When did rehab become the new Starbucks?

<p>Because surely to deal with the current celebrity stampede, new rehab centres must be springing up on every corner.
As someone who follows life on planet celebrity quite closely, even my sad little brain is struggling to keep track of who’s checked in when and for what. Here’s my rough tally from February alone:

1.    On his 33rd birthday, Robbie Williams admitted himself to rehab in Arizona to deal with his “addiction to prescription medication* ”. This came as a surprise to nobody who attended one of his Australian concerts. Nor presumably, to his mother, a drugs counsellor, who said it was “the best present he could give himself.”
2.    Grinspoon front man Phil Jamieson, [subs: I can’t find his age ANYWHERE], checked into a Sydney detox unit to receive treatment for ice addiction.
3.    Britney, 25, spent one day in an Antigua rehab centre, before bolting back to LA to shave her head and continue ruining her life.
4.    Lindsay Lohan, 20, checked out of LA rehab, Wonderland, where she was free to go out during the day to shop and during the night to dance in clubs. She’s been out clubbing every night since.
5.    Kate Moss’s boyfriend, singer, Pete Doherty, 27, checked in and out of rehab in London for the eleventieth time.

And it’s not just drugs. Last year, Ashely Judd went to visit her sister (singer Wynona Judd) in rehab where she was being treated for food addiction. Soon after, Ashley checked in herself, to deal with a raft of emotional problems including depression, obsessive-compulsive tendencies and co-dependency. “I needed help,” she told Glamour magazine after completing a 47 day program in Texas. “ I was in so much pain.”
After model Amber Valetta beat substance abuse once before, she went to rehab again last year for non substance-related addiction including “work stress and image issues”. Huh?&nbsp; “I am pleased to say I have seven years’ sobriety,” said the model after completing the program. “But I continue every day to heal and grow as a person.”

I’m conflicted about this whole rehab stampede. Categorically, it’s a good thing for anyone to deal with their addiction and get help. And if an avalanche of celebrities seeking treatment removes some of the stigma? Then three cheers for that. But at what point does rehab become too socially acceptable? When does all this celebrity stuff start to make rehab sound like a little holiday? And how much is it trivialising addiction?  I’ve never been to rehab but I’m guessing it’s no walk in the park. I do know people who’ve beaten substance abuse and they say it’s ugly, difficult and something you have to keep working at for forever. Trivial it ain’t.
When I was younger, the spectre of drug addiction and the mess it would make of your life was a powerful deterrent. Rehab was somewhere Liz Taylor and LIza Minelli went. The opposite of cool. But today we have a generation of kids as young as nine growing up watching their idols breezily check in and out of rehab. How could they possibly see it as anything other than a fast fix? A way to maybe meet Lindsay Lohan. Or date Robbie Williams.
One of the biggest obstacles faced by safe sex educators is that teens blithely think no-one dies from HIV or AIDS anymore – you simply take a few pills until they find a cure any minute.  I’m starting to worry they’ll apply this same ‘whatever’ attitude to drugs and booze. ‘Who cares if I get addicted? I’ll just check into rehab, hang out with Britney, get some sleep, maybe a massage and then check out. And if I slip up? I’ll just go back for a rehab top-up. Or whatever. Now pass me that crack pipe.’
In LA, certain AA meetings have become a career opportunity, with paparazzi staking out several venues popular with celebrities. As gossip site Popbitch recently noted, “Wannabes can often be seen queuing outside Friday AA gatherings on Melrose (in LA) for hours in the hope of attracting a photographer’s attention.”
Even further along the scary scale are the celebs who use rehab purely to rehabilitate their image. This is where things become farcical. Grey’s Anatomy star, Isaiah Washington admitted himself to rehab for homophobia after twice calling his gay co-star a “faggot” in public. Does this not make a total mockery of rehab? What on earth do you do in homophobia rehab anyway? Sing Kylie Minogue songs and watch repeats of Queer Eye?
Such activities would certainly be banned at the rehab attended by American evangelical priest Ted Haggard. After a gay prostitute revealed Mr Haggard (a married father who condemned homosexuality from his pulpit) had paid him for sex during a three-year relationship, the preacher checked into, yes, rehab. After three weeks of intensive counselling, Haggard emerged to announce he is “completely heterosexual.”
Meanwhile back in Hollywood, a whole new economy is springing up around the rehab industry. Popbitch last week claimed: “Young drunks such as Lindsay Lohan have so many hangers-on whose boozy coke-fuelled lifestyle depends on their celebrity patron staying on the party circuit that managers and movie executives are hiring whole new entourages to baby-sit their post-rehab clients.” You’ve seen Entourage. Stay tuned for the spin-off: Sobriety Entourage.