Alex Sanders
There are songs, movies and buzzing news all about it. Rehab is the new hot spot. You can forget the Hard Rock Café or any glossy, chic lounges that celebrities used to frequent. Now, everyone seems to be in rehab. First it was Tara Connor, former Miss USA, who spent her time rehabilitating at the Caron Center which was previously a 110-acre resort. She reportedly emerged from the treatment center weeks later glowing as if she went on a tropical getaway. Later on there was Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. Both celebrities went into rehab a mess and resurfaced looking better than ever. Although entertainment magazines consistently report on rehab rendezvous as a beneficial thing, in reality, they may not be.Before celebrity retreats, rehab was a place that was heart wrenching, painful and intolerable. It was also something to be ashamed of. Now people not only discuss it, but many boast about it. This seems to be a spiraling into a very hazardous trend. Primarily, people seem to have forgotten what rehab is. It is not a vacation. Rehab, an abbreviation for rehabilitation, is a place where one goes to recover from severe drug or alcohol abuse. We are all taught that drugs are bad and that they can and will take over our lives if abused, but these days people are doing cocaine like it is going out of style. The previous warnings about drugs have not been heeded. Doing drugs or drinking alcohol is no longer something that someone does - it has turned into a fashion.
This is degrading particularly to people who struggle through rehab. Celebrities glorify and romanticize going to rehab. The majority of people who go to rehab shell out thousands of dollars to recover. In general, people don't have that much money lying around. Hence, rehab is a big deal. It is not something that people choose to do to simply escape from the perils of partying too hard. It is shameful that celebrities spend copious amounts of money to get away when people who really need rehab can't scrape together $3.