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Frat Sex Scandal; Casey Anthony`s Defense Strategy; Self-Help Guru Trial Update
Aired March 30, 2011 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: Coming up on THE JOY BEHAR SHOW, a college fraternity member caught having sex on a campus rooftop. Is this standard behavior for America`s co-eds? Or could it be evidence of a growing mindset that women are conquests. We`ll explore the raging controversy.
Then, with Charlie Sheen making a mockery of Addicts and Alcoholics Anonymous, Dr. Drew stops by to set the record straight on addiction.
Plus, will the Casey Anthony verdict come down to science or will jurors get swept up in the emotions of the case. We`ll analyze.
That and more starting right now.
LAURI DHUE, HLN GUEST HOST: Hi, everybody. I`m Laurie Dhue sitting in for Joy Behar tonight.
A University of Southern California Kappa Sigma member has been suspended from his fraternity after he was caught on camera having sex with a woman on the roof of the building on campus. Now, Kappa Sig is the very same fraternity that recently landed in a lot of hot water after one of its members wrote a very misogynistic manifesto describing college girls as targets and actually rating their sexual skills.
So are these just crazy college kids doing what college kids do and having sex? Or is fraternity culture on campus getting out of control?
Joining me to discuss this are Tucker Max, author of "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" and "A-Holes Finish First" -- classy; and Lisa Bloom, founding partner of thebloomfirm.com. Lisa great to see you.
LISA BLOOM, FOUNDING PARTNER, THEBLOOMFIRM.COM: And you too, Laurie.
DHUE: Thanks for being here tonight, guys. You know, the blogosphere is going nuts over this. A couple of my favorite comments are "I hope those Trojans were using Trojans." And "Boy, they`re college kids having sex. Surely there is something more newsworthy than this."
Well, apparently not. We`re talking about it. Everybody is talking about it. Lisa, isn`t this just what college kids do?
BLOOM: Well, look, I don`t care if consensual adults are having sex and I`m assuming they are both over the average of 18. The problem is that the generation now are engaging in sexually adventurous risky behavior like we`ve all done for generations -- it gets caught on tape and it can ruin your reputation forever. Those pictures are out there, they are not going away, and the ones that on the Internet don`t have that nice little red ribbon over them so you can see the girl`s face and the guy`s face.
That`s the problem. I think this generation has to be even more careful than my generation was when we were out there streaking and mooning.
DHUE: Hey Tucker, it seems to me like these people obviously wanted to be seen. It seemed like they planned the whole thing. You had somebody up at eye level on a building maybe across from them so they could take pictures of the whole thing.
What`s your take on this? I can`t wait to hear.
TUCKER MAX, AUTHOR, "I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL": I mean my understanding, too, is they did it during a philanthropy event when there was like a bunch of people underneath. Of course, they wanted to be seen. That`s part of the humor and part of the thrill, is the discovery.
I don`t see what the big deal is. I mean if they -- so what if their pictures are on the Internet. They made that decision. They can live with the consequences, both positive and negative. Who cares? It`s their lives, not yours.
DHUE: You don`t think there`s something at all more sinister at play here, say sort of propelling forth the notion that women are objects?
MAX: No. Look --
DHUE: I`m just throwing it out there.
MAX: Young men do stupid things and young women do stupid things. That`s part of being young. That`s part of how you learn. What you should be doing is by doing things you shouldn`t be doing. That`s what they are doing. That`s what college is about. It`s not really a big deal at all.
BLOOM: Yes. So says the author of "A-Holes Finish First", right?
MAX: Right. Exactly.
BLLOM: I mean, people are engaging in this behavior but I have two kids in college. One of them is a girl, and I talked to her and a lot of their friends and they say that they see the hook-up culture as really destructive to girls. It`s basically guys get whatever they want. They can get the quick hook-up or they can get the relationship.
But girls feel kind of stuck in this world where in truth they want a boyfriend and it`s very hard to get one because the guys just want the hook ups. And so, if you go up on the roof with the guy, you can have a little fun but you`re not going to get the relationship, which is what most girls are looking for.
DHUE: Yes. I mean what happened to personal standards and accountability here? I know I sound like a fuddy-duddy. Believe me I once was in college and I`m not saying I engaged in this particular type of behavior but I know plenty of people who had sex in public.
So I`m not trying to sound like somebody`s mother here. But, you know, it just kind of makes you wonder, Tucker, what is happening here?
MAX: I don`t understand. I don`t think there`s any problem or conflict. If you want to have a boyfriend, there`s a very simple way to do that. Only date guys. Don`t hang out with the guys who only want to hook up. They are easy to avoid. They are easy to spot. Clearly that girl on the roof had no problem.
BLOOM: Yes. It`s not easy, though.
MAX: Yes, it is. It`s real easy. It`s simple.
(CROSSTALK)
BLOOM: No, because if you`re in a culture of where this is what all of the guys want --
MAX: I mean, come on, really? I mean, really. On one hand you say what happened to personal accountability and on the other hand you`re saying, but they can`t help it, they are forced into this situation. You have to pick a side of the road. That`s total BS.
(CROSSTALK)
DHUE: I want to show you --
BLOOM: I`m not saying anybody was forced into it, Tucker, but I`m saying there`s a certain culture that a lot of the girls find very oppressive because --
MAX: Ok. Then don`t be involved in that culture.
(CROSSTALK)
BLOOM: -- this is really the only option for them.
DHUE: Hang on one second. I want to read this statement --
(CROSSTALK)
DHUE: guys, just for a sec, I want to show you what the Kappa Sigma president had to say about this and then we will discuss. Here is his quote, "We in no way support this kind of behavior, nor do we promote any other such actions. The member in question has been suspended from Kappa Sigma for conduct unbecoming of a Kappa Sigma and a gentleman."
I mean, Tucker, isn`t this exactly the type of conduct that fraternities are known for?
MAX: Listen, I don`t know anyone in Kappa Sig. I wasn`t even in a fraternity in college. So I don`t want to be like the spokesman for frats, either positive or negative. But I mean -- I don`t know.
Clearly they are saying this because they got in a lot of trouble a couple of weeks ago for an e-mail and they don`t want to get into more trouble. They don`t want to get kicked off campus. They don`t want to get distanced or kicked out for their national organization or something.
What do you expect them to say? Do you expect them to say we think this is really funny? Even if it is? He`s not going to say that.
DHUE: No, but the whole to me seems like a joke. I mean "conduct unbecoming". He`s going to be punished.
MAX: It is.
DHUE: We know it`s conduct unbecoming. But bottom line is this guy is not going to be punished.
MAX: I mean the school might punish him.
BLOOM: By the way, we should have fairness here, no double standards. If he`s punished, I don`t know why the girl isn`t punished, too. Because there are two people who are apparently engaging in consensual sex.
(CROSSTALK)
DHUE: She is not a USC student, at least according to reports out there. I don`t know who she is. But she was obviously a willing participant in this whole thing.
BLOOM: Yes.
DHUE: But Lisa, let me bring up something. There`s something called eduhookup.com.
BLOOM: Yes.
DHUE: And this is the college networking site that`s facilitating casual sex. So literally, not for dating, not for finding a boyfriend or girlfriend, it`s for hooking up and that`s that.
And Tucker I`ll ask you about this in a minute but what about blaming the Internet? Is it legit to blame the Internet -- Tucker, I already know your answer. Are you going to walk off the set or are you going to stick around?
MAX: No, I`m not going to walk off the set. This is like comical though. I thought these conversations were done in 2002.
DHUE: Well, sorry.
(CROSSTALK)
BLOOM: This is something -- if I could just respond to that. Because this is really a concern to college women. And it might be funny to Tucker and to a lot of guys, but it`s a little bit more complicated than just saying well, these are two people who consent to sex, so the end. Because there`s a real culture that`s going in colleges and the people even their 20s today, where girls feel like they are really not getting what they want.
And there`s a culture where they feel that either they get a hook up or they get nothing. They hook up with a guy, which we all know means have sex with him, hoping that there`s going to be a relationship and he just moves on to the next because frankly I think males are maturing a little bit slower than females which has been going on for a long time.
DHUE: Yes.
BLOOM: The Internet is only encouraging that by eduhookup.com and those kinds of sites where guys are just getting more and more hook ups and girls are getting more and more frustrated with the whole culture.
DHUE: Tucker, I heard you sigh several times. You`ve sighed a lot since you started this segment. But I know that --
(CROSSTALK)
BLOOM: He`s doing deep-breathing exercises the whole time.
MAX: I mean like your arguments are like preposterous. First off Adult Friend Finder existed over years ago which is the exact same thing except it`s not targeted specifically at colleges. People have been finding each other to hook up -- I mean classifieds existed for years. Like these sorts of things --
(CROSSTALK)
DHUE: Yes. But now there is a whole Web site for it.
MAX: People have been finding each other and hooking up just to hook up forever. That`s why bars exist, ok? The idea that the Internet is creating this is just -- I don`t even -- it`s so ridiculous and preposterous, I feel like I`m talking to like literally people from like 10 or 20 years ago. I don`t see where --
(CROSSTALK)
DHUE: Gee, I`m really sorry you feel that way. Gosh.
BLOOM: Yes. Nobody said, by the way, the Internet created it. What I`m talking about is a culture that a lot of women complain about. If you talk to girls who are in college and they really open up to you, many of them will tell you they are really dissatisfied with that culture.
MAX: I promise you I talk to more girls in college than you do. And there`s a very simple solution if you don`t like that culture. It`s very simple. Don`t be involved in it. There are plenty of guys --
BLOOM: Don`t go to college?
MAX: No, don`t be involved in the hook up culture.
DHUE: Ok. Well, thank you for that advice. I`m going to take that advice to heart now because earlier I was going to hook up Web sites but now I`m not going to.
Thank you very much. Tucker Max, Lisa Bloom, great discussion. Thanks for that.
We`ll be right back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LAURIE DHUE: Trial time is nearing for Casey Anthony, the young woman accused of murdering her daughter Caylee back in 2008. The two-year-old`s remains were found in a laundry bag with duct tape and a little heart sticker over her mouth.
Now, a lot of circumstantial evidence is making up the state`s case against Casey but her defense team appears to be working every single angle to help the accused murderer before the trial is set to begin in early May. Now, today some new news to tell you about. There is a news report that says that Casey`s defense team has billed the state of Florida over $100,000 for their efforts.
Joining us to discuss all of this: Stacey Honowitz, Florida prosecutor; and on the set with me here in New York, Midwin Charles, criminal defense attorney. Ladies good to see both of you.
MIDWIN CHARLES, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Good to see you too.
DHUE: Thanks for being here.
STACEY HONOWITZ, FLORIDA PROSECUTOR: Hi.
DHUE: Stacey, let me start with you. $100,000 now billed to your state of Florida; it seems pretty outrageous to me. What`s your take on that?
HONOWITZ: Well, I`m sure that the people that live in the state of Florida are outraged by that but I have to tell you in all honesty you`re dealing with a high-profile first-degree murder case. And so while it seems to be so, so high to the general public, the bottom line is, when you start feeding these experts and they have to testify and they have to come in and review and generate their own reports, this is the type of financing that you`re talking about.
So to me being in this business it doesn`t sound so outrageous for a case of this magnitude.
DHUE: All right. Let`s move on and talk about the recent speculation that Casey`s defense may try to pin the murder on Casey`s father George.
Now, George`s attorney caught wind of this potential strategy and he released a statement. Let`s show that statement now.
"George Anthony had nothing to do with the death of Caylee Marie Anthony. He has been investigated, deposed, examined and cross-examined by both the prosecution and the defense and neither the defense team nor the state of Florida have maintained that he is in any way at fault."
Midwin, it seems like they are reaching a little bit here. What on earth was the defense thinking here in trying to pin this on her father?
CHARLES: You know what, look, perhaps they are embarking on that strategy of throw everything and let`s see what sticks. I mean, after all, this guy has never been arrested and they don`t have any evidence or facts to back any sort of claim that he had anything to do with her disappearance.
DHUE: Do you think grasping at straws here, just trying to, you know, smoke in mirrors to get the attention away?
CHARLES: Perhaps smoke in mirrors. But you know sometimes you don`t want anybody to laugh at you, right? After all, it has to pass the laugh test.
I think what they ought to do is focus primarily on the -- the evidence, the scientific evidence because it`s going to become a battle of the experts.
DHUE: And we`re going to turn to that in a minute. But Stacey, real quick, the defense is going to try to show that George is abusive and that his suicide attempt shows that he felt guilty about the whole thing. Could blaming her father actually work?
HONOWITZ: Absolutely not. I mean, you might find somebody that says, "Well, that sounds plausible." But it`s really, you know, theater of the absurd. There is no evidence linking him in any way, shape, or form to this murder and, bottom line is what you said, it`s called grasping at straws.
There`s a ton of circumstantial evidence in this case, there`s a ton of scientific evidence in this case, there`s a lot for the defense to overcome and so that`s what you start doing. You start placing the blame on other people. But it`s not going to fly in this case at all.
DHUE: All right, so let`s talk about the science of the case. Casey`s lawyers are now moving to strike certain experts from the witness list. One who examined hair that was found in Caylee`s trunk -- the trunk of the car. Another expert who examined some plant growth around where the little tiny body was found.
How come, Stacey? Why -- why do they want to strike these and do you think it will work?
HONOWITZ: Well, I mean, at minimum they`ll tell you the defense that`s primarily what their job is. This is expert unbelievable scientific evidence. While it`s novel and it`s new, the judge has to make the decision as to whether or not it`s scientifically reliable and if it`s accepted in the scientific community. That`s the hearings that they`re going through right now.
This evidence is crucial for the prosecution. While it won`t make or break the case, it certainly lends itself some expertise in whether or not the body was where it -- where they said the body was, whether or not there was chloroform in the trunk.
I mean, all of these little pieces of the puzzle is what the jury is going to want to hear and scientific evidence is the best way to go with something like that.
DHUE: Midwin, you`re nodding your head. Go ahead.
CHARLES: You know, I think she`s absolutely right. Remember, this case is circumstantial. There are no eye witnesses. No one saw her do anything to this little girl. So the prosecution really is facing an uphill battle in the sense where all they have are these sort of facts. Or the claim that there was perhaps chloroform, and the remains of the body and what sort of -- how long did it take for the -- the little grass under the body to grow, thereby trying to show, how long was the body there? That`s really all that they have to go on in this case.
DHUE: Casey`s parents are both on the record of saying that Casey`s trunk -- trunk of her car smelled like a dead body.
CHARLES: Yes.
DHUE: I want us to listen to Cindy Anthony`s 911 call from a couple of years ago.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
CINDY ANTHONY, CASEY ANTHONY`S MOTHER: There`s something wrong. I found my daughter`s car today and it smells like there`s been a dead body in the damn car.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DHUE: Midwin, if the defense succeeds in striking the experts. Do you think that they`re going to point to evidence like this 911 call?
CHARLES: Oh, oh, they are. You know, they totally are. And I think -- or at least the prosecution will to bolster their case. And I was actually surprised when Judge Perry, who is a Chief Judge in Florida, allowed this evidence in. I thought perhaps there was an evidentiary exclusion that would keep it out.
But I wouldn`t be surprised if they relied on her. Listen to her voice on that tape, Laurie. If you do, you will see that this is a woman who has a lot of conviction and she`s really upset.
DHUE: She`s frantic.
CHARLES: She`s frantic. Yes so I think --
(CROSS TALK)
DHUE: And what does that tell you?
CHARLES: It lends credibility to what she`s saying. That`s really all it tells you.
HONOWITZ: In Florida, it`s called excited utterance. The testimony can come in.
CHARLES: Exactly.
HONOWITZ: And the bottom line is, I mean, her opinion testimony as to what she smelled in the car is credible because she was a nurse. She had the -- because she knew what a dead body smelled like. So she is credible and now the back-pedalling is something that you`d expect to see. She`s the mother of the defendant in this case --
DHUE: Yes.
HONOWITZ: But that evidence is very important for the prosecution to have in.
DHUE: All right, Midwin, I`m going to give you the last point here. Bottom line is, Casey is not likeable.
CHARLES: She`s not.
DHUE: She appears to be self-absorbed, arrogant, her behavior is arguably pathological. If you were defending her what are you telling her to do right now?
CHARLES: Well, at this point there isn`t much she herself can do. If I were defending her at the very beginning, my initial advice would have been, shut up. Keep your mouth shut.
She did a lot of talking in the very beginning, even when she was in jail and when the video cameras were going and when she was talking with her parents and with her brother. There were phone calls that were recorded.
DHUE: Yes.
CHARLES: My advice to her would have been, keep your mouth shut. At this point --
DHUE: Too little, too late?
CHARLES: Exactly. Exactly.
DHUE: Sit tight ladies. Some gut-wrenching testimony in the sweat lodge trial of that self-help guru James Arthur Ray. We`re going to continue our discussion with our legal panel in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DHUE: Testimony continued today in the trial of James Arthur Ray, he`s that self-help guru who`s accused of reckless manslaughter in the death of three people in that Arizona sweat lodge back in October of 2009. The prosecutors are saying that Ray forced them into the sweat lodge and then encouraged them to stay despite dangerously high temperatures in there.
Today, testimony from a paramedic and yesterday the state`s first medical expert took the stand. So could this trial, like that of Casey Anthony, also come down to science?
Meantime, Ray`s mother is coming forward to defend her son but will that help at all at this stage in the game? I`m back with Stacey Honowitz, Florida prosecutor and Midwin Charles, criminal defense attorney and founder of law firm Midwin Charles and Associates right here in New York.
So Midwin, let me come to you. The defense attorney is questioning the expert about symptoms of poisoning. What do you think they are trying to get out of this?
CHARLES: Well, I think what they`re trying to do is see if they can perhaps introduce doubt and some sort of intervening factor that might have caused the death of those three people. Remember three people did die here and 20 were hospitalized with complications and injuries.
DHUE: So they are saying possible pesticide poisoning and that`s what caused their death, not the extreme heat?
CHARLES: That`s what it looks to me as though what they`re trying to do. I don`t know how plausible that is because there were other people there who didn`t become ill either.
DHUE: Yes. I think 40 or 50 people were not -- didn`t have symptoms at all.
(CROSSTALK)
CHARLES: Exactly.
DHUE: So Stacey, you know, we were just talking about this in the Casey Anthony case. There`s a lot of emotion in that case. In this one as well. But do you think it`s all going to come down to science when we talk when we`re talking about cause of death, et cetera?
HONOWITZ: Well, I think in this case, you know, the idea that they are trying to raise this doubt is really what they need to do because, like you and Midwin just said, the bottom line is that they are trying to try to say it was pesticides, why wasn`t everybody else sickened in the tent that was there.
There is science -- there is medical evidence here and maybe they are trying to figure out what the cause of death is. And it could come down to that because that`s what the defense will argue. We don`t have a definite cause of death because some people said it was this and other people said it was that.
DHUE: And that`s why this is not necessarily going to be a slam dunk for the prosecution.
HONOWITZ: Correct.
DHUE: Witness after witness have come forward saying that the victims wanted help and that he denied them but is that enough to prove that he caused death? It doesn`t seem like it.
HONOWITZ: Well, in the manslaughter, of course, the standard of proof -- not standard of proof, but what you have to prove is less than, of course, a first-degree murder case. They have to prove his recklessness and certainly there were dangerous conditions. And he saw these dangerous conditions and he prevented these people from leaving. Then yes, he can be convicted of that, of manslaughter.
And in this case, I think, the prosecution is also trying to show that there was some sort of mind control, that he really -- almost like cult like, like he forced these people to stay, they believed what he had to say, they were kind of taken in by him and so that`s why this took place.
DHUE: Ok. My last point here, Ray`s mother Joyce Ray came out to defend her son. Let`s play her sound bite.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOYCE RAY, MOTHER OF JAMES ARTHUR RAY: I think he`s being portrayed as a real cruel human being, as someone that has no feelings for anyone, that just wants to be a dictator, so to speak, you know. And that isn`t him at all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DHUE: Midwin, final 20 seconds are for you. Of course his mother came to his defense, what do you expect her to? But a lot of evidence and testimony suggest that Ray did have kind of a God complex.
CHARLES: He probably did. I mean this is a guy who is uber successful with his business, with being a life coach. So it would not be surprising if did have some sort of complex. I recently read an interview he gave to "New York" Magazine in January of 2010 where he was asked, has this money and fame gotten to your head and he said, who wouldn`t?
DHUE: Perfect point. Midwin Charles, Stacey Honowitz; ladies great to see both of you. Thank you.
CHARLES: Great to see you, too.
HONOWITZ: Thank you.
DHUE: When we come back, addiction is a very serious issue facing this country and recovery from addiction is something that I personally take very seriously, but has Charlie Sheen helped prolong the social stigma against addiction?
I`m going to be setting record straight with Dr. Drew and some other guests coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DHUE: A few weeks back it was all about Charlie Sheen and his unusual and rather disturbing behavior. But he`s been noticeably quiet lately and seemed to have dialed back his act. Perhaps he`s saving it for the comedy tour he`s going to be kicking off this coming Saturday or maybe the new improv show he will appear on with Drew Carey in a couple of weeks.
Now, despite the insanity we`ve seen, it appears that the tiger blood meltdown has not hurt Charlie Sheen one bit, but it may have hurt and insulted countless others. Listen to him during his appearance on "Piers Morgan."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLIE SHEEN, ACTOR: I don`t believe myself to be an addict. I really don`t. I think that I`m just going to ignore, or smash, or finally dismiss a model that I think is rooted in vintage balderdash, for lack of a better word.
PIERS MORGAN, CNN: What would you call yourself if you`re not an addict?
CHARLIE SHEEN: I mean, what`s another word?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DHUE: So he says he`s not an addict and he certainly has a great deal of disdain for rehab and the whole recovery process, including Alcoholics Anonymous. As a recovering alcoholic myself, I personally was insulted by Charlie Sheen`s comments. I know firsthand how important and how valuable recovery is. I suffered with my alcoholism in silence and hid it for many years, close to 15. But four years ago, I realized that I had a terrible problem and it was time for me to get help, and so I did.
One thing is for certain, I`m not alone in this battle. There are millions of people out there with this disease of addiction, many of whom are suffering in silence, the way I did. You add all those people up and what you get is a health care crisis in this country that needs to be dealt with and dealt with now.
Joining me to discuss are Dr. Drew Pinsky, addiction specialist whose nightly show is going to be premiering this coming Monday, April 4th, at 9:00 p.m. on HLN. And actor Jeremy London, former star of "Party of Five" and "Seventh Heaven," who was featured on season four of "Dr. Drew`s Celebrity Rehab." Gentlemen, it`s good to see both of you.
DR. DREW PINSKY, ADDICTION SPECIALIST: Thank you and congratulations.
DHUE: Oh, thank you very much. I`m very happy about my four-year anniversary. Feels great to be--
(CROSSTALK)
DHUE: So Charlie Sheen says addiction is not a disease. I beg to differ. I have a feeling both of you would, too. Dr. Drew, do you think people in this country believe that as well, that addiction is not a disease?
PINSKY: Yes, there is a lot of confusion about what it is and what it is not. And people in this country have great difficulty getting their head around brain diseases generally, particularly those that affect our thinking and affect our will.
Addiction is a disorder of motivation. It affects the area called the medial forebrain bundle, and there`s just no doubt that it`s a biological disorder in a certain region of the brain that distorts motivation and as such, distorts thinking and feelings and all the other systems in our brain.
Now, those people -- by the way, let me just say -- those people who have an issue with whether something is or is not a disease, I challenge them first to define disease. If you can come up with a definition for disease that encompasses all diseases, you will find that addiction fits those models quite nicely.
DHUE: Right. Do you think we`re going to see a day when people view addiction the way that we do other diseases, such as cancer or HIV?
PINSKY: I absolutely do. Addiction is the current really most profound misconception is that it`s an acute illness like a pneumonia, when in fact it`s a chronic illness closer to diabetes or asthma. And you know, we don`t say insulin doesn`t work when somebody`s blood sugar goes out of control. We adjust their insulin, bring them into the hospital, look at what their treatment needs are, and we get things back going again. We say we have a good treatment and it works. It just needs adjusting once in a while.
The same thing is true with addiction. It`s a chronic, daily need for treatment. The treatment works, and occasionally it needs to be adjusted. There are relapses, just like there are relapses in diabetes.
DHUE: That`s right. Let me bring Jeremy into this. I just want to point out, that, you know, from my own opinion, this is not a flaw in character, it`s a flaw in chemistry, and it`s not curable but it`s treatable. That`s what is so gray out there.
JEREMY LONDON, ACTOR: Absolutely.
DHUE: So Jeremy, let`s talk a little bit about you. First of all, what do you think about Charlie Sheen`s behavior?
LONDON: It`s tragic. It really is. You know, it`s so obviously sort of the culmination of years of drug abuse completely annihilating his brain. I think Dr. Drew, we had a discussion and talked about psychosis when you get past a certain point, and I think Dr. Drew predicted the ego inflation. Everything that is happening, I`ve heard Dr. Drew predict, this type of behavior. If it fits into that model, it`s obviously a predictable model with a very bad outcome if it doesn`t get treated, and the worst thing of all is denial.
DHUE: And it seems to me that Charlie Sheen is in nothing but denial. It seems to me that he refuses to take responsibility for this and he refuses the basic principle that you`ve got to admit you have a problem before you seek treatment for it, and I don`t think he`s willing to admit that he`s got a problem.
(CROSSTALK)
PINSKY: That`s right, Jeremy, it`s very true. And he really has two problems. He has addiction with denial that is a feature of addiction. Denial is a defining feature of the condition. But he also has now, and this is again, based on my observations of him, just like if I were observing any other patient or reading about any case describing their behavior, I can say pretty easily when someone has something called hypomania. It`s a very simple thing to sort of to diagnose. It`s like diagnosing a rash or anything else. But that is a secondary phenomena to his primary problem, which is addiction.
And unfortunately, people in this inflated state of hypomania feel like they understand things in a very special way and it begs no alternatives. So it`s not somebody you can easily talk to in a rational way.
DHUE: Jeremy, you`ve been very forthcoming about your own addiction and your battle with that. How are you doing right now? How much sobriety do you have?
LONDON: Eighteen months since I`ve been addicted to anything.
DHUE: Congratulations. That`s a big chunk of time, so I want to congratulation you on that.
LONDON: That`s a huge chunk of time. I don`t even think about it anymore. It`s great. I`m just -- I`m motivated, I`m a dad, and I got so many things going on right now. I don`t even have time for that garbage. It`s amazing how many things you can actually get accomplished in your life if you don`t put those restraints on yourself.
And I really feel like Charlie probably feels like he`s succeeding right now and winning, but we all know what the end result of this is going to be, and he`s apparently going to do it live on stage. Good luck.
DHUE: I don`t know what you`re insinuating there, but, look, whatever we`re going to be watching on stage, who knows if people are actually going to go, we do know that he`s going to make $7 million off of it, which is, you know, somewhat appalling.
PINSKY: Incredible.
LONDON: He`ll have a $7 million funeral. Great.
PINSKY: I hope not.
DHUE: Maybe he`s getting his act together. We can only hope and pray. You know, let`s talk about for a minute hiding it. That`s something that I did for many, many years, because I was afraid to admit that I had a problem, and perhaps Jeremy you were afraid, too. Did you hide your addiction?
LONDON: Absolutely. You know, I think that I thought I probably was hiding it a lot better than I did, obviously, because the people around me knew. But I think that I tricked myself into believing that it wasn`t a problem more than anything. And then all of a sudden you just are sick all the time, and you go, I don`t have a problem. I`m just sick all the time.
DHUE: But you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, at least that`s how I felt.
PINSKY: Right. And the people you can further delude yourself, because people who are successfully hiding it, so you start feeling as though you`re managing it OK, you`re functioning well at work. And the reality is, work is the last place that gets affected by addiction, and once the workplace is affected, you`re in very, very serious trouble.
DHUE: For many addicts like me and maybe like Jeremy, it was preferable to stay in the closet. That`s what I did for about 15 years. We don`t want to admit that we have a problem. Dr. Drew, do you think it`s because of the stigma that is still very much attached to addiction in this country?
PINSKY: There`s two things, Laurie. One is in fact that stigma. That it is -- people who have addiction are deeply ashamed of it. And I`ve got to tell you, as someone that works with addicts, it`s bizarre to see people that are such a rich population of humans, like you and Jeremy, to have to feel ashamed about a liability that is just inherent in their genetic makeup. It`s not your fault. You don`t have to feel guilty about it. But yes, indeed, because of the stigma, people have great difficulty doing so. And of course, your disease loves that, don`t forget. Your diseases loves to keep it quiet. The disease loves to use that shame as a justification, as a rationalization for continuing in the denial state that you`re in.
DHUE: Jeremy, let me go to you before we have to go to a break. Since revealing your drug addiction and in the last 18 months of your recovery, have you ever felt stigmatized, particularly there in Hollywood?
LONDON: Absolutely. And one of the things that is angering me a lot about this whole Charlie Sheen thing is that, I was a victim of a violent crime that did involve drugs, and because of that, I was vilified. I was made fun of. I was absolutely annihilated because of it, and now Charlie Sheen is being lauded for it and being praised for his behavior.
DHUE: Jeremy, let me just take a break in and remind our audience--
(CROSSTALK)
DHUE: Let me just break in and remind our audience of what happened to you. You actually were kidnapped at gunpoint -- and we`re going to get to that a little bit later. But you certainly experienced a trauma that most of us do not have to experience, and I can`t even imagine what that was like for you. We`re going to get to that coming up in the next segment here. I want everybody to stay here because right after the break, my friend, HLN`s Jane Velez-Mitchell is going to be right here on set with me to share her own very personal story of addiction and recovery.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PINSKY: For both of you guys, nothing is more important for your son than your sobriety.
LONDON: Absolutely.
PINSKY: He doesn`t need a dead mommy or a dead daddy. He doesn`t need a loaded mommy or loaded daddy. He needs you to take care of your health. Initially apart. I just want -- I think some separation--
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I agree 100 percent.
PINSKY: OK. And then you figure out what to do with each other later.
LONDON: I`m glad this all happened. It answers a lot of questions for me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DHUE: That was Jeremy London and Dr. Drew Pinsky on "Celebrity Rehab," showing the harsh realities of getting clean. And indeed they can be harsh. Jeremy and Dr. Drew are back with me now, and joining the conversation is my friend Jane Velez-Mitchell, recovering alcoholic and host of HLN`s "Issues With Jane Velez-Mitchell," of course. She is also the author of "Addict Nation: An Intervention for America." Jane, I`m so glad you`re here. Great to talk to you as a fellow alcoholic.
JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HLN: Congratulations on your sobriety.
DHUE: Thank you. And you, too, I understand you just celebrated 16 years.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: In two days, 16 years!
DHUE: Great, terrific.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Who would have thunk it. One day at a time. Thank you, Dr. Drew. Thank you.
DHUE: All right. So I was what they call a high-functioning alcoholic. And you know, Whoopi Goldberg recently revealed that she was a high- functioning drug addict. She believes that Charlie Sheen was a high- functioning drug addict. Were you high-functioning? Did you think you were high-functioning?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yeah, I told myself I was very high-functioning. The question is, was I? Everybody learns their rules of alcoholism from someone. I learned them from my dad. My dad was an alcoholic. He was an advertising executive, and you might consider him a high-functioning alcoholic. He went to work every day.
That was his mantra. I will never miss a day of work, no matter what. So I took that to heart, and I never missed a day of work. Maybe there were some days I should have, however, because I went into work severely hung over. Anybody who tells themselves that they are drinking, if they are drinking to excess, is not impacting every area of their lives, is lying to themselves. And there were many days where I should have stayed home and called in sick because I wasn`t high-functioning at all.
DHUE: Let me tell you, I`ve been there myself. Back when I had my own show on a different network, I would go in hung over two or three mornings a week, and I knew that I was not delivering my perfect best. I was letting myself down, I was letting the audience down, and ultimately it made me feel terrible.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: But you know the great thing, now that I`m sober, everything seems easy.
DHUE: Everything, I know--
VELEZ-MITCHELL: By comparison. We made life so much more difficult for ourselves.
DHUE: Right.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: And now it`s like a breeze, no matter how hard it is.
DHUE: And I feel like nothing is unconquerable. You know what I mean? Feel like we can conquer anything that comes our way, and that`s because we`re living in a sober way. And Dr. Drew, I think I`m hearing your affirmations here, and Jeremy, you too.
PINSKY: Yes. I just want to say that you guys are speaking -- first of all, I get actually thrilled when I hear recovering people talk like this. But the average person does not really appreciate the meaning of what you guys are talking about, how incredibly difficult it is to live every day without drugs and alcohol.
Let me summarize this. A friend of mine said this, a guy I work with the other day, and maybe you guys will appreciate this. Because you guys have a flourishing life, you have great careers, and I hope you have great relationships and everything is going well in your life, and this was the case for this friend of mine. And he leaned over to me and he`s been nine years sober and he has been very successful in sobriety and he leans in and he goes, you know, but I still haven`t found anything I love as much as drugs and alcohol. And I thought, wow, that`s so powerful. That brain chemistry is so powerful with this disease, and every day you`ve got to fight against it so that everything else is easy by comparison.
DHUE: Well, Dr. Drew, I can tell you that I love recovery just as much as I actually loved alcohol, and I`m proud to say that. I know it sounds hokey, but my life today is so much better than it was four years ago, it`s just immeasurable.
So Jeremy, what got you clean and sober? Did you hit rock bottom, or were you just like me, just really tired of being tired?
LONDON: I was really more just tired of being tired. I was ready just to be a dad, be a responsible person. I was tired of being sick all the time, tired of lying to myself, tired of wasting money. It just all became just ridiculous. It was affecting my career, my marriage was -- I was losing everything. And because of all of that, I pretty much had lost everything. I mean, I`m literally starting over.
So, yeah, it`s a dead-end road. There`s no really way to go up. I mean, even if Charlie just made $7 million, you can`t light the candle at both ends and expect it not to cause a bad tragedy. It`s just hard to watch.
DHUE: Yeah. That`s what Jane and I were talking about, burning the candle at both ends. Let`s talk about rehab and the rehab process for a minute. Charlie Sheen was saying that he did rehab at home, which I think we in this community all know that that doesn`t work. Jane, let me ask you about this, the whole notion of rehab at home. I`m sure you touched on this when you were talking about Charlie Sheen.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: We talked about it, but, remember, this is the same person who later said he went like this and blinked and miraculously created sobriety for himself. So obviously he doesn`t have a lot of credibility in this department.
I`m not saying that somebody could never get sober at home. It could happen. But I don`t think it`s the optimal way, especially when home is an area filled with enablers and co-signers of bad behavior and miscellaneous goddesses and who knows what. No, that is not the place to get sober, for sure.
DHUE: Right. Dr. Drew, have you ever talked to Charlie Sheen about him coming on your show or him working with you?
PINSKY: No, I have not spoken to him but I would be delighted to talk to him and sit down anytime and give him my thoughts. And I only wish him the best. I mean, that`s the reality. You see what is going on here. When you work with people like this for a long time, it`s so obvious. This is like many, many other cases I`ve treated.
And you guys are absolutely right. The treatment of addiction is a group process. It`s a socially ingrained treatment process, where people hear about their decease from their peers and all the different faces of the diseases must face them.
The only thing you can do at home maybe is detox. That is not treatment. Detoxing is the easiest part of the addiction treatment. Just getting people off the drugs. Keeping them off and getting them to build a flourishing sober life is what is cumbersome and difficult, and it takes a group of people to do that.
DHUE: It takes a village. You know, there`s the getting sober and then there`s the staying sober and then the living sober, all very different things.
All right, stand by, everybody. We`re going to continue this right after a short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DHUE: I`m back with my panel. We`re continuing our conversation, our candid conversation about addiction in America.
So Jeremy, let me just follow up with you. It is estimated that about 20 million Americans meet the criteria for some range of chemical use disorder. That`s not counting the people who are hiding it. You know, I think the number is probably more realistically like 30 or 40 million people.
Let me ask you, Jeremy, you went through your own private hell. You mentioned just a minute ago being kidnapped at gunpoint, and at first people did not believe you because -- your own family didn`t believe you because of your drug use.
LONDON: Well, I should -- let me correct you. My dad`s side of the family absolutely believed me all along and supported me. It`s my mom and my brother that were really the ones that did that. And it was more traumatizing to me than the actual event of having a gun put to my head. And now that the case has been resolved, he pled guilty, and all of the facts that came out that support everything that I said and claimed, the detective on the case even called my mother and my brother to explain to them that I was indeed a victim and everything that I said happened, happened, because they had confessions from the criminal. They still didn`t care. They don`t want to know because that means they have to face what they did and admit to being really, really bad family. It`s continually difficult. It`s continually difficult.
DHUE: Well, throughout all that, you managed to stay sober. And congratulations on that. That`s the most important thing.
LONDON: I did. I have to say probably -- can I just add?
DHUE: Sure.
LONDON: Probably maybe in some weird way because of what they did, it probably did keep me sober through all of that craziness, because it was like, I`m not going to let them get that on me. I`m not going to let this --
DHUE: Good point.
LONDON: I`m not going to let this take me back to where I was before.
DHUE: Good point.
LONDON: That`s the reason they didn`t believe me -- that is the reason they didn`t believe me in the first place.
DHUE: So I mentioned these tens of millions of people, Dr. Drew, who are suffering from some form of addiction in this country. Do you think that we get the fact that this is a major health care crisis in this country that costs us billions of dollars a year?
PINSKY: Absolutely not. People don`t get the magnitude of this problem. Throughout my career I`ve always been sort of interested in what is the problem of our time. I was very interested in HIV back in the day, and I`ve been squarely in the field of addiction for over two decades, and it`s not getting better, it is getting worse. Somewhere around 60 to 80 percent of every outpatient mental health visit has a concomitant substance diagnosis. It is exceedingly common. It`s a massive problem. And even within my profession, we are not dealing with this quite the way we should.
DHUE: Jane, what about other addictions? It is not just alcohol and drugs. It`s food, it`s sex, it`s shopping, it`s gambling.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, that`s the subject of my book, "Addict Nation." We live in an addicto-genic society where everything is structured to get us more, more, more, more. And that is the nature of addiction. It` never enough. It`s all to fill a void.
So yes, we are suffering massive cultural addictions to food -- two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese; prescription drug abuse is epidemic. You`ve got an epidemic of gambling, you`ve got an epidemic of addiction to pornography. I mean, it`s bad.
DHUE: Thanks, everybody, for a terrific panel discussion. One final thought-- while addiction is not curable, it is treatable.
Be sure to watch the premiere of Dr. Drew`s HLN show, which starts Monday at 9 p.m. Thank you so much for watching, everybody. I`m Laurie Dhue. Good night.
END
