To squash addiction, get rid of 'Ambiguity' in our attitude

Friday, July 4th 2008, 4:00 AM

Bill: Did you see Dr. Drew Pinsky's special on VH1 this week - the interview with porn star Mary Carey?

Dr. Dave: The theme seemed to be, "Ooh, the crazy things I did when I was high."

Bill: What I did not like was that those "crazy things" were made to sound sexy and attractive. Even worse were Dr. Drew's efforts to justify the show by announcing that "today, in the celebrity world, we're seeing an addiction epidemic." My reaction was, Oh, really? Stupid me; I thought you were putting a porn star on camera for the ratings.

Dr. Dave: Bill, let me put on my clinician's hat for a moment. Do I detect an overly personal note in your objections to Dr. Drew's show?

Bill: What you hear is an angry note. Recovery saved my life. When you and I discuss a troubled star, we focus not on their often bizarre antics, but on practical suggestions that could lead to their recovery.

Dr. Dave: I assume you mean columns like the one we did last week on the spiritual dimension of recovery?

Bill: I was very flattered when a reader who runs a center for spiritual healing asked permission to post that column on his Web site. But Dave, let's get beyond my personal snit. Is there some general lesson for us in Dr. Drew's "Celebrity Rehab" or the series called "Intervention"?

Dr. Dave: The notion that addiction in the celebrity world is epidemic leads me to ask this. Why do they have more substance abuse problems than the rest of us?

Bill: Easy. They have more money.

Dr. Dave: Beyond that, Bill, I feel the problem begins with society's destructive Ambiguity - capital A intended - about drug and alcohol abuse. Remember the way showing up on camera supposedly half-drunk was part of Dean Martin's glamour?

Bill: Or as our fellow Daily News columnist, David Hinckley, puts it, celebrities are "surrounded both by the active enablers they bring into this world of excess with them and the passive enablers who pay obsessive attention to them."

Dr. Dave: Ambiguity means a lack of social standards that act as community pressure against substance abuse. In Europe, southern countries consistently out-drink their northern counterparts. Yet, the northerners have far higher levels of binge drinking and alcohol abuse. The difference begins with the level of social Ambiguity over unhealthy behavior. If you raised a third glass of wine at an Italian table before returning to work, you'd be met with disapproval. In a British pub, you'd get an approving wink and maybe a breath mint.

Bill: This reminds me of our patient intake when I was a peer facilitator at Scripps Medical Center. It was the first time that some kids had ever been in a place where the people most admired were not those who got the highest, but those the community felt most likely to stay sober after rehab was over.