person hits bottom.

Video images captured Lindsay Lohan in a bikini, and a not-so-fashionable accessory -- TMZ.com video shows her SCRAM ankle bracelet. It monitors alcohol concentrations through the skin and was supposed to help her recovery. The 21-year-old starlet just completed her second stint in a rehab center on July 13.

"Unfortunately, addicts, alcoholics are very hard-headed," said Howard Samuels, director of the Wonderland facility. "They're very stubborn, they're very hard-headed -- like me [laughs]. So it takes, unfortunately, a lot of pain to shift that."

Samuels has been there. A former addict, he has served prison time. Today, he's the director of Wonderland, Lohan's first treatment center. Relapse, he says, is part of the recovery process.

"They don't really want to take direction. They don't really want to take advice," said Samuels.

Samuels says recovery may be more difficult for celebrities -- Mel Gibson and Britney Spears are familiar with the revolving door. So are Tom Sizemore and Daniel Baldwin, who have had multiple relapses. Robert Downey Jr. had relapses too, before his comeback.

Samuels says the stars struggle with their own celebrity.

"That addiction to needed to be in the limelight," said Samuels. "That addiction to money, that addiction to 'Don't you know who I am?' Because that's the problem. 'Don't you know who I am?'"

When it comes to relapses, Samuels says celebrities simply get more attention.

"We're more interested in the train wreck than success stories," said Samuels.

What about deluxe treatment centers? Can wealthy clients come to their senses in a resort-like setting? Samuels says that in many cases, it is the only way to get them there.

"It takes away that excuse of, 'I can't go there because it's a dump,'" said Samuels. "So we take that excuse away from the addict or alcoholic, we make it inviting in order to seduce them into recovery."

Treatment can be very expensive. In the upscale treatment centers, for 30 days it can be as much as $40,000-dollars -- and that doesn't include any "magic bullet" for a cure. That has to come from the commitment inside the individual.

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