Six Degrees of Dr. Drew's Sober House

Recently my friends and I have developed a dirty little secret. We watch Dr. Drew's Sober House.

This is a very difficult for my friends and I because in many ways we find the whole concept of Sober House completely offensive. I mean, the idea of showing people on TV in the early days of recovery and making money from that is just plain wrong. In oh, so many ways.

Then there's the whole idea of Dr, Drew himself. He runs one of the better recovery hospitals in the country and he had a ton of respect. But now he seems like a media whore willing to degrade himself and others for a little fame and fortune.

Then there's the rest of the cast.

Let me start my letting you know I am friends with the main drug counselor, Bob Forrest. I've known him for years and I love the guy. I find it amazing that he walks through each episode and manages to always keep his dignity. But he manages to do it.

That's probably because he gets to come and go as he pleases.

He's not one of the poor saps staying at the Sober House. They're all messed up as the old man said in Night of the Living Dead. They're bat shit crazy. (Technically it should be bat guano crazy. Bats and seabirds have guano, mammals and regular birds have shit. )

Like Mike Starr. Mike's another guy I've known for years. A friend of mine used to go out with Mike's sister and he's from my hometown Seattle. I've seen Mike sober for little bits of time and I've seen the dude loaded to the gills. But he's a piece of work no matter what the condition.

The rest of the house is filled the detritus of pop culture. Former roundballer Dennis Rodman who gets farther out the older he gets. Actor Tom Sizemore who's been arrested countless times. Seth Binzer, the lead singer from Crazytown, the worst band ever to sell over a million records. And two porn actresses I'd never heard of before watching the show.

Finally, there's former Hollywood madam, Heidi Fleiss. I've never met Heidi but she her family used to spend their holidays with one of my exes family when she was growing up. I've heard a lot of stories.

Heidi and Tom were once involved with each other and the relationship ended so badly that Sizemore ended up in jail on domestic violence charges after Fleiss got a restraining order against him. So of course it makes sense to have them live in a house together as they are detoxing from alcohol and drugs.

I'm surprised they didn't try and get Bebe Netanyahu and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the show. Maybe they did and their asking price was too rich for the budget. Charlie Rose gets them so their fees can't be that high.

The oddest thing about the show is that the porn actresses seem like the sanest folks in the bunch. Which might be why one of them, Jennifer Ketcham AKA Penny Flame was just invited to speak at Harvard. As in Harvard University, the Washington University of the East.

That was after she appeared on Oprah and the View. She also writes a column for the crown jewel of progressive blogoshere, the Huffington Post. I'm not sure, but after the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts Jennifer might have a congressional run in her down the road. Taking your clothes off in public and starring on reality television might be the best way to move up in the political world these days.

In a weird way I should be rooting for the people on Sober House. These are my people. The drug addicts and the alcoholics. The people who are just trying to get their shit together.

I do root for them. I just don't think they should be on television. And I wish I didn't watch it every week. But I do.

And I don't feel that good about it.